St. Louis Vacation, Day 9...

Today we went to the City Museum and World Aquarium...

We give the City Museum 14 thumbs up...

If we had it to do all over again, we wouldn't go to the World Aquarium, but it's all good... now we know...

We also purchased tickets for The Roof, which was definitely worth it.

All in all, I don't think I could be more impressed with the set up if I tried! I have never experienced such a place, where someone is constantly climbing above you or sliding beside you and you actually feel completely safe letting your children explore caves... and castles... and vaults... Wow!

And so, as the trip winds down, I will post some pictures of our adventure:

The Family, Outside the Museum Entrance:

Ian Loved the Huge Ball Pits:

Climbing Above the Roof:

Ian made the climb twice,
so Mommy could see it, too:

Swinging From the Ceiling:

We found this completely uninhabited vault...
and figured it was probably OK to go inside...
It was full of mirrors:

She is her father's child...
Classic kind of shot I would usually have of Phil...
Mmm... yummy slushy tastes like Flavor-Ice:

A Couple of Really Big Fish:

This 3 story slide was amazing...
The kids begged to go on it all day long...
At the end of the day, I conceded...
(I had to climb back up to the 3rd floor for my pressed penny, anyway)
It was really fun until Caleb decided to climb back up when he reached the bottom...
And Grace started screaming at him...
And I thought for sure we were going to be kicked out...

Miah Liked the Museum, Too:

Lisa

St. Louis Vacation, Day 2...

Today we woke up earlier than we wanted to (Ian napped twice yesterday).

After breakfast, we swam for a while. Ian will not get in the water, which is a little bit frustrating when he is running circles around the pool. It is, however, manageable, when he is dipping his feet in the hot tub:


It was also Miah's first time in a pool... well... sort of in a pool... but come on... her swimsuit's cute...

Later in the morning, we left for "The Magic House," St. Louis' Children's Museum. Overall, I am still kind of partial to the Indy Children's Museum, but The Magic House was inexpensive, fun, and there were some very innovative exhibits. We especially enjoyed "The Oval Office," Leaf Climbing, and the Static Electricity Experiment:

Ian loved dressing up in a cape and boots and playing "Super Ian" through several more areas of the "Kids Save the World" exhibit than you are really supposed to keep the costumes on for, I'm sure...


Unfortunately, a little later in our trip, "Super Ian" decided it would be alright to run away from Daddy and his super siblings (while Mommy was nursing Miah), and for 4-5 minutes, no one knew where he was. 4-5 minutes is a very long time when you cannot find your 3 year old in a place that big with so many children running in every conceivable direction. It feels more like an hour... at least... and it is certainly long enough to contact employees and the front desk and to have your child's description running through the entire employee intercom system. To say the least, I was relieved when I found Ian (quite a long way from where we'd last seen him). I was so relieved that I chewed him out and banished him to his baby sister's pink stroller for the remainder of our day at The Magic House.

This did put some things into perspective, however. As I was frantically flying through exhibits, I kept thinking, "If Ian has left this building I am never going to find him and we will never see him again". Panic was definitely the best way to describe it, but later I thought of the parable of the lost sheep. Now, granted, I didn't have 99 children to leave while I went to look for the one lost one, and I was toting Miah, but I did leave my other three children playing at an exhibit (with instructions to stay put) in order to cover as much ground as possible to find Ian. Ordinarily, I would not let even my older kids out of my sight in a place like this for more than a moment, but at the time, it seemed more reasonable to leave them in order to find my lost one. On a lesser level, but pertinent all the same, I also left our stroller which contained Miah's carseat, my purse (wallet, cash, credit cards, ID, SS card, etc.), our video camera, my digital SLR, and my underwater camera strewn in the middle of a crowded hallway, and the truth is; I would have been irritated if anything had been missing when I finally went back for it, but in light of finding Ian, I couldn't have cared less if the whole thing was gone. Guess I must love him, even if he is a hurricane...

Not long after our little incident, we left, because quite frankly; Phil and I were spent.

We found a Quik Trip on the way back, which resulted in me reaffirming my love for frozen juice and hiking my "souvenir" spending to $1.34 for the day (must add souvenir penny from earlier). I think I'm gonna need one of those frozen juices every night...

Tomorrow, we're going to chill...

Lisa

Vacationing Close To Home, Part 3...

I said I'd never do it again...

After our last "free day" adventure at The Children's Museum in Indy, I said that I would never go back on a free day. It was a zoo. But we'd already planned to visit today for "Bob's Big Day", a Bob the Builder special event, when I checked the website one more time last night and exclaimed, "Oh, No!" when I read that the first 1,300 visitors would gain free admission! I am sure I am probably the only person in the world who is disappointed when I find out I can do something for free, right?

Well, as it turned out, we arrived a little before 9:00am and found that we were able to secure a great parking spot and the first place in line for non-members of the museum (technically, there were two other families ahead of us, but museum staff accidentally let them in with the members... oops...)

I found out later (while I was chatting with the Bob the Builder event coordinator and nursing Miah at the Bob the Builder meet and greet, literally feet from Bob... in a roped off area... because, hey... Miah was eating lunch there before Bob arrived and they told me I didn't have to move...) that there had been over 17,000 people in the building for the MLK Day event! No wonder I was claustrophobic! Today was much better, because we were actually able to enjoy the exhibits without being crushed on every side!

Even on a day without a special exhibit, it is impossible to explore everything at The Children's Museum. There is probably an annual pass in our near future... We did manage to take in a lot of the Bob the Builder stuff. I loved that it was so interactive. The kids made tool boxes, participated in a story, worked together to build with huge Legos, made newspaper planting projects that I need to work on and then get out in the yard, and met Bob, himself! Grace and Ian also won tool sets to put in their new tool boxes! Every family was only allowed one picture with Bob, so Ian is blinking:

What an incredible day!

Of course, we also explored other areas of the museum, where the kids came face to face with a dinosaur and then dressed up like dinosaurs, too... where they explored science through water tables and mirror mazes... where they climbed through tree houses and listened to stories... and where we all just generally had fun together!

After the museum, Phil did some exploring of his own of the train variety, while the rest of us listened to Adventures in Odyssey and enjoyed the ride. We ended up at Cicis for dinner, where we all ate too much (my breadstick count is too embarrassing to post) and then headed home exhausted but with smiles on our faces!

Thus ends our trication (Seth even told an employee at the museum that we were on a trication, and she made a pretty good guess about what that meant)! Check in later in the summer for more wild family adventures!

Lisa

Mystery Trip, Day 4...

Happy 12th anniversary to us!

... Started the day with a fine breakfast at Holiday Inn Express. Met a nice old guy who commented on our nice family and asked if we had all girls... Uh... time for haircuts, maybe?

Went swimming... Underwater pics are fun:

Headed to Iowa City where we ate lunch at the Pizza Ranch, which was not as good as the one in Pella, but yummy, nonetheless. Then went over to the Iowa Children's Museum and played for several hours:

Grocery Shoppin' (Ian bought almost all of the fruit!)

Those are some scary teeth!

Caleb could have raced for hours... Go yellow striped car!

Thomas!!!

Driving the Tractor...

Gone Fishin'

Worn out at the end of the day!

Drove to Peru, Illinois (how ironic) and stopped for dinner at Culvers (for me) and Wendy's for everybody else).

Kids are sleepin'... I am tired and ready to make the trek home tomorrow!

Lisa