Day 6 ~ City Museum

Our last day.

Jason spent the morning taking his Microtik certifications while the kids "helped" me pack up our hotel room. Once we were packed up, I took the kids to Sonic for lunch and slushies while Jason was finishing his last test. Grant had been wanting to go to the City Museum. He had seen a brochure for it earlier in the week and kept asking everyday if he could go jump in the balls. By the pictures I knew this was not a place I could go navigate by myself (I was right). Jason and I decided we would spend the afternoon there before we headed home. It would mean a late night, but I was looking forward to including Jason in one of our outings especially after the previous night at the sculpture park.

The City Museum is a fun place to go explore and I would recommend it to anyone going to St. Louis. However, it could drive you nuts, a definite conversation about stranger danger and who to ask if you lose mom or dad is necessary. I would have loved to go with just Jason and have fun being a kid again without responsibilities. This place has tunnels, hidden passageways through the entire building - so cool! Slides are abundant and no shortage of things to spark your imagination.

Time to hit the road and head home.

Day 5 ~ Art Museum/Forest Park/Sculpture Park

So today was an interesting-ly loooong day. After five days of being on the go, Grant and Norah are tired, Mason has developed a new habit of waking up once (or twice) in the middle of the night to nurse, and I am running low on some important good mommy attributes like upbeat energy and patience.

Grant and Norah slept in a little later so I looked at our choices of things to do then choose the art museum and a walk in forest park. A little culture then fun walking on the trail. The art museum is free to visit so if the kids didn't like it no money lost.

 Well I have a feeling not many parent bring kids to the art museum because I witnessed a few employees near panic just watching me enter the museum. Grant and Norah were enjoying looking at the contemporary and modern paintings with  me when we were told to step back from the painting, mind you we were already behind the line. Not to mention the unsolicited comments I received from other visitors of the museum. Including, your crazy, my kids are grown and I still would never let them in here, three young kids are not going to enjoy anything here. My favorite I must say was the employee who had asked me if we had been to the zoo yet. It was just down the hill and had free admission as well. This statement was filled with undertones of I think you should go now. So I walked around one more time just to drive them crazy. If my gut feeling was my kids could handle being in an art museum, I would not have come, trust me.

Grant and Norah were not interested in looking at the camera for a picture at all.

We headed out into Forest Park and let Grant roll down the hill in front of the museum while I pushed the stroller down, we meandered through the park and back around to the car.

Jason was back a little early so we headed over to the sculpture park for some more running around before we headed to dinner.

I found it appropriate that Norah was picking her nose while standing in a nose. Once again Mason enjoyed sneaking in a nap while we explored. It was nice to have Jason along as well, despite being with him on his business trip it felt like we barely saw him.

A Case of the Mondays

The vacation post are being interrupted by a case of the Mondays.

“But he said to me, `My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

I tried to keep up with vacation posts. But blogger didn't agree with me Friday morning. Then a super fun day (more on that later this week) turned into a long drive home - 2am Saturday morning long. I was up by 5:15am, and working by 7am. I enjoyed being supermom last week, having it all together, being called a hero a couple times, often hearing I was insane or crazy by the random people we met during our adventure.

Now the house is a mess, there is at least five loads of laundry to tackle, dishes to do, meal planning and grocery shopping is beckoning.

Mason is 4 months today, celebrating by being incredibly fussy, which is very usually for my happy baby.

Norah is morning the loss of her paci, she threw it away in St. Louis. I intend to hold strong and not give it back, but trust me right now, I feel like walking back into her room and giving it back.

Grant thinks that everyday should now include a big outing like everyday held for him last week. Now I am trying to remind him the pleasure of enjoying our beautiful backyard on a spectacular fall day holds an adventure for him.

I want to get our house painted yesterday, but the painters I have contacted are less that helpful at returning phone calls and wanting money from us to do this job. If the house isn't painted this fall then we won't put the house on the market until next May at the earliest, I don't know if I can be patient for that.

Jason's job is wonderful for flexibility but it is also a newer business which brings and often comes with stress that we feel. I pray that it works itself out.

For me, I want to curl up on the coach, shut the outside world out for the day, catch up the happenings of the weekend by looking at FB, reading the news and watching the highlights of all the great Wisconsin sports I missed this weekend while taking care of patients. And while I love being a nurse, my job has been less than desirable recently.

Now to be me, I need to end this on a positive note, that I why my husband married me, or so he tells me. I am ultimately an optimists, I have to believe in the good of people. While often my job leaves me questioning this, I do believe things could just be so much worse, and am happy where I'm at right now. So I will now try and push my case of the Mondays aside and get to it. Hopefully the week will end with my parent visiting which will be wonderful. Now time to snuggle with my baby, this time is precious and fleeting.




This smile knows how to chase the Mondays away!



Day 4 ~ Zoo

With all the things to choose to do I hesitated on the idea of heading to the zoo in St. Louis. We have a membership to the zoo in Milwaukee, so we often go to the zoo. But I also know Grant and Norah love the zoo, and Mason is happy to tag along anywhere, and with our zoo membership in Milwaukee there were perks to be had at the St. Louis zoo. So the zoo it was.

I did get a little lost on the was to the zoo, and I may have run a red light in my disorientation, but we made to the zoo safely. And as for the red light, we'll see if I get a ticket in the mail to prove it.

Once we arrived at the zoo, I found out the free admission is realative to if you can find somewhere nearby to park. But I happily paid to park near the zoo rather that walk a mile to park for free.

Our first stop inside the zoo was the children's area. A special area set aside with animals that you could pet, playground, and a building with activities for my little ones. I sure they would have been happy to spend most of our day in this area, but there was a big zoo to explore, so I made them move on.

We then found an elephant foutain. Grant was fasinated with the money in the water, so I dug out some coins. Then, all of us threw in our coin while making a wish.

We wondered through the zoo, until Grant had had enought, he loves trains and did not want to wait any longer to have to ride the ChooChoo. I was nervous, I had Mason fast asleep and I was worried moving him from the stroller to the train would wake him. Also we couldn't all sit together in one seat which meant I had to trust Norah and Grant to sit together in front of me. They did great, and the train ride was excellent.

Once we were done riding, we were off to find the elephants, along the way we found the hippos (best hippo habitat I've ever seen) and some other animals. Norah couldn't decide whether to walk to ride, so back and forth about ten times between her walker and the stroller I was nearing the end of my patients. So I bribed her with some juice and goldfish and she found that she was content to stay in the stroller for awhile. We were able to finally find those elephants, we even saw a baby elephant.

We moved onto the penguins. Grant declared the building was too cold and wanted outside. Hmm, does he know winter is on its' way and it will soon be that cold every day.

Norah and Mason decide it was time to nap again. Mason has been of like a bird in a cage all week. Sitting in the stroller I throw a blanket over him and he sleeps peacefully. As soon as the blanket is removed, he begins to squak.

Grant and I used naptime to finish explore the zoo and have some fun time for just the two of us.

We headed back to the hotel and Grant and Norah played some Angry Birds until Jason was done with work.

Day 3 ~ Magic House

Well last night Grant stayed awake until 11pm. Eeeks, I was seriously concerned about what the day would hold with a kiddo that lost out on precious sleep. That is the drawback of staying in a hotel, too much excitement for a little one to sleep.

We were off to the Magic House, a children's museum, to play for the afternoon. I must say if I had to write a review for this place as a parent, it would not be good. If Grant was given the opportunity to review it he would say it was excellent, and demand to go there everyday. I had some of my first moments of frustration with what is considered accessible. Norah's walker was unable to get to many places, I even saw her get upset over not being able to get through a door with her walker. I was also told a few times that my kids were to young to play with an exhibit. A children's museum with age restrictions, seriously?

Review over, on to the good times of the day.

First up, a sand table, which Norah loved.

While Norah was busy with sand, Grant was busy pumping gas, climbing through netting and going down a slide.

Then there were small spaces to climb through.

A water table, my nightmare. Wet clothes, Norah drinking dirty water, potential falls from slipping on wet floors. Thankfully Norah attempted to drink the water after being warned which brought the water table fun to an end. I know, I'm no fun.

Then into the pretend play area. Grant and Norah loved this spot the most. Dress up and pretending to fix cars, go fishing, play house, make pizza, work in the nursery of the hospital...who wouldn't love this (again, accessibility was an issue here as well.



Then things got electrifying! Good thing we were done with the water.

Well let's see what else we can find...

...an adventure in Wonderland.

Then Big. Musical. Toys. This is just one of them; drop the balls at the top and listen to the music they make as they roll down.

We ended our day in the play area outside.

Off to Sonic for the slushies that were promised for behaving and listening to mom.

Day 2 ~ Botanical Gardens

We are here to explore, and fall is one of my favorite seasons to be outdoors, despite my allergies trying to prevent it, so today we went to Missouri Botanical Gardens.
We started in a dome that Grant and Norah loved walking through, peeking over the bridge railings and trying to get into the waterfalls.

It lead to a tree house exhibit and a green screen to stand in front of and play. I was nervous about letting Norah stand on the box, so Grant being the helpful big brother he is held on to her...by her neck. If you look close you can see that he is trying hard to keep her up.

 

Outside we found an area that was especially for kids, but it had a separate entrance fee. We had only begun to scratch the surface so we skipped it this time (with kids of napping ages, time can be a limiting factor. Next time we come back we will definitely take time to check it out. Grant and Norah didn't realize they were missing anything, they were busy playing in a covered wagon and open carriage.

It was nearing snack time, so we found a great spot in the Chinese garden to read the book we brought, The Five Chinese Brothers.

Then we were off. Grant enjoyed all the drinking fountains around the gardens, and even perfected how to drink the water while we were there.

Norah was took a break from walking and found a spot on the stroller with Mason. Our stroller is definitely a big stroller, but what is necessary to keep three little ones together.

Norah found her second wind after awhile and was off and running with her walker. She was getting silly, at times walking on her tip toes, sometimes running, and sneaking in some duck walking occasionally.

We ended by the pools and it was time to find some lunch and find our hotel for some naps before daddy get done with his day.

Day 1 ~ The Arch

After meeting a new friends, what's the next thing to do in St. Louis? The Gateway Arch, of coarse. It's what St. Louis is known for, right?

Jason and I headed down to the river front and the check out the Arch. Jason and I had stopped at the arch once before. It was six weeks after I had delivered Grant. My grandmother in Arkansas had passed away and we were driving down for her funeral. It was early spring, but it was a good spot to stop, stretch our legs and feed a hungry baby. Fast forward three and a half years, we've got two more kids in tow.

Playing on the stairs up to the arch. It made me nervous especially when you look over and find your son laying on the edge. So I did what any good mom would do - not panic, grab a quick picture of him, then quickly get over to him and tell him not to do that again.

 

Great start to our mini vacation.