St. Louis City Museum

Here's some of our trip to City Museum in St. Louis, MO. I highly recommend it if you have child or if you are young at heart! Enjoy!

Cool Slideshows!

Little Cabin in the Woods

We are back from our weekend with our Bible Fellowship Class (aka Sunday School). The colors of autumn were spectacular! See for yourself....
We all had potluck dinner together Saturday night and again for breakfast at the lodge. The food was out of this world! We have some outstanding cooks in our class, that's for sure. Each family stayed in their own rented cabins. Each cabin had 1 bedroom with a sleeper sofa in the living area. They all had gas log fireplaces, which were converted during renovations a couple of years ago. My DS/9 kept asking where the T.V. was...there wasn't one (on purpose!). If we stay there again, in the future, I will take a radio. There is such a thing as too quiet.

Of course, there was the obligatory "Snipe Hunt" for the uninitiated children. DS/9 was in bed before that took place though. This year's snipe looked uncannily like a mop head!

Go, Cardinals!

We took a mini-vacation to St. Louis and today we saw the Cardinals win at the New Busch Stadium! We arrrived this past Friday. We've visited the City Museum, The Arch, Busch Stadium, rode the Metro, and ate at Ozzie Smith's Restaurant. At Ozzie's, we met one of the few living "Munchkins" from the Wizard of Oz. Mickey Carroll was the Munckin that led the others, with a fiddle, and told Dorothy to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." (He's the 2nd from the left)









Tomorrow we will visit the St. Louis Science Center. So far, it's been a great trip and a great Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, honey!

You can see more pics of our trip here.

Mini Vacation to Chattanooga

Watch Out for the Shark!


DH, DS/8 and I flew to Chattanooga, TN, on Wednesday and returned Thursday. We visited the Tennessee Aquarium, the world's largest freshwater aquarium, and Ruby Falls, America's highest underground waterfall. The weather was great and it wasn't humid like it is in Memphis.

On Wednesday, at the aquarium, we were able to touch stingrays, sharks, and sturgeons. My DS/8 loved it! There was an entire exhibit of seahorses, too. We spent several hours at the aquarium which is in two buildings. One is the Ocean journey and the other is the River journey. At the top of the Ocean Journey Building is the Butterfly Tropical Garden. It was breathtaking.
Many species of butterflies were everywhere.
Visiting the Tennessee Aquarium website before our trip made it very helpful to identify the fish, sharks and seahorses. I highly recommend taking the time to go through each page, of the interactive portion, if you are taking school-age children. It made it more interesting to my son and me.

Following the aquarium visit, we walked up to the BluffView Art District and saw the large-scale outdoor sculptures along the way. After passing the exhibits, we were able to walk across Walnut Street Bridge, for pedestrians, that crossed over the Tennessee River to North Shore.
Walnut Street Bridge
(The red, black & white thing around DS/8's neck is his souvenir stuffed snake!

On the bridge we had a great view of the skyline and Coolidge Park. Before walking back over the bridge, we stopped in Mudpie Coffeehouse and had some coffee. Later, we ate dinner at Big River Grille (located 1/2 block from the aquarium). After dinner, we caught the free shuttle by to the hotel to watch the finale of American Idol.

On Thursday, we had breakfast at City Cafe Diner, then set out for the trip to see Ruby Falls. We had a great view of the town of Chattanooga from Lookout Mountain following our tour of Ruby Falls. Ruby Falls also has a lesson plan (in case you homeschool or just for fun.) While driving back down the mountain, we stopped in a roadside shop that had handmade quilts.
What eye candy!!!! This quilt featured ants eating a picnic lunch.
Picnic Quilt

All in all, we had a great trip. If we visit again, I'd like to see more of the Art District.