The Good Witch: Polish, Pictures and Pixie Dust: A Saturday in "Witch"-ita

I was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas. My grandparents lived there all their lives until I was 16 and I spent pretty much every summer and every holiday in the place I still consider "one" of my hometowns. I still love Wichita. It's where my sister lives, where most of my family still lives, where Nuway and Dog and Shakes abound, so we still go there often. For the family, and the food.

This last weekend we ventured west over the Flint Hills to spend a day with my sister, her family and my sister/cousin and her family for a belated Christmas celebration. And to meet my newest niece Madeline.

Born December 12- the same day as her great grandma- Madeline is the last of the babies in our family for awhile. And I fell in love.

I mean, really. How can you not fall in love with that? I mean. It's perfection. Granted, each and every one of my nieces and nephews are perfection- even when they're less than angelic.....

As my gorgeous niece Miss Lauren shows here. To her defense I think she was told that she needed to eat her pupcake before she got in the chair.

Anyways. I digress. Our journey to Wichita began about 8:30... Oh... Ok... 9:00. I had all the best intentions of waking up at 6:30 and being on the road by no later than 8am. That didn't turn out. Oh well.

On our way there, we decided to take a detour and check out Elk Falls, Kansas' famous... Er... Elk Falls... Oh and they have an iron bridge. It's actually kinda boring, but it makes for awesome pictures. Plus it was colder than a well diggers ass in that holler.

But yeah, it's freaking gorgeous. No matter if it was cold or not.

A wicked cool picture I got of the girder of the bridge. Or at least I figure that's what it's called.

So we got back on our way and finally made it to Wichita about 11am. Not bad. Not bad at all. We decided to take a small detour and go see the Keeper of the Plains-

Freaking gorgeous huh?

Ever since I was a child and was actually aware of my surroundings, I was always in awe over the giant statue standing at the confluence of the Big and Little Arkansas river. It always stood higher up on the river, gorgeous and magestic.

Photo courtesy of www.theindiancenter.org

I was kinda upset when they moved it and created a big ole fancy pedestal for it with a big ole fancy bridge leading out to it with big ole fancy fire pits that light up every hour on the hour at night. Then I got to see it light up. Then I got to see my children's faces light up as they walked up to the giant monolith... Closer than I had ever been to it in my life. Then I was ok with it. It's still gorgeous and it's even more accessible than it has ever been.

And it's still so darned beautiful.

Another random piece of bridge structure.

Anyways. We finally got to my sister's house after a quick trip to Towne West Mall and Joann's Fabrics. Can't go to Wichita without a trip there, eh?

I walk into my sisters house and there she was, just as perfect as could be...