But enough about my boring everyday life. The McHusband and I headed to Kansas City (the one in Missouri) on Saturday the 24th. My dad lives there and while Bri and I had visited once a couple years ago, the McHusband hadn't been yet.
My dad bought a big ole house as an investment. It was a little dated, but it was otherwise in pretty good shape and, best of all, it was in a great neighborhood. And you know what those Realtors say - LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. Well, when Bri and I visited, the bedrooms had air mattresses in them. When the McHusband and I visited, a couple bedrooms still had the air mattresses, but my dad had outfitted one bedroom with ACTUAL FURNITURE. My dad doesn't buy furniture (or anything really, except maybe food because he's a total impulse shopper in a grocery store) without a ton of research, but put a little pressure on the guy, and he can finally make a decision. And it was a great one - the furniture was gorgeous.
One of our projects while we were visiting was putting up a ceiling fan in this room. Actually, we were supposed to install two others and switch out the one in my dad's bedroom, but this fan took all the fight right out of us.
The McHusband and I have installed several fans in our day so we were feeling confident about this one. Then my dad explained that this wasn't going to be your average run-of-the-mill install. See, the crazy builder had put can lights in each of the bedrooms so those fixtures had to come out, a special brace had to be installed above the ceiling, and oh yeah, the hole left behind wouldn't be totally covered by the fan.
Fun stuff.
Here's my dad up in the attic working on the hole.
And here's the McHusband on the temperature-controlled side of the ceiling. Good thing we visited in the fall and not the summer
I was mostly relegated to gopher status (still an important job, at least that's what they told me), but I organized some tools in my downtime.
The fan came down more times than I can count, but we finally got it up and got the right hole cover. Tada!
We didn't spend the whole trip in the bedroom (uh, you know what I mean). We went to a local BBQ restaurant, Smokin' Guns BBQ, for dinner on Sunday.
That's Jane, my dad's girlfriend. Her birthday was the next day so this was in honor of her birthday. (Psst, Jane, my dad owes you some Morton's next year.)
This place has won a lot of trophies and awards for its food. And they were very proud of that fact.
I'm actually not a big fan of barbecue in general. The sides - potato salad, hushpuppies, baked beans - are what I like. I got the brisket and sweet potato fries and as a meal, it was okay. Not worth writing home about, but not worth criticizing either. The restaurant redeemed itself with the McHusband's potato casserole, a hot dish that WAS worth writing home about.
After dinner, we went downtown and wandered through the Power & Light District and the surrounding streets. We saw a clogger in Raglan Road and sat at a table outside while the McHusband had a Guinness. From there, we could watch everyone who was watching the football game on the big screen. Wouldn't it be awesome to have a place like this in Raleigh?
That night, we also visited an old theater that had been restored. This was the lounge area connected to the bar.
Don't you wish our theaters had this setup?
On Sunday, went went to Cabela's to pick up my dad's huntin' gear for when he's in Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving. The McHusband was kind enough to model it. What do you think, will the deer hunters notice my dad in the woods?
After Cabela's, we went to the Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM for those in the know) to visit with the furniture my dad has his eye on but can't quite bring himself to buy.
On Monday, we went to the Harley-Davidson plant and took a free tour. No cameras allowed inside.
Later, we went downtown and walked through the train station that had been restored.
This is the ceiling with the original light fixtures.
That pretty much sums up our trip to Kansas City. We saw a lot of the city, ate way too much, exercised a little, and had a wonderful visit with my dad and Jane.
Next up - Texas!
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