St. Louis for the day

Sometimes our little weekend trips don’t go exactly as planned, but sometimes they work just right.  This one worked.  It was just a day trip to St. Louis, but it was so fun.  St. Louis is about 3 hours away.  We left in the morning and got in around noon.  We went straight to Sweetie Pies for lunch and enjoyed some great fried chicken.  I’m not normally a big fried chicken person, but I’m sure glad I got it.  So good!    

The science center in St. Louis is free so we headed there next.  Jane and Peter both loved the dinosaur exhibit.  It’s fun to see Peter get excited about things like that now.

Just a couple of perfect little Lego stations in a random side hallway.

The Cardinals game was at 4:00 (or so we thought).  When we got back in the car, the kids crashed in minutes.  We parked near the stadium and I stayed with the napping kids while Chris went and found some tickets.  He came back with awesome tickets because the game had actually started at 3:00.  We woke up the kids and headed over.  It was hot and humid that day.  In fact, we had questioned whether or not to go since the forecast was 88 degrees with 60% chance of thundershowers at game time.  Our seats were ground level under the first terrace, though.  So it was perfect.  We weren’t even there that long before the rain came suddenly and just poured down.  We were comfortably sheltered while we watched the panicked mass evacuation to the under covered areas.  In true mid-western fashion, though, the rain let up after about 10 minutes and the game was back on.    

After the game it was still sticky hot, so when we walked past a waterfall fountain with kids playing and swimming in it, we couldn’t resist getting our feet wet.  It was one of the coolest downtown fountain play areas I have ever seen with water cascading down steps of different levels all the way to a pool of about two feet.  Jane and Peter climbed around on the steps and I tried to take pictures.  It was refreshing and just what the kids needed.  

This is Peter being very upset that I won't let him jump into the deep part.

Our final stop was across the river on the Illinois side for a good view of the Arch.  The kids did awesome but they were pretty hammered when we finally stopped for dinner at 9:00 Indianapolis time.  We got home after 1 AM.  It was a long day, but so much fun!

 I think she's giving the statue a wet willie.  She kept calling the statue grandpa, so I guess you better watch out next time we see you, Dad.

The Month of May

In May, I got my new camera; a Nikon D7200.  Basically, the same camera, just two versions newer.  So I spent lots of time practicing and getting used to the little differences.   That just really means more pictures of Jane and Peter than usual.  I love the camera.  It has a big beautiful screen on the back, I think it focuses better (which was my main reason for wanting to upgrade), and I think it performs better at a higher ISO than my old D7000.  I also really love the WiFi feature that allows me to send photos right to my phone so I can put a few on Instagram.   Not all of these pictures with my new camera, but I think most of them are.  

Here is our picnic dinner at Sodalis.  The kids loved it, but were too distracted to sit on the blanket and eat anything.  All they really want to do is go down to the dock and throw rocks in.

Peter, just playing with his toys on my leg while I play with my new one.

Chris ran the Indy Mini Marathon in May.   It's the largest half-marathon in the country and even circles around the Indy 500 speedway.  It was a really fun event and Jane and I had fun decorating signs in anticipation of it.  Chris really enjoyed this one.  It even got him thinking about marathons again. 

By the end of May, it was summer time.  We were getting weather in the 80s and that called for some pool time.  We picked up a cheap backyard kiddy pool and some popsicles to go with it.  I was hoping Peter would just take bites of mine, but that doesn't work with him.  If he can't feed himself, he won't eat it at all.  That's just a general Peter rule.  He'll just throw a rotten tantrum if he doesn't get to hold it himself.  Stinker.  It's nice when I can just throw these sticky kids in the pool to wash them off, though.  Jane has been asking for "poksicles" ever since.
Peter spent most of his pool time throwing rocks in the pool while Jane found a spider on the cement and proceeded to dump bucket after bucket of water on it's lifeless body, all the while singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

 Chocolate Beard.