Husker women playing in KC

Laurie and Courtney stayed with us for several days recently when they came to Kansas City to watch the Nebraska women's basketball team play in the Big 12 conference tournament last weekend. Unfortunately, the Nebraska women's basketball team lost their first game of the season(!) ... but we still had fun with Laurie and Courtney here.

Aunt Laurie.

Jackson always loves having new people to play games with. After a rousing game of Mousetrap (his favorite), next was Cranium Cadoo.

After trying out the Secret Decoder Mask, Laurie took him to the women's Big 12 championship basketball game. And to explore the universe (by hiking the mile-long, 1:10 billion scale-model of the solar system displayed throughout downtown KC).

Monday afternoon, we saw the Grand Canyon movie — in 3-D! — at the Extreme Screen theater inside Union Station.

Then went just up the hill to the free Money Museum at the new Federal Reserve Bank building.

Landon with his visitor badge. (Whew, he made it through security.)

Inspecting counterfeit bills and comparing them to the real thing.

Pulling the lever to lift a 27 pound bar of gold ... worth nearly $500,000!

Million dollar baby.

After inserting a dollar bill, Jackson waits to receive a brand new 2010 Millard Fillmore dollar coin.

Watching the three robotic carts (named Huey, Dewey and Louie) transport pallets of money into the vault. It's "one of the region's largest, which boasts 540,000 cubic feet of storage capacity and is four stories high."

When designing your own currency, money can grow on trees!

Priceless.

Notice part of the "Restrooms" sign to the right of Courtney's head. After using them, she was able to say she had made a deposit at the Federal Reserve.

The 463-piece coin collection on loan from the Truman Library, consists of coins from every presidential administration, dating back to 1776.

The Liberty Memorial, home of America's National World War I Museum, in the background.

Then we met Leslie for dinner at Crown Center when she got off work.

Fritz's Railroad Restaurant is a diner-style burger place where the food is ordered by telephone and delivered by train!



Our last stop for the evening was upstairs at the candy store for a treat. Here, the man mixing the fudge vertically had everyone's attention.

Jack feigning disgust at his pure chocolate "Pasture Patty" cow pie.

Before heading home late Tuesday afternoon, Laurie and Courtney requested Kansas City barbecue for dinner — so we went to Smokehouse Bar-B-Que (our favorite) at Zona Rosa. All Jackson requested was to sit on the pig.