It has been a couple of months. Don't think we aren't doing anything. We are. I just haven't (until now) taken the time to get all the pictures off of my camera. Our computers are getting old and slow and I just can't convince myself to sit and wait long enough to upload pictures. Be proud of me today because I did it! I'm only going to talk about spring break. Easter and Prom will probably have to wait, but at least it's something.
For spring break, we took a 4 hour road trip to St. Louis, MO. We stayed for the weekend to see the sights. It was a lot of fun! We went with another family that lives near us. We were quite the group with ten kids and four adults.
We drove down there on a Thursday morning. Our intent was to spend the afternoon taking turns going to the temple. My friend, Nicky, and I left the men in charge (watching a BYU game) while we went to the temple. When we finally got there, though, we found that the temple was closed for maintenance . . . DUH! I am sure that is something we should have checked on before we left. It's a beautiful temple . . . from the outside.
When we returned from our temple trip, we spend the rest of the evening at the hotel swimming pool . . . just what the kids love, anyway.
The next day, we went to City Museum. It's a really cool, dangerous, weird, crowded, place. It's not like any place I have ever been. Imagine a huge playground/maze made out of rebar. If you are not up in the air on the climbing structures, you could go down below into a series of tunnels. I'm not explaining it well, but let me just say you could definitely get lost in a place like that and I did experience a few moments of claustrophobia and genuine fear. The kids had a blast . . . except for Makayla who sprained her wrist pretty badly.
I don't usually let the kids get their faces painted because of the extra cost, but the lady doing the face-painting looked like she could use a little extra help. Ricky and Andrew both chose to be Yoda.
Want to hear a funny story about Ricky? He got a little face paint on his arm and his shirt. He wanted a baby wipe right away so he could get the paint off of his arm. He had a Yoda-Green face and he said, "People are going to laugh at me because I have green paint on my arm." Silly kid!
After surviving City Museum, we got some famous frozen custard.
We ate our snack and then drove to the St. Louis zoo. We saw a lot in the short time we spent there.
After the zoo, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel. Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, so we donned our green clothes and headed downtown for the St. Patrick's Day parade.
The kids loved begging for candy and necklaces.
Andrew got quite a stash. When somebody would give him a necklace, he would put it behind him. Each person who went by saw this cute little boy asking for a necklace. They took pity on him because he looked like he didn't have anything. Sneaky! I think between Ricky and Andrew, we went home with more than twenty necklaces.
We were standing by a fire truck. Sean didn't watch much of the parade. He mostly stared at the fire truck.
It was so hot at the parade!! Sitting in the sun got unbearable after a while, so we took off to go have lunch at the park near the St. Louis arch.
When we got to the Arch, there was a thunderstorm on its way. We didn't linger outside too long for pictures, but we got a few.
The Arch has a museum inside. There were a few fun things there.
I thought the Arch was much more majestic from the outside. To get to the top, you wait in a narrow hallway to climb into tiny pods that hold only three or four people.
At the top, there are tiny windows to look out to see the view. It's not all that exciting. And it kind of smells like sweat and unshowered tourists.
I got a ton of pictures throughout the trip of Ricky posing with personality. He is such a ham!
Sleeping in a hotel room is an adventure. It's hard to get the kids to settle down when they are sharing a bed. They also don't stay asleep very long because they are kicking each other in their sleep.
On Sunday, we found a church building nearby. Unfortunately, when we pulled up just in time for sacrament meeting, we found an empty parking lot with a locked building. The kids ran around outside while our research informed us that it was stake conference that weekend and we were at the wrong building.
We were able to find another meeting about a half hour later at another building. It was a great meeting and the speakers were awesome. It was probably one of the better meetings I have been to. I will never forget the lessons I learn about self-esteem and fostering positive self image in our children.
The kids were very good during the drive home, if not a little crazy. I don't love road trips that last longer than about six hours. One good thing about where we live it that we have several major cities less than five hours away from us. It's fun to visit these different places and experience the variety these cities have to offer.
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