Happy Birthday Finley!!!
We try to make it a point to travel to Missouri and Montana as often as we can to see family. Our recent Midwest trip was perfect timing for us to celebrate our niece, Finley’s, 13th birthday in Kansas City. The temperatures had been so cool on the coast, that the idea of midwestern summer heat sounded great. We packed up our bags and headed to the Rogue Valley to begin journey to the Midwest.
Mile: 96,077
Quote of the Blog: “Adolescence is the conjugator between childhood and adulthood.” - Louise J. Kaplan
Song of the Blog: “Cook” - Sofi Tukker ft, J Balvin
Our flight out of Medford, OR was scheduled to leave at 5:00am, so we stayed in Medford for the night to utilize their shuttle system. Everything ran smoothly until at about 5:05am. We were boarded and ready to take off, when they came across the intercom and informed us that the flight was delayed for a quick maintenance fix. After another 20 minutes of waiting, they unfortunately canceled the flight secondary to a mechanical issue. We were at a small airport, so they didn’t have a quick replacement plane close by. Unfortunately we were not able to get a flight booked on United for the same day, which resulted in booking a new flight on Delta. This turned into a bigger fiasco than it should have been. We eventually made it to Kansas City and got into bed around 1am to round out a 21hr day! This did not detour Amity from getting some last minute decorations up for Finley to wake up to.
Amity was up early the next morning to get some of Finley’s favorite pastries from Paris Baguette. Amity’s Mom, Dad, Brother and his family were also in town and everybody was up and running pretty early. We had originally planned to go to Kirksville and Hallsville to see them, but with Finley’s birthday, it was so much easier for us to all meet at the Early house. This was my first time meeting Asa and Kelsey’s baby daughter, Maya. She is a cutie and keeps their hands full! Finley, Baylor and Atticus were able to talk their dad into letting them have a half-day of school to hang out with us on our first day in town. Finley picked Chicken and Pickle for her birthday lunch before heading to an evening of dance practice. Since Finley is a new teenager, we wanted to see how far we could take celebrating her birthday, before she got embarrassed. When we picked her up, we had decorated the car with streamers, LED glasses and we were blasting dance music when we picked her up in the car. She was more excited than embarrassed. We made sure to make the drive home a mini dance party! We continued the birthday celebration throughout the evening with dinner, cake and some gifts. Finley is so sweet that even if she was tired, or even a little annoyed, she was the best to celebrate her birthday with.
The next day, Amity and her mom scheduled a facial for Finley in between her very busy dance schedule. While she was at dance, Amity, Baylor, Atticus and I went golfing. Baylor made the tee-time at a course he likes to play called St. Andrews Golf Course. It was a nice public course. This was Atticus’s first time golfing, and the little dude killed it! He has a natural swing, that may not look clean, but he hits the ball straight and far! From the junior tees he got a legit par on a par 4. Had both Amity and I wowed! Baylor has been playing with his friends a lot this summer. It’s great to see him getting into lifetime sport like golf. He walks when he typically plays, but we decided to get some golf carts to speed up the game. The course didn’t have lefty clubs for rent, so Baylor and I decided to share his. This made for some comical and challenging moments. Because he was so used to hitting his ball and immediately walking to it, he would do that with the golf cart and sometimes leave me behind without the clubs. We decided that Baylor would be really good at the sport “speedgolf”. Another funny moment was when Amity let Atticus drive their cart. He was doing a great job, but then they met the course marshal on the path and they had to quickly switch. He loved the opportunity to drive the cart! Glad we all went out and played. That night we sat in the backyard to have dinner. They have moved to a new house and the backyard was a very peaceful spot on a warm summer night.
We didn’t have much planned for Sunday. We were tossing out ideas, when I pitched going to a Kansas City Royals game. Finley was at dance practice, so it was just Amity, Julie, Baylor, Atticus and I. We scored some seats for $35/seat that ended up being 3 rows off the grass on the first baseline. Atticus was a little resistant because he said the Royals do not hit enough home runs. That was not the case on that day! They hit multiple home runs and crushed the Detroit Tigers. Atticus really wanted to go do some of the fan activities in a zone in center field. He and Baylor raced down the 1st base line and did some of the other activities as Julie and I watched the game from a standing room area nearby. It was nice to take it all in for a moment! Brookings, Oregon is beautiful with tons of natural beauty, but we often miss city activities and sports.
Once we were back in Leawood, and Finley was done with dance, we capped the night off with the only way one can in the Midwest… ANDY’S FROZEN CUSTARD!!! This is by far one of the best frozen treats we have found in the country, and it’s a must-do any time we are there! It always delivers on delicious frozen custard!
With any trip to the Midwest, it is hard to say goodbye to the family! Lucky for us, we will be back for Thanksgiving in Kirksville, so it won’t be too long before we see them all again. Our flights were overall smooth going back. We landed with enough time to make a run to our favorite grocery store, Trader Joes, before we made the journey back to the coast. It will always blow us away when we drive back into Brookings and see the view of the harbor and the sun setting on the horizon. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would be calling the Oregon Coast home, but here we are! All in all, it was fantastic to have a long weekend with the Midwest fam and we had so much fun celebrating Finley!