Sunny Sunday in Kansas City

At City Market, with Nick and Marlena

Planter's Seed Feed and Spice

Relaxing in Sun at City Market

Son and Father B Ball

Tom, Mary and Kelly and Mike Burlingame

Turkish Spiced Ground Lamb

Grandma Gigi's Rice Cakes by Nick

Another clear sky, sun rising off to the east of Tom's backyard, as four of us sit in the living room, sipping coffee, playing or reading on our IPADS or computers and watching CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.  It is warming up here, which is nice, forty degrees right now, a high of fifty five later today.

Yesterday, we met Tom and Mary at the Kansas City Market, in downtown KC, much like the West Side Market in Cleveland.  We parked in front of our favorite hardware store, The Planters Seed Feed and Spices,  three large old fashioned spaces, with lots of bulbs, spices, shovels, bird houses, pots and even bags of seed or fertilizer.  They even sell jams and crackers, the whole ball park.  We ended up buying the Cadillac of bird feeders (a lifetime guarantee!) and some gloves for Evie.  They also had a a brand of tools from Germany, called Wolf Something, which were neat.  You could buy a handle and every kind of device would fit on it, whether a rake, shovel,  hoe, broom, whatever.  Tempting.  We then walked around the market stands, filled with veggies, spices, and ethnic foods, either Asian, Arabic, or Italian.  No Slovenians or Poles or Hungarians here, like the West Side Market.  We ended up buying various spices like sumac, for our Turkish kofte dinner, some lamb, a couple of packages of fresh, soft pita bread and baba ganoush.  We got home around 1:00, watched Ohio State defeat Michigan and then went off with Tom's neighbors to bowl for couple of hours.

About 7:00, the Burlingame's came over, neighbors and good friends of Tom's, whom we have met many times before.  They have a son, Peyton, Nick's good friend, and Kelly was Marlena's kindergarten teacher.  We had, as mentioned, a Turkish dinner, kofte's (spiced ground lamb), over toasted pita, with a tomato sauce over both, and then a dollop of yogurt, a family favorite.  For dessert, we bought baklava and revani at the market, neither as good as the kind Evie makes.  The Burlingames's stayed till about 10:30 and then we all debated watching a movie but went to bed, putting it off till tomorrow.

Today, we may give in to the temptation of the nearby shopping center, with many stores, perhaps go for another hike, of just watch the Chiefs lose on TV.  Evie is making her famous sticky buns, so she's up at it already, putting together the dough so it can rise.  We have decided to make this left overs day, with turkey and sides, turkey soup,  as well as kofte's from last night.  This will be our last day with the family for a week because we fly to Scottsdale tomorrow.