St. Louis Part 3 ~ The Magic House

On Friday, our last day in St. Louis we went to one of our favorite places to visit....The Magic House. This place is so fun for kids and adults too!

Here is our visit in pictures:

Burrito and Noodle trying out their auto mechanic skills

Fishing for little magnetic fish in the pond

Noodle serving ice cream to Nonna

Creative water play

Working in the grocery store

Experimenting with bubbles...you cannot really see it in the picture but Burrito and Noodle are inside a HUGE bubble!

Sliding down the 3 story slide

Burrito is Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk

Dress up time!

Noodle is writing is own fairy tale on the computer with help from Dad

Crawling through the mole tunnel

Working at the shoemaker shop

And now for the grand finale....this is the best and funniest thing in the whole museum! On the 3rd floor they have an electromagnet that makes your hair stand on end!

Don't you think I could start a new trend in fashion with that hair-do? Ha! So that concludes our fun adventure to St. Louis. After 12 more hours in the car yesterday, we are glad to be back home and are enjoying our day of rest today!

St. Louis Part 2 ~ The Gateway Arch

On Thursday, we decided to take the boys to downtown St. Louis to see the Mississippi River and the Gateway Arch. We actually crossed over into Illinois so the boys could catch a good glimpse of the river and all of the barges and boats. We plan on reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to them next, so we thought this might make the story a little more interesting, to see the actual river the story is based upon. We made our way back over the river and over to the Gateway Arch.

First, we should start with a little background on the arch.

The Arch was built as a monument to westward expansion in the USA. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri, the 630-foot tall stainless steel arch rises above the city skyline. The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial consists of the Gateway Arch, the Museum of Westward Expansion, and St. Louis' Old Courthouse.

There was a nationwide competition in 1947-1948 to design a monument in St. Louis honoring western pioneers. The architect Eero Saarinen (August 20, 1910 - September 1, 1961) won the contest with his sleek arch.

Construction of the arch began on February 12, 1963, and was finished on October 28, 1965. It was opened to the public on July 24, 1967. (after one of the trams was completed). It cost about 13 million dollars to build. The two bases are equilateral triangles (triangles with three 54 foot-long sides). At the top of the arch, the triangle is only 17 feet long on each side. Visitors enter the arch from an underground visitors center and can travel to the observation deck at the top in a 40-passenger tram that runs inside the arch.

Let me pause here to say there was no way I was about to travel 630 feet into the air crammed into a tram with 4 other people. No thanks, I can appreciate the arch from the ground!

The arch has 60-foot deep foundations. The arch is very stable and was built to withstand high winds and earthquakes. The structure sways about one inch in a 20 mph wind; it is designed to sway up to 18 inches in 150 mile per hour winds. It is really quite amazing to look up at it from the ground and imagine someone building this structure. John and I had visited this before back in May 2002 but this was the first time we've been since having the boys and it was really fun!

And here is my vain attempt to take some visually intriguing angles of the arch.

We also drove past Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals. The 2009 All Star Game will be at this stadium on Tuesday so preparations were in full swing downtown.

Up next is my final installment of our adventures in St. Louis, but seeing how we will be making the 12 hour trip back home in about 7 hours, my guess is it will be a few days before I get to that post!

Our St. Louis Adventure Part 1

We left for St. Louis in the wee hours of Monday morning, 3:58 am to be exact. We were headed to John's parents house for a week of fun. It is about a 12 hour trip which can be quite an adventure with young kids. Leaving early in the morning was something new, as we had not tried this method before and were curious to see if the boys would actually sleep in the car. We were joyfully surprised at their compliance and it really made for a much more pleasant trip.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the boys in front of this classic highway attraction in Oklahoma....a McDonald's that spans the length of the highway! We've been inside of it before and it is quite a sight....eating your Big Mac over tractor trailers speeding by below you. Only in the South! In fact, we marveled at many things that I would venture to guess do not exist in other parts of the country, for example, the world's largest rocking chair. Really, are you going to pull off the highway adding extra time to your travel to see this thing???? I'm sure not!

Monday night and Tuesday involved lots of time outside of the car. Noodle quickly became engrossed with a video game. He is that kind of child....I can already tell I will really have to help him set boundaries with such things as a kid.

Then came swimming in the backyard. These boys love to swim! Thanks John for setting it up!

And some bubbles! We really loved this contraption because it made bubble blowing so fun and not so messy!

On Wednesday we set out for Grant's Farm. Grant's Farm is the historical home of Ulysses S. Grant and includes a tour of the 281 acre wildlife preserve with over 1000 animals, including the world famous Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales. The tour starts off with a tram ride that takes you to the back of the park and then you can walk through all the animal exhibits and then catch the tram back out of the park.

First stop...feeding baby goats. These weren't just your average goats either. They were hungry and a little aggressive in getting their milk bottles. The boys opted to feed them through the fence rather than go into the pen and get mauled. Not a bad choice! Burrito was a little nervous about doing it but summoned up enough bravery to accomplish the task. Noodle loved every second of it, that animal lover!

Second stop....carousel! Noodle is being goofy in this picture and Burrito looks like he is still traumatized by the goats.

Next we watched a bird show that featured macaws, a hawk, an owl and even some rats! The boys, of course, liked the rats the best!

We saw lots of other animals there, including camels (Burrito was convinced that they would spit at us!), alpacas, buffalo, and the famous Anheiser-Busch Clydesdale horses. It was really fun and beautiful there. It was highly recommended that we go there and I can see why now.

Stay tuned for our next adventure at the Gateway Arch, the symbol of St. Louis and Western Expansion!

4th of July Weekend

This 4th of July fell on a Saturday so we celebrated all weekend.

On Friday the 3rd, we partied with our friends Michael and Kristi and their daughter, E. There was sure cause for celebration as E had a cast removed from her leg that very morning and this was her very first swimming experience!

Burrito has not been a lover of water ever since swim lessons at ages 2 and 3. In fact, John and I were dreading the whole swimming experience with him so much that we decided to buy life jackets for the boys that morning to see if this would help them have any more confidence in the water. And it worked! We were so proud of both of them. They were jumping in the water without assistance, going under water and learning to navigate the water with their life jackets on. It was such an improvement over last summer when Noodle and Burrito both clung to us with a death grip and cried the entire time they were in the water.

Check out the happiness on this former hater of water's face! A true miracle of the Lord! Ha!

After swimming Michael grilled up some yummy burgers, we ate and then watched fireworks from their second story balcony. It was so fun and relaxing that I think we should make it an annual tradition, okay Michael and Kristi???? :)

So on Saturday the 4th of July, we went to my parents house to do and watch fireworks. My parents now live in my grandparents' former house and so this is the house I have spent almost every 4th of July at my entire life. It is so crazy out there! Those people love their fireworks! Starting around dusk, there is not a moment of silence to be heard. There is constant noise as firecrackers and fireworks are going off everywhere.

My new camera actually has a setting for taking pictures of fireworks that I've never had the opportunity to use before. These pictures were taken before I realized that there is a delay in taking the picture so they are a little blurry, but I think they turned out sort of neat that way!

We like to buy a few fireworks and then benefit from others' expense of buying lots of fireworks and watching theirs! We set up our lawn chairs right in the street and enjoy the free show. John had fun doing our fireworks....Noodle and Burrito, not so much. It didn't help that in the first 10 seconds of doing sparklers, Noodle touched the end of the sparkler after it had burnt out but while it was still hot and burnt his thumb. You would have thought his finger had been chopped off, poor guy! But Burrito got brave in the end and decided to try out the sparklers again. All in all, it was a fun time with family and celebrating our freedom.

The boys in the picture below are closely examining a firework that the big boys did that turned into a "snake" as it burned. Burrito is looking at it with his flashlight and Noodle looks a little apprehensive.

The picture below depicts our grand finale.....a firework that John was told would last for 5 minutes, that actually lasted about 30 seconds and cost $16! Sorry you got duped!

On Sunday the 5th, we went to our beloved church and then set out to pack for our trip to visit John's family in Missouri. Stay tuned for our fun adventures there!

hanging out

i am typing this post from our local bounce house place. thank the LORD for free wi-fi! ha! the above pictures are from our backyard, not the bounce house place, as we tolerated the heat that day but have retreated from the heat this morning.

where did bounce houses come from? they did not have these when we were kids. i think the most exciting thing for me, and maybe the closest equivalent, was the ball pit at chuck e. cheese's. or as noodle calls it, chuck e. cheezits! :)

when i think about all the germs that must have been lurking inside those ball pits now as a germaphobe mother, my stomach does a flip. yuck! maybe a smart, germaphobe mother invented the bounce house as a healthier alternative. they've got to be a little easier to disinfect than a ball pit!

i am thankful for this bounce house place because i am freezing inside here while the temperatures outside rage close to 100 degrees yet another day. i love texas because of the warm weather and mild winters but it seems in my old age, i am tolerating the heat less and less.

all noodle and burrito want to do nowadays is swim and that leaves me one of two options: 1) get in the little blow up pool with them at my own risk of being maimed or splashed to death or 2) sweating to death in the heat while watching them play in a cool pool. neither are appealing. which is why i send john out in the afternoons with them. ha! one of the many, many reasons i love and appreciate my husband!