Kansas City does Memorial Day Weekend the right way. This year, we celebrated in style. (And with Tammy in hand.) On Sunday night, we kicked off the holiday with…
Celebration at the Station
Fifty thousand Kansas-Citians came out for this patriotic concert put on by the Kansas City Symphony. The audience sits on the hill between Liberty Memorial and Union Station, and enjoys two hours of music (including a sing-along portion!), ending with a beautiful fireworks show behind the Memorial.
We went with my BFF Mollie and her bf Jeff… (BFF is capitalized because it’s an acronym, and bf is lower-case because it’s just one word, in case you were wondering.)
The audience sits between Union Station…
… and the Liberty Memorial.
We had a delicious spread of picnic-type foods.
And had a blast hanging out.
As it starts to get dark, the view of Kansas City is just breath-taking.
Staple of the Kansas City skyline
The Symphony puts on a meaningful, patriotic concert, which is a wonderful tribute to all those who serve our country, and a great reminder of what Memorial Day weekend is really about–besides just the barbecues and beer.
A light show on the front of Union Station accompanies the music.
Cannon shots accompany the 1812 Overture.
The night ends with a fireworks show.
BOOM!
BANG!
That wasn’t all, though… The next morning, we woke up early and headed down to the
Amy Thompson Run for Brain Injury
I signed up for this race because I’d never heard of an 8K before, and at 4.97 miles, it was the perfect length for a Monday morning run, which are usually 5 miles… But DON’T WORRY! I will make up that extra .03 mile. 😉
The run started and ended in beautiful Loose Park, weaving through the surrounding neighborhoods. The houses in this area are so beautiful. Tammy and I got a little stalker-ish…
The first house in our house search… Just kidding. Maybe we could rent one room instead.
I was obsessed with the bottle decorations at this house.
Here’s a close-up of their bottle tree.
Love the style of this house, and the two porches would be amazing afternoon reading spots, or evening wine-drinking lounges…
We got to Loose Park a little early. There were runners EVERYWHERE.
Runners everywhere!
This guy found a secret stretching spot in the rose garden.
This runner even crashed my pretty-yellow-flower shot.
Since we had a little extra time, I couldn’t help but play with Tammy a little bit, and take some overdone flower close-ups.
Then, we played with the timer function. It took a couple tries to get a shot that was in focus.
Tammy was sitting below eye-level on a low wall, hence the awkward angle.
The nice thing about Tammy is that she doesn’t mind taking cutesy-couple photos for us.
Finally, it was race time. I turned Tammy over to B. He’s a little shutter-shy, but I think he got some really good shots.
The starting corral. I’m not sure if B meant to get the balloon in the foreground, but I really like it.
Ready to race!
Rounding the final corner.
Final push for the finish line!
The “after” shot
All in all, we had a great Memorial Day weekend. My love for Kansas City has grown so much over the past few years, as we’ve explored more community events and parts of the city. Oh, and since KC is known for its barbecue, we had to grill out over the weekend, too.
My dad is the grill-master in our family.
Grilled pineapple–one of my favorites! It’s just pineapple loosened up off its skin, drizzled with honey, and lightly grilled. Yum!
Chicken, potatoes “en papillote”, and grilled pineapple
This is a really great post. Thank you for sharing!
Man, Tammy takes some AMAZING pictures! Love them! Sure seems like you had a great weekend!