St Louis Part 2

St Louis has a huge park area near the zoo called Forrest Park. I believe the zoo is actually part of the park, which also houses the museum (in the photo above) and probably a bunch of other stuff we didn't have time to see. But we did see this big lake:

Since it was not storming in this part of town, we were able to walk around and take some nice pictures.

It was so pretty, and fancy...we saw 3 weddings in the 30 minutes we drove around.

The next day was dedicated to the zoo. We thought we would be there all day, but we had done and seen everything we wanted to by 2 in the afternoon. We had a great time. First stop was the carousel:
The carved animals were beautiful. They had so many different kinds of animals to ride!



These pictures are from the bird sanctuary:


Next, we went to see the sea lions, which were our favorites last time we visited. SOOOO cute!







We also enjoyed the Insectarium / butterfly house.












The last stop was White Castle Burgers, which we thought the kids would really like because of the itty-bitty burgers, but the didn't like the flavor of them. Oh, well. This trip was a blast, and we hope to return soon.

St. Louis - Part One

When we first arrived in St. Louis, we were greeted with a nasty traffic jam.
See the cars lined up behind us as far as the eye can see?
Apparently there was an accident that closed all lanes of I-44.
We sat still in traffic for 45 minutes. I was grateful for this: Our first stop was the hotel. Mark enjoying his complimentary Cracker Jacks: The view from our balcony was great. It inspired us to explore downtown.









It was storming downtown, so all of our pictures were taken from inside the car. We crossed the river into Illinois, and came right back across the river. Maya was excited that we visited another state. We just took our time driving around, enjoying the beautiful buildings...and of course, the arch.










































































To be continued....

Elephant Rocks

We went to St. Louis this past weekend, and stopped by Elephant Rocks State Park on the way. I have lots of pictures from St. Louis, but I will save those for another post. These pics are from Elephant Rocks.

Spoofee Rocks!

I really like getting freebies in the mail. Look what I got today:
Oh yeah, full size, baby!
Sometimes the freebies don't come, but sometimes they do! If you wanna check out my favorite freebie website, click on the link to Spoofee over there>>>>>>>


Now, who can identify these mysterious creatures? Oh yes, Thomas and his friends have been suspended by their magnets all over Daddy's weight lifting cage. It was dark, and at first I thought they looked an awful lot like bats (hey, don't laugh...I didn't have the flash on at that point!) but it is truly adorable, isn't it. I love my kids.

We Like To Hike

The Springfield Conservation Nature Center is a great place for kids to hike. We spent a Sunday afternoon there recently, discovering all kinds of fun things.
Decomposing wood is a great place to find all kinds of yucky bugs.
There are so many beautiful places.

The trails are interesting without being rough, and the chances of spotting wildlife is prime.
There is a trail made of flat stones, and we always stop and look at this "fish rock".
You can count on seeing blue heron, turtles, fish...sometimes deer, turkey raccoon, bunnies. Of course, there are always lots of birds and bugs.
Wildflowers grow tall in the grasslands in August.
Speaking as a wife and mommy it just doesn't get any better than this.