Old Buildings, New Attitudes

Archive for the ‘Just for Fun’ Category

Hop to Downtown Lee’s Summit for the annual Bunny Hop!

Line-up starts at 9:45 am at City Hall Plaza (22o SE Green Street).  Kids can bring decorated baskets that will be judged while they wait for an appearance by the Bunny!

At 10:00 am the Bunny will lead the kids and their families up Third Street to Howard Station Park.  Bring your cameras so you can take pics with the Bunny!  Afterwards HOP to participating stores for free candy!

The Emerald Isle Parade committee came up with a really fun way to get kids more involved in the parade this year.  They sent backpack flyers advertising the parade out to all of the elementary schools in Lee’s Summit – the kids then took the flyers home with them.   The flyers included a drawing of a leprechaun and kids were asked to enter a coloring contest.  All they had to do was color in the leprechaun and submit the flyer to the DLSMS office.  Well for the first ever St. Pat’s coloring contest, we had a HUGE response!  Well over 100 kids entered and they were all SO creative is was very difficult to pick the winners!  But here are our 3 big winners for this year’s coloring contest:

1st Prize: Hayden

The judges loved how Hayden used glitter to make hers extra sparkly!

Congratulations, Hayden!

 2nd Prize: Aaron

The judges loved the beautiful background Aaron created.

Congratulations, Aaron!

3rd Prize: Anamaria

The judges loved Anamaria’s striped leprechaun and happy ladybugs and butterflies.

Congratulations, Anamaria!

 

All three winners won gift certificates to Downtown Lee’s Summit shops.  Thank you to all of the kids that submitted entries for the coloring contest!  You’re all so talented!  Be looking for the St. Pat’s coloring contest again next year!

 

Happy New Year!  It’s 2009 and Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street has plenty of fun events scheduled this year. 

Chocolate Crawl: February 7th

Emerald Isle St. Patrick’s Day Parade: March 14th

Spring Open House: March 20th – 22nd

Bunny Hop: April 11th

Farmer’s Market: Begins April 25th

Downtown Days: June 5th – 7th

Check out our events page for more information – as events get closer we will update with details.  http://www.downtownls.org/events.php

We look forward to seeing you Downtown in 2009!

Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street has moved its office!  We’ve spent the past couple of weeks gradually packing, and now we are officially moved!  While we still have boxes to unpack and our old office to clean up a bit, for the most part we are up and running again in our new space.

Here are a few pictures of our old office as we started our move last Friday (July 25th).  The movers had to go all the way down that long staircase…not an easy task!

We are so happy for Alona & Ralph Johnson that they have sold their building and are starting their retirement, but we will definitely miss them.  The new owner is planning on renovating the upstairs into his office, and will most likely rent the first floor.

Although sad to leave our old office behind, we are excited about our new space.  We are now located above Bike America in the Douglas Street Business Center.  Our new landlords, the Alberts, have been great to us and painted all the walls for us before we moved in.  The movers finished yesterday (Sunday) so we’ve spent most of today trying to get settled.  I have a feeling it will take us awhile!  Here are some ‘work-in-progress’ shots of our new space – the first one is of our conference room and the second one is Jeanine’s office.

It’s really nice that we each have our own office space.  Plus we all have windows and beautiful brick walls!  We love that once again we can showcase how the second floor of an historic building can be used as a beautiful office space!  Once we have everything in place, I’ll post more pictures. 

Sarah

Well we’re back in the office and trying to catch up on e-mails and phone calls.  Gina and Jeanine got back around 4:00 pm yesterday – I got back about 7:00 pm.  We’re all a little tired but happy to be home!

In an attempt to pass on some of the information we learned while at the conference, I’ll be posting summaries daily of some of the sessions.  But this first post will just recap our “tour” day.  Sunday was the first day of the conference, and there were plenty of arranged tours we could have gone on.  In an attempt to save some money, we decided to tour Philly ourselves and had a great time.

We started the day at the Independence National Historical Park - first the Liberty Bell, and then a tour of Independence Hall.  History really did come alive as our tour guide recounted the events that lead to the creation of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and ultimately the Constitution.  You can’t help but feel patriotic and amazed at what our Founding Fathers did.  It also validated just how important historic preservation is! 

After seeing some of the other sites in the park (Quaker Meeting House, 1st and 2nd Banks of the US, etc.) we headed further into the Old City District for brunch.  Yum.  We then went down to Penn’s Landing along the Delaware River, then back into Old City to the Betsy Ross House.  Probably our favorite stop was Elfreth’s Alley, which is considered the oldest residential street in the US.  A plaque on one of the homes said “circa 1703.”  Built over 300 hundred years ago!  Amazing.

After a quick nap back at the hotel, we headed out to find cheesesteaks for dinner.  Now I’m a vegetarian, but I still wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. “Whiz Wit-Out” – what does that even mean?  So we hopped on a City bus and managed to find our way to 9th & Passyunk where probably the two most famous places are – Pat’s King of Steaks and Geno’s Steaks – right across the street from one another.  So Aaron (my fiance) tried a mushroom steak without onions topped with cheese whiz otherwise known as a “mushroom whiz wit-out.”  He also had french fries – or Freedom Fries there – smothered in cheese whiz.  Even I must admit they were delicious!  Then we crossed the street so Gina could have a cheesesteak from Geno’s.  She had one “wit” onions and American cheese. 

So that was an adventure – one everyone needs to experience if they go to Philly!  We walked over two miles back to our hotel – through the Italian Market and the hip South Street.  We capped the night off with some dessert in the VIP lounge at the hotel – somehow Gina managed to get a room on the 23rd floor with special access to the lounge!  We think we walked about 7 miles that day – so needless to say we slept well that night!

We were able to walk around a little more during conference lunch breaks and at the end of each day.  We saw the Walnut Street Theatre, the oldest theatre in the US.  We also frequented the Reading Terminal Market, which included lots of various vendors and eateries.  My personal favorite was the Dutch Eating Place – a diner with plenty of Pennsylvania Dutch delicacies that remind me of my family who live in PA.  Ever had corned beef gravy or srapple?  Me neither – but it was as plentiful there as it is at our family gatherings.

So that’s a quick recap of some of the places we visited.  Next I’ll post about the Opening Plenary…

Sarah