girls weekend (1 of 2)

The spirit of this weekend started out as a girls weekend - my mom, sister & I - spending a weekend away, exploring a new city. But the truth is, it was really all about boys.  Specifically, 53 hunky guys wearing purple & gold and three amazing singers from Tulsa, Oklahoma named Isaac, Taylor and Zac.

I've started a new tradition, traveling to one away game each year to spend the weekend with family, see a new city, and experience what it's like to be on the road - which Mike does every other weekend for away games.  After an awesome weekend to Lambeau last year with my dad, my mom and sister wanted in on the fun.  We chose Kansas City, the old sacking grounds of our one and only Jared Allen.  It was the easiest travel experience I've ever had. It was a 55 minute flight for $99 roundtrip. It doesn't get much better than that.

We arrived in Kansas City late Friday afternoon and found our hotel without any issues. If you've ever traveled (or gone anywhere) with my mom, you know that she likes to make friends wherever we go. And it didn't take long for her to meet our next door neighbors at the hotel.  Maddox (a Great Dane) and her mom were outside playing right outside our door (we were on the ground level) so we chatted and played with them for awhile.  Maddox saw my mom and just knew she could make a friend in her. And that she did.

After getting settled at our hotel, we went out to explore downtown a bit and to find a bite to eat.  We ended up going to this great open-air restaurant called The Cashew, with a great view of the area.  I will always remember that place because it had the best nachos I've ever had in my life. We went back to the hotel a bit early that night to get settled and ready for the two days we had ahead of us.

We couldn't have had a better day to kick off October.  The weather was gorgeous all weekend and we had a jam packed day of exploring to do.  We toured a mini outdoor art festival that was going on right outside our hotel and then wandered through the Hallmark museum.  Random but great to see how Hallmark does its thing and how it all began. We even got to see a machine make a bow. Awesome, I know. :)

We decided to drive into town until we saw an area to eat and explore. We made our way to the Plaza, which is an adorable little shopping area with a bunch of great restaurants. When we were finding a place to park, we passed this big fountain in this courtyard area that was dyed pink to represent the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month so we had to check it out.  We were very surprised to find some oddly dressed folks hanging around the courtyard as well. As we got closer, we saw that there was a whole crew of about 60 people dressed up as Zombies and Vampires. 30 days premature for a Halloween gathering, we inquired and found out it was a Zombie Walk, which is a walk to raise awareness about homelessness. I still have no idea where the Zombie theme comes into play. They were quite entertaining though.

We headed back to the hotel to greet our Vikings friends as they arrived.  We watched them all unload, talked to Mikey for a bit and then waited for them to get settled before going out to dinner. When Mike was chatting with Jared, he recommended we go to Jack Stack's BBQ for dinner because he loved going there when he used to play here. So we headed back to the Plaza and got some Kansas City BBQ.  It was delicious.  After dinner, it was time to part ways with Mike for a few hours while we headed to the Beaumont Club for the Hanson concert.

 

The concert was amazing. We've been following them since we were all in middle school and it never gets old seeing them live. For those of you wondering, yes - this is the MMMBOP group - they now play much more acoustic type music and continue to be amazing.  It was a VERY special night for Ty because she shook both Isaac and Taylor's hands after the concert, which she has been waiting nearly 15 years to do. Way to go, Ty. :) It was an incredible day/night and we hadn't even gotten to the reason we came in the first place.

After the concert, we met back up with Mike and his co-workers at the Power and Light District in downtown Kansas City where they were at an awesome country bar called PBR Big Sky. We laughed at all of the intoxicated people attempting to dominate the mechanical bull but every person ate the mat as the bull threw them off. It was an incredibly fun day. The perfect way to start October.

We had SO much fun at the Vikings game at Arrowhead Stadium that I am going to post our stories and pictures separately.