Fall Break Trip: St. Louis

What do we do for Fall Break?  Matt really wanted to visit his grandparents in Southern Illinois.  (Sunday was Gigi's birthday, and they recently moved to assisted living and needed some encouragement.) So, we were able to stay at their house and use that as our base of operations for a fun weekend.  First stop: Saturday in St. Louis.

 St. Louis, here we come!

Dilapidated building in East St. Louis?  "Look! A castle!" says AJ.

Crossing the mighty Mississippi

The Gateway Arch

The kids pose at the foot of the Arch.

Waiting in line for Homeland Security fun!

Stuffed grizzly bear in the Museum of Westward Expansion

Stagecoach

Bison

Chloe and a longhorn

A real (reproduction of an) Indian tepee!

  

Wagons West!

The builders of the Gateway Arch

Getting ready to board the tram for the top of the Arch

AJ & Chloe in the tram

Dad and Essie

Essie and Mom

AJ & Essie look out the window at the top of the Arch

Chloe

Enjoying the view

A view of the city of St. Louis

More St. Louis

Looking down at the base of the Arch

630 feet in the air!

Looking back across the Mississippi at Illinois

Next Stop:  The St. Louis Science Museum

(Yes, we know the City Museum is cool.  But the Science Museum is free!)

A Blue Angels jet outside the Planetarium

T-Rex!

Triceratops

Animatronic dinosaurs

AJ checks out an optical illusion

Playing a harp with no strings

AJ works on building a model of the Arch

Essie and Chloe pitch in to help

Mom joins in on the fun

The arch is getting high...might need Dad's help on this one.

Success!

Another arch project

Essie learns about the engineering of an arch

Chloe & AJ learn about earthquake protection

We also watched an Omnimax feature about building a railroad through the Canadian Rockies.

Next stop:  The St. Louis Zoo - also free!

Always up for a trip to the zoo

Rhinoceros

Hippo

Asian elephant

More elephants

Baby elephants

Taking a short break, but the zoo closes at 5!

Gotta keep moving!

Feeding time for the penguins

More penguins

Puffins

Grizzly bear

Flamingos

Seals

Panther

Tiger

Leopard

Let sleeping Snow Leopards lie!

Zebras

The Somali donkeys were having a little race amongst themselves

Enjoying all the animals.  

(But Essie is adamant she wants to see the snakes.)

The lion was feeling very vocal that day!

The lions were licking their chops at the zoo visitors.

Chloe and the lemurs

Iguanas

Tortoises

After a long day with lots of walking, we're all still in good spirits!

(And yes, Essie got to see the snakes.  But Mom didn't take any pictures.)

Back to Gigi's house for warm beds.

Baltimore

The week before last I attended the ATTACH Conference in Baltimore, along with the rest of the Adoption Assistance, Inc. staff.  My boss is always so good to take our entire staff to a large training every fall.  I've been able to attend great workshops that help me as a mom, as well as an adoption caseworker.

The view of the harbor from my hotel room

Walking around downtown

'

The USS Constallation

A submarine!

I had to include pictures of some of the yummy food we ate.  

Crab cakes above and chocolate cake below that I split with my friend Lisa.

All calorie counting is out when the Adoption Assistance staff gets together!

I forget the name of this but it was awesome!
Pasta with lobster and shrimp

The most amazing Surf and Turf I've ever had.

Look at that shrimp...its as big as my hand!

And another amazing dessert...peanut butter pie with chocolate pearls on top and a fried banana & chocolate sauce on the side.

Itchy, Itchy Chicken Pox

Essie and Chloe have been working on sequencing in school (don't ask me why this is part of 1st grade curriculum). Chloe read the book Itchy Itchy Chicken Pox and then drew the sequence of the story for a homework assignment.   

When I asked her what each apple was she said, "First he got the chicken pox and was very itchy.  Then he put on lotion.  Then he was all better and got to go back to school (note the school bus)."  I thought she did a great job!