One of the Christmas traditions my family has is that we visit the Hotel Del Coronado and buy an ornament from their tree, which changes themes each year. Now that John and I are in a new area and are starting our own family traditions, we decided to head south to check out Kansas City, since we had heard that they go all out for the holiday season. It also just so happened to be the anniversary of our engagement, so we thought we'd celebrate that too while we were down there. It turned out to be a quite the tropical getaway, since KC had temperatures in the high 40's... we even enjoyed a coffee outside on the patio together!

Our first stop was Crown Center, home of the mayor's 100 foot Christmas tree. It was a pretty cool tree, but we didn't admire it long since it was windy as all get out. And it wasn't dark out, which was a bummer since Christmas trees don't have the same sort of magic without their lights a'twinkling. There was also a pretty fun play area surrounding the tree area. I think it might have been intended for children, but John and I had a good time nonetheless. I did a little nutcracker investigating and John found himself a sweet new ride.

Once we had seen all there was to see at the Crown Center we headed over to the Country Club Plaza, which was sort of the Rodeo Drive of Kansas City. Alright, it wasn't quite that fancy, but it had all the stores I miss from San Diego that are nowhere to be found in Iowa. We had heard that the Plaza had a pretty light display at nighttime, so we lallygagged a bit until the sun went down, and then walked around for a while and enjoyed the festive lighting decor.

Since we were in Kansas City, John wanted to make sure we hit up a barbecue joint, because apparently they are sort of known for their BBQ skills. His friend James had recommended a place called Gates, which turned out to be the most delicious cafeteria-style establishment I have ever encountered. As it turns out, the San Diego Chargers are a big fan of Gates BBQ as well, seeing that they had eaten there the night before and earlier that day! John and I did our best stalker impressions we could and hung out for about an hour after we demolished some tasty food, but then decided to leave - Charger sighting-less. We never did get in a fancy romantic dinner for our anniversary while we were in KC, but neither of us were too sad about it after engorging ourselves with the scrumptiousness that is Gates BBQ.

After dinner we took our full bellies back to the hotel, spent some time with a group of toilets, and then attempted to relax on the Sleep Number bed (seriously, has anyone tried one of those beds... they are terrible!). The next day we had a not-so-successful trip to Nordstrom, which nearly broke my heart, and headed back home to get back to the daily grind. All in all, we had a great time in Kansas City and are looking forward to visiting again soon.