Fourth of July Family Fun

After we had been in St. Louis for a few weeks, we were definitely ready to see some familiar faces, so it was perfect timing when Grandma, Grandpa, and Great- Grandma Dot all came for a visit.

It was the week of the Fourth of July so there were lots of fun activities for us to enjoy.  We started off the week with a walk to the boys’ new elementary school to show everyone where the boys would be going in the fall and also to investigate the playground.  The walk ended up being a little long for everyone because we hadn’t yet learned the short cut through our neighbor’s yard that cuts about a half a mile off the trip, but we still had a good time exploring the new neighborhood.

A few days later it was actually the Fourth of July and we had seen signs for a neighborhood parade.  We decided to put on our Fourth of July best, decorate the kids’ bikes, and head on down.  It was a lot of fun.  There were a bunch of people congregating in the parking lot of the neighborhood pool.  There were countless kids’ bikes, scooters, wagons, etc. all decked out for the occasion.  Once everyone had arrived, the kids and any adults who wanted to all set out on the parade where we just walked a short ways down the street and back up the sidewalk around the neighborhood lake.  The boys’ favorite part was definitely the bubbles streaming from the lead vehicle in the parade.  The boys even got hats and popsicles at the end of a successful parade.  It was a great welcome to the neighborhood!

(Grandma and Grandpa pose with the boys during the parade.)

(a big parade)

(a patriotic Benjamin)

(a patriotic Evan)

(Our little family poses.)

We finished out the day with a trip to Bluebird Park which was just a few miles down the road where we could watch some evening fireworks.  They had an 80’s cover band blasting away while we waited for the sun to set.  While I wished they would turn down their music just a little bit at times (yes, I’m that grumpy old person.)  We all had a great time playing on the playground and sitting in the grass.  Once the fireworks started it turned out to be a great fireworks show.  We all definitely enjoyed watching all the lights, and Grandpa got to try his hand at firework photography!  

(The boys watch the band before the fireworks start.)

(a little cuddling)

(the band)

(the beautiful fireworks)

(Fireworks are loud!)

What’s more American than a baseball game on Fourth of July weekend?  We decided that Fourth of July was the perfect weekend to check out our first St. Louis Cardinals game.  While it would be a little warm, we tried our hardest to reserve seats in the shade so we could all be a little cooler.  Turns our our legs were in the sun for most of the game, but at least our top halves were nicely shaded.  Grandma had a great time teaching the boys how to keep score, and Evan’s own invented scoring method kept him busy for at least half of the game.  I was amazed that the game actually held their interest for basically the whole time with only a little Benny whining that he wanted to go home towards the end.  Fortunately, the Cardinals one, and we finished out the game with some Dippin’ Dots in fancy souvenir baseball caps.  

(the Cardinals field)

(a group shot before the game)

(Mom and I pose as we watch the Cardinals.)

(baseball boys)

(new Cardinal fans)

It is always so nice having family come to visit, and we were just at the point in our move that we really needed it.  We had a fabulous time checking out the local pizza and Italian places, touring Ian’s new workplace at Monsanto, shopping at one of the two outlet malls in Chesterfield, and even heading down for a drive through of Lone Elk Park.  There we did indeed see several elk who didn’t look that lonely, some raccoons, but no bison who were apparently hiding that day.  And what trip to St. Louis is complete without a chance to sample frozen custard.  We checked out Fritz’s and so far, their peanut butter sundae has been my favorite custard in town!  

(one of the Lone Elk in the park)

(Ok, so they weren't always lonely.)

(So far, in my opinion the best frozen custard in St. Louis.)

Looking forward to the next family visit!!

A True Birthday Celebration

After we were happily moved in to our new place with lots and lots of boxes to unload it was time to truly celebrate Evan’s birthday in style.  We had been rushing around so much that we never had a chance to give Evan his birthday day where he got to pick whatever he wanted to do.  So, the first weekend that we were in our new house we gave him that chance.

The day started off with a trip to Strange Donuts, a well-known donut place in town.  The boys went traditional and got their usual sprinkle and chocolate long john selections while Ian and I tried stranger selections.  Ian tried the peach sweet tea option while I sampled the St. Louis favorite gooey butter cake option.  While they were good, we still haven’t found a place that stacks up to Rise.  

(Our delicious donuts)

After our sweet breakfast Evan wanted to go to his favorite place it town, City Museum.  We had already checked it out when we visited the previous summer, and it was the perfect spot for our little ninja to celebrate.  This time we got full rooftop access so we had even more to explore.  While our birthday boy is still a little scared of heights and wouldn’t have anything to do with the rooftop ferris wheel, he had fun sliding down the huge rooftop slide, and as usual, we all loved climbing around all the tunnels and climbing around like monkeys.

(the boys taking a quick break from their monkeying)

(a view of the rooftop ferris wheel)

Once we had completely worn ourselves out and completely bruised our knees and elbows, it was time to get a little refreshment.  So, we headed down to the Delmar Loop, a well-known strip of restaurants and shops, and stopped at Fitz’s.  Fitz’s is a soda company that actually has a bottling machine in their restaurant.  That didn’t actually hold the boys’ interest for very long, but just watching the arcade games upstairs did the trick.  Their dad decided that they could get their ice cream floats before their dinner, although he regretted it when a pile of ice cream and soda as big as their face arrived in front of each of them.  (I had opted for the unlimited root beer refills instead.)  The boys might not have eaten much of their actual lunch, but they definitely enjoyed their ice cream, and that’s how birthdays should be!

(Evan and his completely-reasonable-sized ice cream float)

It was a great celebration for a fabulous seven year old.  He has truly grown into a wonderful little boy.  He has an amazing curiosity and passion for learning, especially for things that he is interested in.  He loves to read and can swallow up a book in one sitting pretty easily.  Evan loves to play Minecraft, build with his Legos, and create any art project or invention that he can imagine.  He takes a little while to open up with new people, but once he does, he is a fierce and loyal friend.  I know that my little deep thinker will do great things one day and I look forward to being along for the ride!  Happy  number 7, Evan!

Moving in!

After living out of the hotel for about five rainy days we were so excited when closing day actually rolled around.  We would close one day and the movers would arrive the next day.  We went down to the office of the mortgage brokers and officially signed the papers while the dog roamed under the table and the boys sat nearby and played on their Kindles.  After one final trip to Bank of America the house was ours!

We finished out that day with a little more sight seeing at local playgrounds and hanging out in the hotel room, and the next day we arrived on Windjammer Lane for a whirlwind day of moving in.  After meeting several nice neighbors the moving truck arrived, or at least the first one.  That's right, since the first movers had to put our belongings into storage, they were unloading it in several different trucks.  We were a little nervous that things might have broken in all that reloading.  We would have to wait and see!

So, the day was filled with boxes coming in and out, boys playing video games in a tucked away corner of the house, and trying to figure out where the movers should put everything that came in the doors.  At the very end of the day the movers had us look at lists to double check to see that everything had arrived.  I looked over the lists and decided that everything, except a few tiny items, had arrived.  Ian then did a quick look around and asked where our mattress was.  Oops!  Turns out they had left it at the warehouse.  Good thing he checked!  Oh, and we also noticed that the movers in Durham had kindly ripped the legs off our nice Heywood Wakefield tables in order to fit them better in their truck.  Guess they didn't notice that the legs weren't supposed to be removed from those tables!  Oh well, the moving company assured us we could file a claim about those ones.

As we started to settle in on moving day and in the days that followed, one great thing that happened was the arrival of baked goods on our doorstep.  It was amazing-kind neighbors just kept dropping by to introduce themselves and bring us a treat.  I think we got about eight different goodies from eight different wonderful neighbors.  Then, we began to realize what a great house and little street we had just lucked into.

The movers left us with a new house and a pile of new boxes.  We had taken the first tiny step in making this place a home.

(hanging out on the sofa taking a quick break on move in day)

(Let the unpacking begin!)

(These neighbors know just what to do to make you feel welcome!)

Homeless

So, we arrived at the Homestead Suites near Monsanto's Chesterfield location where Ian would be working.  It would be our home away from home for the next five days until we closed on our house. The next day, Ian had to go to work, so the boys and I were on our own.  Unfortunately, it was raining and we had the Ripster with us.  If we left him in the hotel, he would bark continuously and annoy the hotel guests, so he had to come with us wherever we went.  Since it was raining, that really left Petco as our only option for an outing.  So, we went to Petco to replace Ripple's dog bowls that we left on the sidewalk next to McDonalds on our drive down.  Then, we watched a movie and hung out in the hotel room.

Finally, when Ian got off of work, our dear friends the Odegaard family rescued us from our hotel room.  They were friends of ours when we lived in Durham.  They moved to St. Louis with Monsanto several years before us, and we were so glad that we had some familiar faces waiting for us.  We headed over to their place for a little pizza and relaxation.  It was so nice to get out of the hotel and into a house with boxes and see some friends.  The kiddos immediately hit it off again and began playing in the basement.  Ripple behaved relatively well and only managed to jump at the girls and scare them once.

Over the weekend when Ian could hang out with us the weather cleared up and we managed to get out and explore our new city a while.  Over the weekend we checked out Chesterfield park where we climbed all over a huge statue of a giant reaching out of the ground.  Turns out giants make great slides.   After the park we headed into town to get a taste of St. Louis's famous frozen custard at Ted Drewes.  We weren't blown away by it, but who can pass up frozen custard?

That evening our dear friends again rescued us, and we met the Odegaard family again, this time at Des Peres Park.  We had a great picnic dinner.  Mary and I spent some time walking around the lake with Naomi in the stroller and Ripple on the leash while Ian and Matt and the rest of the kiddos all enjoyed fishing and otherwise playing around the shore of the lake.

That weekend we also decided to check out a park right around the corner from our hotel and Ian's work-Faust Park.  We drove up, and turns out there was a food truck rodeo going on at the exact same time!  We decided it was a good omen and decided to check it all out.  While the food truck event turned out not to be all that exciting, the park was great.  The playground was lots of fun-the boys enjoyed playing on the play structures while the dog enjoyed barking at all the kiddos that passed by.  Ian took the boys to ride the old fashioned carousel there, and after that I took them in the beautiful butterfly pavilion.  The boys were determined to have the butterflies land on them, so we spent a while sitting very still and a few made their approach and briefly landed on us.

(the goobers and I in the butterfly house)

(posing on a pony)

(happy boy)

One of our biggest tasks that weekend was the go check out our new house.  This would also be the first time that the boys would see it.  We pulled up to the house at the designated time and the previous home owners were still busily packing up with a U-Haul and piles of their belongings in the garage.  I felt bad because they still had so much work to do, but we still had to do our walk through.  So, we wandered around showing the kids all of the sights.  They were excited to wander around and check everything out.  We were all enjoying ourselves when we walked in the basement and saw water pouring from the ceiling!  I panicked!  Here we were a day away from closing and the ceiling was leaking!  However, we were able to flag down the owners, they called their handyman, and they determined that they simply hadn't capped the washing machine pipes.  It was a simple fix and we were very relieved.  Once we had seen the house again we were so excited to move in!

Life is a Highway

So, we said goodbye to 103 Densbury Ct. and the adventure had really begun.

I arrived at our hotel room close to midnight.  Everyone else was asleep, or at least trying to asleep. Ian was frustrated because they had promised him a no smoking room and by the way it smelled, that was definitely not the case.  However, we were only staying there for a few hours before we woke up early for the drive so it wasn't that big of a deal.

I got ready for bed and hopped in.  My mind was spinning, so I had some trouble going to sleep. Then, after a few hours of fitful tossing and turning I woke up to the dog sitting up from his usual position at our feet absolutely shaking.  Poor dog!  I assumed that he was freezing cold, and indeed, the room was very chilly so I went over to the air conditioner and cranked it warmer.  I headed back to bed and while I was rubbing the dog trying to get the shaking to stop I started smelling smoke. Apparently, turning up the temperature so much had cranked on the heat and it smelled like something was about to catch fire.  So, I ran back over and just turned it off...awesome!

Then as all this was going on, Ian and I noticed that the smoke alarm was doing it's fabulously annoying "low battery" beep.  Great!  So, I spent the rest of the night laying there worrying about the dog and that the room would catch fire and it wouldn't be caught because the smoke detector was broken.  That definitely made for one of the worst night's sleep that I've ever had.  (Oh, and it turns out the dog wasn't cold.  Weeks later when I was having my home alarm installed, Rip started doing the same shaking.  Turns out he didn't like the beeps of the alarm, like the beeps of the smoke alarm.  Who knew?!)

Fortunately, I didn't have to be in that room for long.  Our alarms were set for 5am, and we packed up, picked up some tired sleeping kiddos, and dumped everyone and everything in the car for our journey.  We were off.  The 14 hour drive to St. Louis was about as uneventful as a 14 hour drive can be.  We travelled through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and finally, into Missouri!  The kids patiently played video games, read books, and watched movies the whole time.  They've really gotten to be pretty good travelers.  Ripple was sleeping for the most part, but whenever we stopped and one of the adults took the kids to the restroom, Ripple got very concerned.  He was so stressed about the pack getting separated.  Poor dog!

While we were journeying Ian entertained us by writing fabulous little Oregon Trail updates and posting them to Facebook.  We both had always loved playing that game in elementary school, so we thought it was appropriate as we were on our journey.  We went "hunting" for McNuggets, forded the mighty Mississippi, and poor Ripple even "got cholera".   Hey, it kept us busy.

After a long day in the car, we finally passed by the St. Louis arch and arrived safely at the Homewood Suites-Chesterfield which would be our home for the next few days.  We had arrived...now what was going to happen?

(heading out from the hotel on the morning of our drive-If you look carefully you can see our moving truck with all of our possessions conveniently parked in the Waffle House across the street.)

(Moving can be tiring!)

Saying Goodbye, Why is it Sad?

After Evan's school let out for the year, we had about a week before we headed out for St. Louis.  So, that week we had a lot of sad goodbyes to make.  It had been a hard month, but I think that week was definitely the hardest part.  We ended up seeing lots of good friends, which was great, but at the end of those outings we always had to say goodbye which was not fun.

Our great friends and neighbors, the O'Malleys were even leaving early so they wouldn't be there when the actual moving truck was pulling out.  There were a few tears when we all met for one more wine night, but we planned to meet at the beach in about a month, so we tried to think of it not like goodbye, but see you later!

There was a particularly hard evening when we were having one last dinner at the South's house.  We ate dinner and enjoyed each other's company one more time.  As always, the kids were having a great time playing, and it was hard to watch them knowing that they would have to leave their good friends.  They also gave us some personalized stationary so the kids could write each other letters from afar and a really sweet book filled with pictures of all the great times the kids have had together.  When we were leaving Nathan and Evan were out in the grass giving each other their secret handshake one more time.  I lost it at that point, and I'm glad it was dark on the way home so the kids didn't see how upset I was.

(one last sweet playdate)

The week continued with more goodbyes.  Then, that Monday the movers arrived.  It's an odd thing when people arrive to pack up your whole house.  On one hand, you're so glad that you don't have to do all that work yourself.  But on the other hand, it's hard to see people just throwing all your treasured possessions in boxes.  Turns out, these particular packers weren't very good and ended up damaging quite a few of our belongings, but we didn't know it in all the chaos of packing up.

The packers packed for two days and left us with a house full of boxes.  The next day, the moving truck arrived to load everything.  Turns out that moving day was also Evan's birthday, poor kid.  We had already celebrated with a party for both of them, and we had promised him that he got his family "birthday day" of fun once we got to St. Louis, but we still wanted to make the official day fun for him.  He ended up spending most of the day playing video games with Ben in a closet while the movers were there, which he really didn't mind.  That evening, the movers were gone and the house was completely empty.  We ended up bringing his choice, Moe's back to the empty house and eating one last meal where the kitchen table used to be on the floor!  We had also picked up some cupcakes from one of our favorites, Smallcakes, and sang to Evan and had him blow out his candle.  Even though we were moving, he still got to open his presents and he was absolutely thrilled with his new Kindle that he could use on the long drive the next day.

After the birthday celebration, the kids, Ian, and the dog got in the car to head to the hotel and get some sleep.  I hung around because I wanted to make sure to get everything clean for the new owners.  I think I also just wanted a few minutes of peace and quiet to say goodbye to the house.  My neighbors Kurt and Jill were also nice enough to hang around and help me with some of the cleaning.  Once everyone else told me that it was clean enough, I did one last walk through the house.  I distinctly remember walking through each room remembering some of the great memories there, and then turning off the light.  Of course, I was a wreck, but I had some great friends there to help me out.  It had been a great house.  It was filled with so many memories and so much love that of course we were sad to leave.  But that was the hardest part, and I knew that now the exciting and fun (?) part of the adventure was starting.

The next day, after one of the worst nights in a hotel ever, we would take off for a whole new chapter in our lives, the next chapter, in St. Louis!

(all our possessions get loaded in the truck)

(Boy, we have a lot of stuff!)

(The boys play their video games while everyone packs...and the poor dog looks on anxiously.)

(birthday dinner)

(blowing out the big #7 candle)

(Birthdays are sweet no matter what!)

(The truck drives away...see you in St Louis!)

*Oh, and did anyone else catch the Muppets reference in the title.  That line is from a Kermit the Frog song, I think it's called Saying Goodbye.  I remember singing it with my friend when we were moving from Denver, and it always pops back into my head at moments like this.

That Plastic Orange Raft

So, I just heard that the renovated the play area at Southpoint Mall.  It made me just a big sad to hear.  Ever since before the boys could walk we would take them to that play area, preferably in the morning before it got covered with germs.  That play spot gave us new moms a brief respite and allowed us to sit for just a few minutes while they played peacefully, and before they decided to make a run for the exit.

Anyway, Evan's little boys playgroup spent a lot of time there.  On one of the very first playdates we ever had we took some picture of the boys in this little raft that the kids could climb in and out of.  Since then, we've made a tradition of heading back occasionally and taking pics of the boys in the raft and adding in their siblings as they arrived.

Well, as we were about to move my friend Sarah and I realized our two boys were the last from that group that still lived in Durham (at least for another week).  So, one Saturday we headed to the mall for one more picture.  Evan and Edward dutifully sat in the raft and we got a shot of the two remaining boys-remembering all of their great buddies that are now all over the country.  We even added their siblings Marie and Ben in for a shot.

We then had a great lunch and enjoyed hanging out one more time.  It's amazing how big the boys are.  It truly doesn't seem like it's been that long in our lives since they were just little babies crawling around that play area, and now they were two seven year old boys that could barely fit in the raft!  I hope that we are able to stay in touch with all of those buddies no matter how far apart we are!

Oh, and one more thing...The boys had their first taste of Dippin' Dots during that outing to the mall. Evan tried a sour blue flavor while Benny tried a strawberry one.  Evan liked it, but I have never seen Benny eat a dessert like that.  Usually he can take or leave sweets, but this one he polished off!  I think he even finished off Evan's when he was done!  Yum!

I wonder if they'll bring that old, orange raft back after the playground renovation.  For the sake of current and future new Durham moms, I hope they do.

(Evan and Edward with their little siblings Marie and Ben)

(the two big boys)

(Evan and Edward front and center with all of their little buddies surrounding them)

(Yum, Dippin' Dots!)

(These are sooo good, Mom!)

(crazy little boy #1)

(crazy little boy #2)