Back to School

August had rolled around in St. Louis, and their school year starts much earlier than in Durham.  So, after a relatively short summer break, it was time to go back.  In early August we headed in to Fairway Elementary to visit and meet the boys’ teachers.  

We met Benny’s teacher first at a Kindergarten curriculum night.  Ian and I headed in one afternoon leaving the kids at home.  Ben’s teacher Mrs. Molengraft (Mrs. M) told us all about what to expect in the coming year.  She seemed like the perfect Kindergarten teacher and it made me hopeful for a great year to come.  We also ended up knowing several people in the class with our new neighbor across the street, Allie, as well as two boys from Benny’s newly formed soccer team, Carson and Aiden, were all in the class.

A few days after our Curriculum night with Mrs. M, we headed back to Fairway with the boys to actually meet their new teachers.  First, we headed down to Mrs. M’s classroom.  It was amazing how crowded it was.  I think every student who ever had Mrs. M had to head back down to say hi.  It was hard to find a chance to actually talk to her, but eventually Ben got to meet her.  He liked his teacher and classroom and was excited for the school year to start.

Then, we headed to the complete other end of the school to meet Evan’s new teacher, Mrs. Voss.  By contrast, that room was fairly empty, I guess the more experienced first grade families spaced out their visits a little more.  That means Evan got lots of quality time to meet Mrs. Voss.  Turns out she was equally nice and experienced as Mrs. M, and I left feeling very confident in where the boys would be spending their time.  

(Ben and Mrs. Molengraft)

(Evan and Mrs. Voss)

We spent the rest of early August making sure we had all of the items on the school supply lists, making sure their first day of school outfits were ready, and any other needed preparations.  Then, finally, the first day of school arrived.  The boys were nervous, but I think I was definitely more nervous than either of them.  I had to send both of my boys off on the school bus to a completely new school!  I was hoping, praying, and keeping my fingers crossed that they would have a great day.

We got everyone dressed, took some pictures out in front of the house, and then the whole family headed two houses down to the bus stop.  The bus stop turns out to be a pretty crowded place.  There were 10-15 kids all there waiting to go to school.  So, all of the parents had to crowd around them and get as many pictures as possible.  Then, before I was ready, the big yellow school bus was driving up to get them.  I hugged them both as many times as I could and waved bye as they stepped up the big stairs, met the bus driver, and found a seat.  I waved at them from their little seats as they drove away hoping that I would see smiling faces when they got back off the bus at the end of the day.  

(The new first grader and the new kindergartener pose before school.)

(the first graders at the bus stop-Charlie, Evan, and Addie)

(the kindergarteners at the bus stop-Allie and Ben-love this picture!)

(getting on the bus)

(my love!)

Then, being the nerd that I am, I hopped in the car with my two neighbors Amy and Charissa and drove to school to meet the bus.  That way, I could walk them to the door of the school and make sure that they had a good bus trip.  So, we made it there in plenty of time to see the bus arrive.  We snapped pictures of them getting off the bus, saying hi to the principal, and even posing next to their school mascot, the eagle.  Then, the two brothers walked in to the school together, and I finally had to say goodbye.

(The boys pose with the Fairway Eagle.)

(the boys and their principal Mrs. Krey)

Now, of course, I wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything productive that day.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to.  First, I went on a run with my friend Amy who had taken the day off.  Then, we cleaned up and headed down to Big Chief Roadhouse, a local restaurant, for an annual tradition, Mimosas for Moms.  What a great idea!  The restaurant and patio was crowded with moms all either enjoying their first day of freedom in several months, nervous about their kids’ first day, or both.  There, I sat with a group of moms, chatted, had a bite to eat and a mimosa, and got my mind off my little munchkins at school.  After a great time there, we all headed over to the adult pool at the neighborhood clubhouse and spent some more time talking and hanging out before it was time for school to be out.

(My neighbor Amy celebrates with the moms while the kids are at school!)

Finally, the bus rounded the corner again on Windjammer Lane.  I anxiously waited as the kids got off the school bus.  Thankfully, I was met with smiles and they said they had a great day!  Wow!  What a relief!  It was a great start to the school year and hopefully indicative of a great year.  Welcome back to school, Evan and Ben!

River Rats

Other places we have lived there have been fun hikes to go on, but until we moved to St. Louis we have never lived so close to so many great river hikes.  In Durham, we had to drive about 45 minutes to get to the Eno River, but we discovered that we only had to drive about 10 minutes to get to the Meramec River and the great hiking trails that border it.  So, before school started and then once the year had begun we decided to check out a few of those trails.  

First we headed down to Castlewood Park.  We went on a several mile hike along the river.  While we normally take the dog on these adventures, his feet were still healing to he stayed home.  Turns out that was a really good thing because parts of this hike were very steep with a very coarse gravel trail surface that the dog would have had a lot of trouble navigating.  The trail wound up to some overlooks with great views of the river and surrounding countryside and then down to the river shore where the kids were able to take off their shoes and stomp around getting completely filthy.  These trails were also built as mountain biking trails so we were passed by many bikers on our journey.

(a view of the river)

(the boys and I stop to pose)

(wow, a river!)

(climbing and adventuring)

(stuck in the mud)

Later in the year, we continued our exploration of the nearby trails and went just down the road to the Al Foster Trailhead.  This trail also bordered the Meramec River, but it was more paved and like a jogging trail than any of the hiking trails in Castlewood.  We walked this time, but we could easily go back on our bikes.  The great thing about hiking along a river is there’s usually a spot where you can head down to the river shore for a bit of fun.  The Al Foster trailhead had a great spot where we could take the boys and dog (Yes, he got to come this time.) down to the shore.  There we could skip stones and fetch sticks till our heart’s content.  There was also a great playground at the Al Foster trailhead where we could monkey around a little bit after our hike.

(the Al Foster trail)

(Ian and Rip enjoy the river.)

(skipping stones)

(celebrating the successful stone skipping)

In Wildwood, it feels like we’re really close to being out in the wilderness.  We’re really looking forward to heading out and exploring more of these great neighborhood trails!

One More Adventure

With the new school year to start imminently and both boys to be in school all day long this year, the boys and I definitely needed one more adventure.  So, we headed off to explore one of the best attractions in St. Louis, the zoo!  It’s great because the zoo is free (after you pay for parking, food, extra attractions, etc.), so you don’t spend an arm and a leg and it’s still a really great zoo.  

We toured around the whole zoo from the reptile house to the sea lion pool and had a great time.  For the first time we checked out the children’s zoo where they had snakes and guinea pigs we could pet (not together!) as well as a spray fountain we could play in and some slides and an area to play in.  

My favorite part was when we got in line to tour the new polar bear exhibit.  My previous experience with polar bear exhibit had been witnessing a polar bear sleeping in the distance in a cave or not even in his enclosure, but this polar bear was ready for her close up.  We got to the point where we could see an underwater view of her enclosure and there she was right up next to us swimming around.  I thought it was very cool.

We finished out our zoo adventure with some Dippin’ Dots ice cream and a few goofy pictures.  I’ve had some great adventures with my boys over the past 7 years and hopefully they’ll continue long past the time when they’re both in school!

(The boys meet the polar bear.)

(We said hi to the penguins.)

(A narrow escape from an attack hippo)

(riding on some frogs)

(We almost got eaten several times on this adventure!)

(Ok, so we need to work on our selfie skills, but we had a great time.)

A Happy Ninja-versary!

So, on July 27 our 13th wedding anniversary rolled around.  I will start by saying what absolutely lucky people we are to have found each other and been married for this long.    We have done some fun things on our anniversaries from surfing in Los Angeles to indoor skydiving in North Carolina.  

This year, we didn’t have as big of an adventure.  Having just moved across the country, we thought that was a big enough adventure, but we still wanted to have a little fun.  So, when the weekend rolled around we headed up to a St. Louis suburb called St. Charles and went to ninja training.  

Our whole family had really been enjoying watching a TV show called American Ninja Warrior which comes on each summer.  On the show, people compete through lots of different obstacles which require strength, dexterity, and lots of other important ninja skills. 

Since we liked that show so much, heading up to St. Charles to Kor Integrated Fitness ninja training was a perfect family outing.  Kor had all kinds of ninja obstacles to try, so they split apart the adults and kids into groups to go around and learn about all of the obstacles.  Then we all took turns trying them out.  We tried climbing the small and large warped walls, walking our hands up the devil steps, trying to jump the bar on the salmon ladder, trying to hang on the ultimate cliffhanger, running across the quintuple steps, and making our own pegboard to hang on.  It was great fun!  

We finished out the day with some open gym time where we could play on anything we wanted.  I tried several more times to get up the warped wall, and I came really close one time.  I made it across the slack line, and tried a few more of the obstacles.  Ian really wanted to try the salmon ladder and make it up the bigger warped wall.  While he didn’t quite get up the wall, he did manage to jump the salmon ladder up one rung.  Benny’s favorite was definitely the rings-that kid’s a monkey.  And Evan just leapt across the quintuple steps.  

It was a great family adventure, and while I don’t think any of us are appearing on American Ninja Warrior any time soon, we can’t wait to head back and try out more ninja obstacles!

(Evan tries the quintuple steps.)

(Evan gets a little help from our coach who actually competed on Ninja Warrior.  I think this obstacle was called the Rolling Dice.)

(Benny swings like a monkey on the rings.)

(How does he hang like this?)

(My best obstacle-the slack line)

(Ian tries out the taller warped wall.)

(My turn on the shorter warped wall.  It's harder than it looks.)

(Evan nimbly runs across the quintuple steps.)

In My Mind I'm Going to Carolina

We knew we couldn’t stay away for long, so after being in St. Louis for only about a month or so we all hopped on a plane, even the dog, and we headed out to the North Carolina beaches.  We all have such a great time on our annual beach trip so we knew we couldn’t skip it this year.  We flew in to Charlotte and the next day we drove out to beautiful Emerald Isle.

This year was a little different because we had all the dogs in tow.  That’s right, Ripple, Abby, Pepper, and Harriet had all made the trip.  While it was a bit of a hassle to have someone stay in the house with them at all times so they wouldn’t get nervous, it was so much fun to see them play on the beach. Now, Ripple decided to make this tricky on everyone so he pulled his ACL right before we went and also got several strange growths on his foot that he rubbed raw with chewing.  So, we didn’t take him down to the beach as much as we would have, but when he did go down there he had a ball immediately removing the bandages and paw protectors I had so carefully put on him, splashing in the waves, digging in the sand, and actually rubbing his face in and whole body in the fluffy sand at the top of the beach so he could be as absolutely filthy as possible.  But he did have a great time!

Now, moving on from the dogs to the people.  We had a fabulous time at the beach as usual.  We had a great little house that was only one row back from the beach and it even had it’s own private pool!  At the beach, we loved building huge sand castles, looking for shells, going on relaxing walks, and surfing in the shallows. (We didn’t go in quite as deep this year because we had to look out for sharks!)

We also had a great time playing in the pool.  The boys could have spent most of the day up there.  Evan’s been a pretty strong swimmer for some time now, but during this trip Benny turned into a fish as well.  He suddenly realized he could swim and he was darting to and fro back and forth across the pool like a pro!  We also bought them several floaties and a mask and snorkel which they loved playing with, even though the snorkels ended up mainly being blow guns for water!  

While we weren’t in the water or at the beach we still managed to have a great time!  Gramps celebrated his birthday, and the boys were introduced to the family classic, Risk.  They loved marching the armies across the board to defeat Gram, or Daddy, or Uncle Reid.  However, they wanted to play on teams because they were still just a little nervous about losing.  We also enjoyed putt-putting, puzzles, and as always, large amounts of delicious food and drink!  

For a little change of pace Ian and Gramps even went scuba diving this trip.  It was Gramps’s first time diving in the actual ocean so I knew they would have an awesome time.  It’s so nice that they can dive together.  They sailed out to a wreck and dove down to see it.  Apparently the boat ride out was a bit rocky, even Ian got sea sick which hasn’t happened as long as I’ve known him.  I’m glad I wasn’t out on that boat or I would have been miserable.  Fortunately, the boys had a great time and can’t wait to go diving again!

At the end of our trip we were lucky enough to have some special visitors.  Our friends Nathalie, Jill, Izzy, and Carolyn all came to visit us all the way from Durham.  We were so touched that they had made the effort to come all that way to see us.  They stopped by our house and we had a great time.  We played on the beach as the sunset for a little while, the kids played in the pool, and the adults had a great time chatting while they played.  It was a great evening and it was sad to see them go at the end of the night!

What a wonderful beach week!  It is always such a nice relaxing time and we all definitely needed some relaxing after our big move.  We left refreshed, with some great memories, and looking forward to doing it again next year!