The Best For Last

It is my last post from St. Louis! The very best thing about St. Louis is....

Our Friends!

Hannah, Whitney and Mia all made great friends and we will miss them all! I am sure they will all keep in touch in some way or another!

My good friends from the gym have been so amazing! They have always treated us like family and we were all lucky to have them in our lives!

Now for My Girls! I have made lifelong friends and I am still not sure how I will survive without them. However... I know that I will never be without them. This is the amazing thing about them all. We will still find ways to get together and share all the things that our lives have in store for us. They have been a support system and a family to me here. They threw me birthday parties, baby showers, attended baptisms and were at every important function! I am eternally grateful to them and the things that they taught me. Missing them just does not cover it!!

I have to send special love to the best friend in the whole entire world... you never let me down, you uplifted me when I needed it and you were the big sister/ auntie to my children. Whenever they needed a "special friend" You were thier go to girl. Always first on the list to be invited to birthday parties and the life lessons that you taught were priceless! You will always be the first I call when the important things go down!

I Love and will miss you all!!!

Running out of time!

There are really awesome things to do here. So To make this shorter... because I am moving in 3 days (AARRGHH)! I am going to pimp out the rest of St. Louis family destinations here. My favorite and final things that we will miss about St. Louis will come later.

So the Magic House, we love it! The three story slide, the play city, the water works area, the full body "pinpression", little Rock climbing wall, and of course the magnetic ball that makes your hair stand on end. It is really the go to activity for a St. Louis family. Plus it is free at least once a month (once a week in the summer).



The St Louis Zoo... Best zoo in the nation! So great.. iti s always free and it's fabulous! My favorites are the penguins, Rhinos, Hippos, and Elephants. The primates smell and amphibians are creepy... but still cool.





Also in Forrest Park (So much there alone... can't go into it all)... is the Science Center. It is wicked cool. It has so many experiments that you can try and learn from, Dinosaur exibhits, lifesize hamster wheel, it is incredible. A must see if you ever make it... plus it is free too!



Grant's Farm. A free good time! Shuttle around the huge property and see the cage free animals, finish up with a free beer (It's owned by Anhieser-Busch of course, this is St. Louis)! The Clydesdale horses are magnificent. The harmonica playing and painting elephant isn't too bad. The Bald Eagles are majestic and goat feeding is pretty great too. Also on the property is a Ulysses S. Grant museum.



Free concerts under the Arch... So much fun! This one was a Lifehouse/ Goo Goo Dolls concert with my amazing friends.









And we cannot forget the Gateway Arch. It is really cool to see. Located right on the mighty Mississippi. It is an amazing sight to see. We actually rode up to the top this last week and the view was awesome! Here are a few shots from/ at the top.



So that is my brief love fest of St. Louis. A wonderful town that we had the privilege to live in for the last five years. We will miss it!

Celebrate!

June is a crazy month for us... always has been and always will be, I predict. There are 6 family birthdays, Father's Day and add that graduations and many weddings are held during the month... equals CRAZY!

This year alone... Phil (the coolest bro ever), Neil (the best neo-con bro-in-law a girl could have), Leigh (nicest most wonderful little sister ever) and Richard all graduated.

Jen Higbee (Sweetest sis in-law ever) had a birthday on the 6th, Allison (the most fun littlest sis ever) turned 17 on the 7th, Tia (my newlywed best friend/ little sister) is having her 22 birthday- Today, Phil (Again, one awesome kid) turns 27 (!?!) on the 22 and Abby and I share a birthday on the 25th. CRAZY!

I did want to send some Father's Day Love to the great Fathers in my life.

Grandpa Ed... We love you. It has been a rough year and we wish love and sympathy. You are so much fun and we are so glad that you are our Grandpa!

Grandpa Bill... We think you are an amazing man. You have done such a wonderful job raising your children. I am especially grateful for the job you did raising my husband. He is hard working and very determined... which attributes are clearly a credit to your hard work and determination. Thank you.

Grandpa Craig... Your charity never fails. You helped me become a strong woman and mother. Thank you for all that you have done for me and my entire family. We love you.

And Finally... Richard, What do I say? You do it all. I really am not a lazy person... but compared to you, I am a slug! Thank you for all you do for our family, day in and day out you work so hard to make our lives better. You are a wonderful leader to our family and I am forever grateful for all you do.

Thank you and Happy Graduation/ Birthday/ Father's Day to all!

A Few More...

St. Louis has so many fun activities for families!

Here is an excurtion to the Butterfly House. It is really fun to go and see all the different types of butterflies. They are gorgeous. The girls all tried to sit very still so that the butterflies would land on them.... and it paid off... a black and white variety landed right on Whitney's knee!


Jackson thought it was AMAZING! He would chase after the butterflies... which meant that I chased after him. Here he is sitting in the butterfly chair. He didn't like holding still for the photo.

We also went to the really beautiful Missouri Botanical Garden with Mia's school class. It was pretty awesome! Besides the gorgeous plant and flowers they have some wicked cool sculptures that the kids can climb on and in. Here is one of the kid's favorites (I love that they all have to climb into the nose cavity). The other photo is Mia peeking out through the teeth.

Next is a St. Louis classic. Ted Drewes frozen custard... Yum! It is always packed and always good. We went back last week and I just wish I would have ordered extra "Teddad's" the famous frozen custard sandwiched between two of Dad's Famous scotch Oatmeal Cookies (another St. Louis staple). It is pretty sad that we went more for the frozen custard than the butterfly house and the botanical garden.... but it is so worth it!

Last minute crunch

We are down to our last week here in St. Louis. It is going to be hard to leave all the great things that St. Louis has to offer. But thanks to a visit from my little sister, I had the motivation and the wonderful opportunity to go see all the things that make St. Louis great.

So I plan on posting quite a bit as we bid farewell to and highlight the city that we have called home for the last five years.

One of the first things on our "to do" list was to go watch the St. Louis Cardinals. There are other major league teams (Blues, Rams) here... but it isn't their season and the Cards are the best ticket in town! So I called an amazing woman that happens to be a good friend that works at the Card stadium... this friend also happened to teach gymnastics with me while she also found time to be a principal at a private elementary school (She is AMAZING!). A BIG thanks goes out to her! She was able to not only get us tickets last minute, but got us crazy good seats that included an all you can eat buffet and free drinks. Can you imagine? It was AWESOME! The only thing that would have made it better would have been a Cardinal Win. Unfortunately, we lost... but it was a fabulous game anyway!

This photo was taken from the Cardinal Baseball field last year when the girls and I performed with the Team Central Gym before a game. You can see the Arch and it was such a rush to be on the baseball field. We were very blessed to get to participate in such amazing activities while we lived here.

We will always have found memories of visiting Cardinal stadium and watch the greatest major league baseball teams ever!

GO CARDS!

Progress!.... Kinda

So here is a little update on our home building. In this new photo... the roof is on... which is great because all the excess rain that we have had this season has been setting things back... and as of today all the windows have been put in and most of the shingles are on.

So I guess there is that!

The kids and I will be in Idaho visiting for the month of July and then we will join Rich in Clinton in August. It looks as though we will be homeless for a month or two (we hope not much longer than that...) and then we hope to be moved into our home in the early Fall.

Human Pinata

It was a boring Summer afternoon and Richard was bored and came up with a game of... let's string the kids up in a tree in a very dangerous, irresponsible way. Now... before anyone calls social services on us... no one was hurt and it was FUN! So that makes it okay... right?!

Goodbye, Parkwood Elementary

We have been a busy family as of late. So I will start with the closing of another year of school. Hannah just finished the fifth grade, Whitney just finished the second grade and Mia just finished Kindergarten. It was an exciting year and it went very smoothly. It is bittersweet to end the year because we will be leaving the school and the teachers that we love so much at Parkwood Elementary!

So this is a little tribute to the teachers we love so much!

Mia says... I will miss Mrs. Mesnier because she taught me so much like math, calendar, and she was really nice!

I will miss Ms. Finder because she helped me with reading and she let me have fun. They were both beautiful!

I say that I will miss them both. They taught Mia so much responsibility and were able to work well with her strong personality. We will all especially miss Ms. Finder because she taught all three girls and devoted extra time and effort to the Woodlands and we consider ourselves blessed for it.

Whitney says... I will miss Ms. Barnholtz because she is the best teacher ever. She is really nice. She does lots of cool projects and participated in Locks of Love with me and helps me with lots of school stuff.

Hannah had Mrs. Kirksey and then she was put on bed rest and then Hannah had Ms. Weiss until Mrs. Kirksey came back from Maternity leave. She liked both teachers very much. She also loved the chance to work with all of the fifth grade teachers since they went to a different teacher for each subject, thus getting them used to having many different teachers during middle school. (AAGGHH!!!) Although I am not used to that idea yet!

We had lots of fun this year and did many fun things... Here are a few photos from recent end of the year activities....