St. Louis Adventures Part II

Day two of our visit to St. Louis was jam packed with fun. We spent the morning at the Zoo, which was holding a special birthday celebration for Raja the elephant. Then we went ice skating in the afternoon. Carol and I watched, while everyone else skated. None of us broke any bones, so this was a successful skating outing! We also had fun playing Life several times during the visit, and it's now Alex's favorite board game.

Shaking hands with Lila before heading out for the day.

A family of happy otters!

Hippo roar!

The waterfalls were a bit frozen.

Birthday presents (boxes full of popcorn and hay) for Raja.

Practicing his seal skills.

Just a few monkeys hanging out.

Posing with Maria.

A foursome of skaters.

Skating on his own.

Saying goodbye to Aunt Carol.

Having fun, as always, with Anna.

Had to get Uncle Mark in here somehow.

Cousin high five!

St. Louis Adventures Part I

After Christmas, Alex and I spent several days in St. Louis, hanging out with family and exploring some of the fun the city has to offer. Alex is already planning his next trip back!

First up, a visit to the Arch.

Riding to the top in the evelvator pod.

Aunt Sue pointing out the sights.

630 feet high at the top!

We were there at a great time to get a picture of the Arch's shadow over the city.

We spent some time in the Lewis and Clark museum afterwards.

Making arches with Maria.

We had a fun lunch at Crown Candy.

We spent the afternoon at the City Museum. Alex wants to go back and spend a whole day there  it was super fun!

This is just part of the outdoor structure.

Climbing through this spiral tunnel up to the second floor.

More exploration.

At the top, waiting to go down the 10 story slide.

A slightly smaller slide.

Alex and Maria are up there somewhere.

Slides are everywhere at the museum.

Celebrating Christmas with Aunt Carol.

A creation with the Lego candies from Crown Candy.

Holiday Roundup Part III

We spent Christmas with part of my family and kept up with many of our traditions, including ravioli for Christmas dinner, lots of card games, and the youngest family member serving as the "present monkey," i.e. the present passer outer.

Cards with the cousins.

Merry Christmas!

Wrapping cape and a new Vikings shirt.

Driving the remote control truck under a Forrest bridge.

The cousins' table for Christmas dinner.

Holiday Roundup Part II

We got a new Christmas tree this year. Still small, but much larger than the table top one we had before. It was great to pull out the box of ornaments out of storage and decorate with Alex like I used to do with my Mom.

For some unknown reason, Alex decided to salute the finishing of the tree.

Playing with fake snow at after school with Ella and other friends.

His class's mittens for the Hands Around the World display in the school lobby. (Alex's is the purple one, fourth from the left.)

Alex was very excited to get antlers and a red nose from the Rudolph Ramble.

Asking Santa for the Lego Death Star.

The snowflake station at the YMCA.

The staffer running the snowflake table had some serious scissor-wielding skills, and she made initial snowflakes for the kids.

Decorating this year's gingerbread house.

Holiday Roundup Part I

In the spirit of catching up, I'm going to try to cover all the recent holidays and festivities in a few posts.

First up was the very rare occurrence of Hanukkah falling on Thanksgiving. We always start our Hanukkah celebrations at Thanksgiving because that's when we're together with Dave's family, but this year the calendar cooperated as well.

We had much to be thankful for this year, as the tornado that swept through central Illinois went right by Mindy and Shawn's house, but fortunately they did not sustain much damage and they are all safe.

This guard rail stuck in a tree is about 25 feet from their house.

It wouldn't be Hanukkah without a picture of the boys and the dinosaur menorah.

The lucky boy got some great presents.

Super excited about Phineas and Ferb!