EVERYTHING'S UP TO DATE IN KANSAS CITY!

Our room was for three adults and two children, and was classified as a family suite. The cost was slightly more than $250 per night. The room had two queen beds and a sofabed. It was tastefully decorated and the beds, including the sofabed, were very comfortable.

Guests may arrive by noon on the day they will check into the hotel, and have early entry into the water park. A plastic wristband is worn by all water park guests. Check-in for the hotel is officially at 4pm, but our room was ready, and we were able to check in at 1:30pm.

We found all of the employees of the Great Wolf Lodge to be very friendly and courteous. During our stay, we were asked several times if we were having a good vacation.

Our grandchildren were truly sad when checkout time arrived. They had a wonderful time at the water park, during "story time," at the arcade, and in our room. We all felt that our money was well spent at the Great Wolf Lodge. (Money-saving tip: Check the Great Wolf Lodge's website at www.greatwolflodge.com for specials. We weren't able to find any because of the high rate of occupancy during the Christmas holidays, but there are plenty of specials at other times of the year. Also, unless your children are "good eaters," it is best to take along a few of their favorite snacks.)

Sweet Tomatoes is a salad buffet restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas. As you enter the restaurant, you pick up a tray and go through the salad buffet. There are several prepared salads, or you can prepare your salad just the way you want it. The next step is to order the drink you want and pay for your food. You are free to select your table. After you finish your salad, you are ready to experience the delicious, freshly prepared soups. There are always five different soups to choose from. There are also baked potatoes available with a nice selection of toppings for them. Three different pastas are always waiting there for you, too, along with about five different hot breads. At the end, you may select fruits, melon, or jello or you may opt for the frozen yogurt machine, where vanilla, chocolate, or a mixture of the two are waiting for you. There are several types of toppings for the frozen yogurt, too.

Sweet Tomatoes is one of our favorite restaurants in Overland Park. The soups and salad are especially good in winter, but we think they are wonderful all year long.

In honor of my grandson's ninth birthday, on January 2, 2004, we stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, Kansas. The Lodge is located near the NASCAR Race Track and Cabela's Sporting Goods Store and is currently enjoying a high rate of occupancy. The main attraction, of course, is the Great Wolf Lodge water park. Where else in the Kansas City area would you be able to swim, ride a tube on a "lazy river," and slide down eight big, wonderful water slides in the month of January? Oh, the water park has a lot more water-related fun and excitement than I have mentioned, but I recommend that you make a visit there and explore all of it, so that you can experience how truly wonderful and exciting it really is.

We have promised our grandson that we will bring his family back to the Great Wolf Lodge and waterpark in late May of 2004 to celebrate his graduation from the third grade.

He can hardly wait.

The Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead, 13800 Switzer, Overland Park, Kansas, is one of our grandkids' favorite places. There are so many fun things for kids to do there, and it takes more than one visit to do them all. There is a petting zoo, a silo with wonderful slides that they never get tired of, a farmhouse, beautiful flowers and gardens, wagon rides, a pond well-stocked with fish for kids to catch, playground equipment to play on, picnic areas, and a wonderful and reasonably priced snack bar.

Admission to the Farmstead is free, and it is open from April l until October 31 each year. The Farmstead is named in memory of Deanna Rose, an Overland Park police officer killed in the line of duty in 1985.

Every year, the Golden Security Society members of our bank take a bus tour to see the Christmas lights in several parts of the metropolitan Kansas City area. The highlight of that tour is always the viewing of the Christmas lights at the Kansas City Country Club Plaza. This year, we were finally able to take the tour. It was raining hard during the entire evening of the tour, and my photographs were not very good, but the lights were beautiful and filled us with the Christmas spirit. By the time the tour had ended and we got back to the bank, the rain had changed to sleet and walking was very slow and scary. We plan to take the Kansas City Christmas lights tour again next December and hope that we pick a night that has much better weather.