Show Me Your Neighborhood Around the World: Kansas City Suburbs

by | Oct 17, 2013 | Uncategorized

Bienvenidos a nuestro barrio //  Welcome to Our Neighborhood

I am so excited to be a part of the fun series organized by PiriPiriLexicon, one of the great blogs of the Multicultural Kid Blogs group.  For amazing tours of neighborhoods all around the world, click on the icon at the end of this post.  So far we have visited France, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, San Francisco, Germany, Japan, and Djibouti City.

And now for our little neck of the woods.  Welcome to Lee’s Summit, Missouri–a suburb of Kansas City.  I thought it would be fun to take you on a walking tour, so each photo you see below is within walking distance of our house.  One of the reasons I love living here is that you get the best of everything–a quick drive to the countryside OR the city, and a nice quaint town to live in.  

Donde jugamos //  Where We Play
Playing is something we do best.  Here are two of our favorite parks.  The first we call the “Ship Park,” as it has a fun pirate ship to play on.  We also love this one because it has a nice walking trail that goes aroundt the entire park, and it is always filled with lots of kids and people.

Another park we walk to frequently is actually the playground of a local elementary school.  It has a fun map of the United States to run around on, and many different areas for climbing and sliding.  We can only use this one during non-school hours, so it is one we walk to in the evenings for a quick play after dinner.

There is Missouri!

Como nos viajamos  //  How We Get Around

The most common form of transportation is driving.  On the roads of our town you wil see many mid-sized cars, minivans, SUVs, and trucks.  Most families own at least one car, but usually one car for each person in the family who has a drivers license.  
The city streets near our house.

In the suburbs, it is hard to survive without a car.  But there are other modes of transport that we love and use.  Here is a picture of my dad with my boys.  Biking is a favorite sport in the area, and we see many people biking to get places in the downtown area we live.  In fact, when the weather permits, my brother bikes to work everyday.

We also live right by the train and get to see at least one passenger train pass through a day.  My boys call it the “People Train.”  Here is the train parked at the station in the downtown area for passengers to disembark and embark.

Waving to the train never gets old.

Another popular mode of transportation is the school bus.  Here is a typical school bus you will see taking children to and from school–from Kindergarten all the way through highschool.


Donde vivimos  //  Where We Live
Here is a view of the train right from our front yard!  I found it difficult to capture a picture of a “typical” house in our city.  Houses vary from apartments and duplexes, to restored historical houses in the downtown area, to large four-bedroom houses in the neighborhoods, to expansive houses situated on large plots of land.

Las calles  //  The Streets
We walk to the downtown area of our city a lot–to visit our favorite ice cream shop, to go to the bookstore, to shop at the farmer’s market, or to go to fairs and festivals.

A local barber shop.

The local farmer’s market.  It runs April-October.

There are a few restaurants in the downtown
area, and every Friday and Saturday you can
grab a hot dog or Italian sausage from a food cart.

Main Street

Donde aprendemos  //  Where We Learn
The three main forms of education families in our area can choose from are public school, private school, and homeschooling.  Many homeschooling families form coops where everyone gathers together one day a week to get instruction from differnt teachers for each subject.  I teach Spanish at a local coop, and we also participate in a preschool coop for our boys.  Usually coops meet in classrooms that local churches open up for use.  Here you can see pictures of the two coops I am involved in.

I hope you enjoyed your visit!  Be sure to check out all the other neighborhoods we will be touring in the “Show Me Your Neighborhood” series.  For a schedule of the upcoming cities, check the schedule here.  What do you love about the place you live?  What neighborhood would you love to visit!?
Show me your neighbourhood around the world
Kali Carollo

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