Forest Park

We've promised our kids that we'd take them on a boat ride in the lake at Forest Park near the St. Louis zoo for three years. Since this was probably our last trip to St. Louis before we move (other than the one where we drive through as we're moving) we decided this had to be the trip. B and I had gone on a boat ride a couple of years ago for our anniversary.

We started the day at the zoo. We were envisioning horrible crowds since it was Memorial Day, in Missouri, at a free zoo. We were lucky (sort of) though because it was raining. It wasn't crowded. We got slowly drenched, but it was mostly just a stead drizzle. And we got to see a baby camel. I love baby animals. Baby X enjoyed the penguins most and finally mastered the sign for bird.

We also paid extra to ride the train... another promise we'd made to the kids. $5 a person (except for Baby X)!!! But I guess I shouldn't complain since admission to the zoo is free.

We also paid extra for the new sting ray exhibit. I'd pet sting rays before at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or somewhere of the sort. So I thought the kids would enjoy it. Buddy assured me that he wasn't going to touch one, but he'd like to see them. PS thought she'd maybe touch one. Buddy ended up loving it and after about 10 minutes of just watching them, he decided to touch them and ended up petting quite a few. PS was much more scared and only barely touched a couple.

Then we headed to the lake and the boat ride. B's mom was meeting us at the lake to sit with Baby X while we took the two older kids on the boat. By now it had stopped raining so we thought we'd have to hurry over there before a line formed for the boat rentals. When we went for our anniversary we had to wait quite awhile for an available boat. We didn't need to hurry. There was only one other boat on the lake and it was heading in as we headed out. B picked a row boat rather than a paddle (or is it pedal) boat so that our kids weren't falling out the back while we went. After about 15 minutes it started to rain. The guy in charge of the boats told us if it was under 40 minutes we could get a rain check and that if it started to rain, to stop under one of the bridges. We had just passed under the last, and best bridge when it started to rain so we turned around pretty quickly but it seemed to be letting up so we kept going. By the time we got to the final (and worst) bridge it was pouring, but the bridge was just a metal grate that did nothing to keep us dry so we decided to just head all the way back to the dock rather than sit still getting wet when it could just get worse. Needless to say, we got a rain check. And drenched. And the kids got in a huge, horribly embarrassing (the dock is also a fancy restaurant) fight over their umbrella while we waited for B to get the car.

We ate our "picnic"provided by B's mom in the car as we drove to my old roommate Karen and her husband Nate's home to visit with them. Karen is from western Kansas and they moved to St. Louis last summer. We've been trying to meet up over the last year and hadn't managed it yet. It was fun to visit with them and see how much their kids have grown. I babysat their oldest when she was just a baby and I was completely clueless about kids.




We ended our day by seeing the outside of Ulysses S. Grant's home and getting stamps for our National Parks passports (and using their bathrooms). Our kids have been to Grant's Farm before with Grandma and Grandpa M but B and I hadn't and it was sort of on the way home so we drove past so we could see it.

Train to St. Louis

One of the things Buddy got as a Christmas present was a folded piece of paper with a picture of him, a plus sign and a picture of a train. When the card was opened, there was an equals sign and a picture of the St. Louis arch. We finally got around to fulfilling this Christmas gift and he got to ride the train to St. Louis. B went with Buddy and Princess Sparkley. I drove Squeally McSqueal, aka Baby X in the car.


Baby X and I dropped them off at Union Station in Kansas City to catch the 7:30 AM train. While we drove straight east from Kansas City across the state of Missouri, their train headed southeast and went through Jefferson City instead of Columbia. The train ride was about $44 for the three of them (once we figured in discounted fares, student discounts and AAA discounts). It took 5 hours and 40 minutes. The drive from our home (about 40 minutes west of Kansas City) to Chesterfield (this side of St. Louis) takes 4 hours without stops.

Here's where I don't know the story anymore. B will have to fill it in but he's fallen asleep next to me. And just half an hour ago he was set to go rent a movie from Redbox. :)













PS has no idea what Hogwarts is. She just saw that I was making B take a picture and she wanted to be in it.


A fun caboose photo op in Union Station which isn't where the trains go anymore... it's all fancy restaurants and stores.


Union Station. Downtown St. Louis, MO.

Kansas City Royals

B decided we should drive to Kansas City twice on Saturday so after we drove Buddy's two friends home from his birthday party, we drove back to KC a few hours later to watch the Detroit Tigers beat the KC Royals. The game was sold out. We had to park way further away than we ever have before at Kauffman Stadium and we weren't one of the first 20,000 fans so we didn't get any Royals replica jerseys. Oh well. It was still fun and being there made it so we missed the crazy weather at home including the tornado sirens going off for 40 minutes or so. And somehow it all missed KC.

Baby X was perfect for the first hour or so. I think the noise and the size and the bright lights had him mesmerized. He just sat on B's lap and watched until he spotted me and then he switched to my lap and just watched. Then for about 45 minutes he was restless. Then it cleared out a little and he could walk around our row but this mostly involved picking up peanut shells and handing them to me. At least he didn't put them in his mouth. Once he discovered the chairs and that he could climb onto them, that kept him busy. For awhile.

After the game we asked a woman to take our picture. We have pictures of our family at every baseball game we've been to. After the woman took our picture and left, a guard standing there told us he'd take a better picture for us and had us walk down a level while he stood up top. His pictures turned out blurry. And neither of our photographers included the new, giant, crown topped big screen TV that Kauffman Stadium added with their renovations (see below).

picture from here

Cahokia Mounds

Today we went to the Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville, Illinois just outside of St. Louis.

If you look closely in the center picture, or really closely in the two similar pictures of PS and Buddy posing, you can see the St. Louis Arch in the background.

Saturday Road Trip

We had a tiny little family outing on Saturday because:

1) Baby X has been to a new county every month he's been alive and we needed to go somewhere in October to keep his streak alive (B's idea)

2) Last week we told Buddy we'd go to Fritz's while B ran the marathon, but then we decided it would be horribly crowded, and we didn't know when to expect B or his brother to finish and we didn't want to miss them, so we ended up not going and promised him we'd go the next week.


PS in her conductor's hat.


Watching for a train to go past.


Umm... no, I'm not wearing a hat.


Look at crazy eyes... we keep telling her that just because her head is looking at the camera, it doesn't mean her eyes are and that she needs to look with her eyes or she ends up looking crazy in all of our pictures... like this one.



3) Our kids have never been to Liberty Jail.


4) The new temple site for the Kansas City temple is near Liberty Jail so we drove by and saw where that is.

5) B needed some stuff from Sam's Club and there isn't one in our town.

I love the carts at Sam's Club that fit two kids up front. And it cracks me up that Buddy still wants to sit there... he's huge next to Baby X. We kept telling him that he was going to have a growth spurt while we shopped and get stuck in the cart forever.

B's Runs the Kansas City Marathon

B's decided to run the Kansas City Marathon several months ago, started training, but then school and life got in the way and his running regimen slowly disappeared. Even so, he still decided to go ahead and run it but instead of a goal time, his goal was to finish. My goal was for him to finish without dying. He accomplished both goals.

B ran the marathon with his older brother. His brother was nice enough that after he finished and got his free massage, he went back and ran the last bit with B to help encourage him.

Here's the family cheering him on. Grandma and Grandpa M (Grandma taking a
picture, Grandpa on the phone with B's brother's wife), Baby X in the stroller,
Princess Sparkley and Buddy).

We were near the finish line for a lot of the race and Princess Sparkley had seen a lot of kids run the last 100 yards or so with their mom or dad, so she ran the last bit with B to help him out. She told him it was the fastest she'd ever run except once in gym when they ran races. Here they are about to cross the finish line. They called out B's name and city and announced that he was running with a little [our last name], a [our last name]erino. PS loved that!

After they removed the ChampionChip from his shoe. The ChampionChip helps time the runners, makes sure they follow the course, and accounts for the wait at the start of the race when so many runners are trying to cross the start line at once. Throughout the course

the chip would beep as B crossed sensors making sure that runners ran the

whole race and stuck to the course.

He did a great job. We're all very proud of him. I've never come anywhere near running 26.2 miles in a day and never plan on doing it. He was lucky enough to get a free massage at the end of the race which I think helped a lot. He ran the Lawrence Half Marathon in April and was pretty sore afterwards. He's walking around slowly today due to sore calf and thigh muscles, but looks great for having run so much yesterday.

Birthday Celebrations

On Princess Sparkley's birthday, Sunday, we had cake with grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles and lots of cousins.

Then on Monday, the girls (plus our little family) went to Jilly's Cupcake Bar for cupcakes.

The Magic House: St. Louis Children's Museum

On Monday we went to The Magic House. Our kids have been a couple other times when we've visited Grandma in St. Louis. B had never been and was expecting some sort of lame, magic themed kid attraction. I think it proved him wrong... he just wants them to change their name now to downplay the magic part. The kids and the cousins had a blast. We could have spent all day there... a few hours doesn't cover everything you want to see. AND, they're adding on. It's going to be almost doubled in size in a few months.

Princess Sparkley hearts mud. Buddy does not.

We're in St. Louis with all of B's family and this was the scene last night:

Some how running in the rain progressed from this...

to this...

to this...

to this.



Meanwhile, Buddy looked like this:


he stood in the rain and got wet.



Then he helped hold the house for Grandpa while he hosed off the muddy grandkids.


So clean!

Nephew at Cabela's

My brother's wife's parents live in north central Missouri, so my brother's oldest son flew out to spend a week with them. He flew into Kansas City so we met him at Cabela's in KC, KS real quick. Princess Sparkley didn't get to go because she'd thrown up that morning. She stayed home with B while B cleaned an organized our house. (THANKS!) Buddy was pretty shy. When we moved from California Buddy was almost 18 months old. And we've only all been back once, a year and a half ago. So he's heard of this cousin, and likes the idea of him, but doesn't remember him at all. Baby X gave him lots of smiles and I insisted that my nephew give Baby X all the kisses grandma sent for us.

[What's with the face I'm making?]

Wiggles

This is how I found Buddy Sunday morning when I went to wake him up at Grandma's house. He was on a sleeping bag and under a sleeping back in the room with Princess Sparkley. Notice in this picture that he's parallel to his pillow and his head is under the one sleeping bag. I almost didn't see him at all.

Lazy River

We tried out Grandma M's city pool last summer and it's awesome. So we went again this weekend. It's huge, but last year it was so crowded. This year we went on the 5th of July, after dinner. They were staying open until ten the 4th and 5th but just about no one knew that so it was pretty empty.

Their favorite part is "Lazy River."
You just float around in these inner tubes, through a tunnel of mist and some squirty water.
Baby X even got in but I didn't get a picture. B and I traded boys so when Baby X was in with him I had to get wet and go around Lazy River with Buddy.

Here are me and Baby X before we got in. Photo by me.

Buddy turns blue the easiest and quickest. So he's
always the first one out due to blue lips and shivering.

Princess Sparkley and B took turns being the wolf chasing the three little pigs. Again, this is with my digital camera so there's no sound. Personally, it sort of reminds me of the old movie projector films my parents used to play for us from the late Seventies to early Eighties, the poor quality of the film, no sound, etc.

4th of July Weekend in St. Louis

Missouri State Capitol

We took a more southern route to St. Louis this trip through
Jefferson City, MO and stopped at the Capitol.

Princess Sparkley's New Look

before

after

Baby X does this new thing where he sort of hangs out on his side, I tried to capture it in some of these pictures. Princess Sparkley also made him her "baby" in her doll stroller. And Buddy's gigantic car city. Plus a Magic 8 Ball water tower in Tipton, MO.

4th of July
Neighborhood parade at Grandma's.
Fireworks from the mall parking lot.

Winston Churchill

With all my posting from our St. Louis trip, I forgot to post the pictures from our stop along the way. When we were visiting Kansas/Missouri a few years before moving here, we stopped in Fulton, MO to see a Winston Churchill Memorial. At that time all we found was a statue. It turns out that that's basically all it was then. Now it is a full fledged, pretty cool museum. Our kids were a bit freaked out by the war displays and Hitler video, but who wouldn't be. The museum is in a church (designed by Christopher Wren) that was damaged in England during the war, bought by Westminster College and moved (parts of it) to Missouri and rebuilt (just about as crazy to me as when I was in London and found out that the London Bridge I'd sung about my whole life was actually in Arizona).

The kids with young Winston Churchill

the family (minus Daddy) w/ Winston Churchill Statue

Buddy and Princess Sparkley with a chunk of the Berlin War
(they played Germans for a bit... I'm not sure if that was disrespectful or not)

Okay, in trying to find a cool picture of the church I found this, that describes everything I wanted to say and didn't:

In 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, popularizing the phrase that would come to describe the division between the Western powers and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Westminster College established the Winston Churchill Memorial and Library in 1969 as a tribute to Churchill’s life and legacy. The memorial is housed within the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, a 12th century church from the middle of London that was redesigned by Sir Christopher Wren in 1677 and painstakingly relocated, stone-by-stone, to Fulton. Within the church are artifacts and works that chronicle Churchill's life, from his youth through three wars, and finally to the speech he gave in Fulton warning of the coming Cold War. Churchill Museum Executive Director Dr. Rob Havers will discuss the renovated museum and its state-of-the-art exhibits that bring to life one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century through sight, sound and touch.

from www.sos.mo.gov/archives/about/calendar.asp

photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_College,_Missouri