Snow Day

We had one snowy day in February and Tom was the only parent brave enough to take his kids to .... the zoo!

At least Nikita didn't mind the snow!

Wildlife out the window

Who says you need to live in the country to see wildlife from your window? We get it right here in the big city, urban neighborhood, too!

That is if you count little Peter Cottontail in the category of wildlife!

Roadtrip!

After it is all said and done, it wasn't crazy driving 500 miles, alone with the kids to spend three days in a hotel while my husband attended a work conference. We really had fun!

Day one, Wednesday: spent the day driving to Indy. We stopped in Kingdom City, MO to play at McDonald's. That's an outdoor playplace that I am going to keep in my memory banks. We ate in the car driving through STL. I wasn't interested in stopping too many times and decided to sacrfice a clean car for a shorter trip. We pulled into Inday around 6pm, just as Tommy was landing in his airplane. We met at the hotel and got ready for fun!

Day two, Thursday: Happy Birthday Lyla! We spent the day with my old roommate, Amy and her two kids, Maddie and Josh. It was really fun to reconnect with her and see her kids. We played with toys, ate lunch and took a nature walk in their subdivison. Lyla fell asleep in the car before we even got on the main road. We then picked up daddy to go find cupcakes and celebrate Lyla's day.

Day three, Friday: Tommy took some time off from his conference to visit the zoo with us. It was really fun and we enjoyed having him come with us. Unfortunately it was rainy and cold that night or we would have gone to the Indians baseball game, instead we watched it from a window in the hotel.

Day four, Saturday: We decided to hit the road and go half way home to STL. We stopped at the arch and Laclede's Landing for a bite to eat. Then we headed to our hotel where we went swimming. Lyla loved it but Steven is still a chicken. Lyla sat on the edge of the pool and would throw herself at me. Steven would just cling to Tommy's neck.



Day five, Sunday: We headed to the St. Louis Zoo right at the time it opened. We spent the morning there, ate lunch and then got to the car for the last leg of driving around 2pm. Kids slept most of the way but we totally nuts by the time we reached the outskirts of Kansas City.
I think we were all ready to be home!

Regressive behavior

A warning to women who desire to become a parent:

Do not be fooled, the father of your child will regress and exhibit childlike tendencies with regular frequency.

Case-in-point: While we were on our brief vacation to Indy and St. Louis last week Tommy had two distinct moments that made me wonder if his birth certificate was accurate.

The Indianapolis Zoo is really nice and they have several exhibits that our zoo does not have so we enjoyed the new animal adventures. Tommy especially enjoyed the interactive shark tank; he enjoyed it so much that his entire sleeve on his right arm was soaking wet for the remainder of our visit.


When we arrived in St. Louis, we immediately stopped at the Arch. It's right next to the highway, so why not (don't you just love transportation planners)? The line into the visitor's center was pretty long so we just spent a few moments outside and then wandered over to the Laclede's Landing to explore a little (read = visit a brewery). The entrance to Laclede's Landing is "underneath" the Eads Bridge which has a Metro light rail line running on it. As we were leaving, the train was pulling up to the platform above us and Tommy took off running with the stroller to get in the elevator so that Steven could see the train. Really? he's seen trains before. It is completely unncessary to risk our safety running across the street and rushing through the station to get to see a light rail train for five seconds. We get enough choo choo watching Thomas on PBS.

Sorry, honey, I really do love your sense of wonder and excitement when it comes to adventures with our kids but sometimes I have to just shrug my shoulders!

We missed you, Zoo!

Kangaroos and Tigers and (polar) Bears, Oh my! (Lions are off exhibit due to construction so we substituted Kangaroos today.)

This weekend Tommy was at a wedding in Houston so I was in charge of activity planning for the family. When I opened the door to let Kira outside this morning and was met with a blast of hot air, I immediately knew a long-awaited trip to the zoo was in order.

We thought the zoo might be mad at us because it has been a long time since our last visit and we were starting to be known as zoo regulars. This winter just beat us down but we did manage to visit the zoo's indoor exhibits a few times. Turns out the animals did forgive us for not visiting very often this winter.

Today on the other hand, was glorious. I even made the decision to leave the stroller at home because I knew the kids needed some exercise in the warm sunshine. I didn't regret leaving it at home because both kids made it walking for the full three hours we were there. Now we did stop for a snack in the Polar Bear exhibit, then we stopped at the kangaroos for some cantaloupe, then we rode the train 1.5 times around the loop, then we stopped and ate PBJ with the elephants, and then we rode the carousel. So we did get a lot of breaks during our visit. It was such a fun morning!

It is so amazing how much a little sunshine can do for a family on a Sunday morning in April!

My new toy

It isn't exactly mine yet but I am having a weekend trial of a fancy, fancy camera that a co-worker is selling. He got an upgrade at Christmas and offered this one to us. I think it is a little out of my skill set, actually, really far out of my skill set but it sure is pretty. And if we decide to make him an offer I promise to learn all the bells and whistles!

Here are some shots from our trip to the zoo today where I tested out the camera!

Don't eat him!

It was so warm today! It was actually above 60 degrees and warm enough that the kids only needed to wear their lightweight jackets on their trip with daddy to the zoo. It seemed like a very long time since we visited the zoo but the animals remembered the kids. The deer missed Steven so much that they wanted to take a bite out of him!

Santa at none other than the ...

Zoo!

Boo at the Zoo

Yet another afternoon of fun at the Zoo, this time with CANDY!

Lyla climbing a cannon in the haunted valley.

Steven walking the plank.

Zoo with the Borts Family

We got to the Lorikeets just in time to feed them. Jack even got a little gift from one of the birds that gave him good luck for the weekend! Steven is getting so bold. He couldn't get his jacket off fast enough because he wanted the bird to land on his arm. I don't have any idea why he couldn't have his jacket on for bird feeding.

We even got everyone on the hay ride. Lyla can now say tractor - her vocabulary is exploding!