Kansas City

To any teenagers I know, this is proof that you don't stay young forever. Don't deny it. I used to think that, too.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a crew of middle-aged (already?) parents of, all together, 12. But really, that's not what this is a picture of. This is a picture of 5 band geeks (hey, this is a family blog!) from high school (there really were 5 of us, but that picture didn't turn out so well) who used to run around together and get into trouble and think they would never grow old. Okay, I still think I won't ever get old, but pictures like this make that really hard to maintain. But hey, at least we don't have zits anymore (most of the time), right? And still no wrinkles yet.

Before we trekked out to the middle of nowhere ... er, I mean, my parents' house in Kansas, we stopped in Kansas City, and met with my BFF from high school, Krista, and another set of friends, Colby and his wife Jennifer, who went to h.s. with us. And our friend, Jon, and his family were coming up through KC on their way back home. So we all got together for dinner (thanks Colby and Jenn!!) and good times. Had a lot of fun.

All of us had 10 year old children. It was amazing to see those 4 kids together. I so wish we'd gotten a picture. They were so different! One super tiny, one super tall, all in various stages of development and maturity. What an eye-opener.

On another note, did you know that in KC in the days before Independence Day, you're allowed to blow off all sorts of firecrackers? It was nuts, but somehow it was fitting. It felt like the Independence area was keeping up its rough, wild, frontier-city image (or the one I've always had in my head, anyway). Krista says it can be like living in a war zone. I could tell Bob and the kids thought this was totally awesome. I'm pretty sure they want to go back there next year, too. When we drove into town, we kept seeing all these tent sales at the churches. Here in Oklahoma, a tent sale typically means someone is selling books or shoes. I kept wondering how the churches could sell that much religious material right out of their own parking lots. Nah. It was fireworks, amazing, incredible amounts of fireworks.

I never play with fire, honest.