St. Louis Zoo and Ikea

St. Louis, Day 1: Haircut, Walmart, Zoo and Ikea

My hair has been bothering me for weeks. Shad says it's been much longer than that. On Monday night when we got settled in our hotel, Shad went out to pick up Little Caesars and saw a Super Cuts next door, advertising an $11 cut on Tuesday mornings. That's my kind of pricing. Tuesday morning I got my hair cut while Shad entertained the kids in Walmart across the parking lot. After picking up sandwich supplies, we drove to the zoo.

[Side note here: we chose St. Louis for our spring vacation because it has 5 free or mostly free attractions: the zoo ($15 parking), botanical gardens ($12 for adults, free for kids, free parking), art museum (I think it was $15 for parking), science center ($10 parking), history museum (didn't go, so I don't know). These are free all the time, any time, for residents and non-residents.]

Inside the Herpetarium (reptile house), we saw the largest aloe plant I have ever seen! We thought of Charly and the aloe plant by her front door that Katie asked about.

Thora liked petting the turtle decoration on the railing.

The Mediterranean-style Herpetarium was gorgeous! Thora was mad that I pulled her away from the turtle for a picture.

{Thora, Dancy, Tommy, Katie, Shad, Samson}

Excited to see bamboo growing, this is what they came up with.

{Thora, Katie, Tommy}

The Herpetarium

Tommy started feeling a little overwhelmed with the heat and humidity, so we took a snack and water break on the veranda by the cranes.

{Samson and Thora}

{Dancy, Tommy, Megan, Katie}

Crane pose by cranes! Okay, I'm not certain that this is crane pose for any yoga or martial arts, but it was fun and Katie repeated the pose throughout our trip.

{Dancy, Tommy, Katie, cranes, Megan}

{Thora}

Katie talking with the cranes.

Katie named the cranes Ella and Long Neck.

Gorilla!

{Megan, Katie, Dancy, Samson, Thora}

Funny how one kid wants to pose with the gorilla and then slowly, one by one, the others want to join in until you have 10 shots on your phone with increasing numbers of people, ending in this one that you keep.

{Tommy, Katie, Shad, Thora}

Tommy with butterflies inside the butterfly cage.

Butterfly Mating #1

Butterfly Mating #2

Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird!

How Thora Eats Pringles

{Thora, Samson, Megan and Tommy, watching a hippo swim by}

The hippos provided great entertainment!

Thora loved the fish!

We ended the night by going to Ikea, which was really close to the zoo. We had never been, had heard it was an experience in and of itself, as well as having food. So we went for dinner and fun. Happy coincidence, it was Kids Eat Free day! Before dinner, we dropped Tommy and Katie off at Smaland. Dancy stayed with us because they didn't have room to take in 3 kids. She was jealous, but soon learned that the whole store is fun!

{Dancy, Samson, Thora, Shad}

We ended the night with tickles and cuddles in bed.

{Dancy, Shad, Megan, Tommy}

Shad and I always put the kids to bed, then hang out in the lobby for a while to give them time to fall asleep. On this trip with lots of walking, sun, heat, and quick car naps, they were all so exhausted at bed time, they slept really soundly, for the most part!

Easter and Diaz Farms

Because we wanted to visit Rosie Atkins in Independence (east Kansas City) on the way to St. Louis, we decided to spend the night at Tony and Charly Diaz's house so we could get a 4 hour drive rather than 5.5 hours. The way it all worked out, we celebrated Easter on Saturday so we could leave our house at 9 am to go to church on Sunday and go straight to Charly's house from there. Shad and I surprised the kids with their Easter a day early. We celebrated with baskets, egg hunts, chocolate, songs and scripture stories.

I wanted different Easter baskets than the ones we have because they're imbalanced and spill eggs and frustrate the kids. Shad suggested we use movie theater popcorn buckets because we have 40+ of those. Sweet! Note Dancy's finger. She's been really creative with her posing, as you'll see throughout this whole series of St. Louis posts. 

{Dancy, Thora, Tommy, Katie}

Chocolate bunnies!

{Dancy and Thora}

Yup.

{Thora}

Tony took us out to see the farm and we all rode in his truck. Dancy didn't want anything to do with the farm and stayed in the truck the whole time. We saw the duck pond first. Tommy loves bodies of water and would love to just sit and relax at them all the time. Thora observed the waves and exclaimed, "Mom, look! The water's coming closer and closer!" When we left, she said, "Bye, ducks! Have fun with the water!" Then we went to see the cows. I persuaded Dancy to at least sit in the bed of the truck for this one. Samson and Thora loved seeing the cows and mooing (or woofing, in Sam's case) at them.

{Samson, Megan, Katie, Tommy, Thora, Tony Diaz}

When we got back to the house, we saw the chickens, then Shad and I took the kids inside while Thora stayed out to help Tony put the chickens to bed.

Tony is a nursery leader, and Thora and Samson adore him

{Tony and Thora}

After getting ready for bed, Thora told us all about her day on the farm and being Tony's helper.

And then we had a bunch of goofballs.

Dancy posing

Samson walking

We ended the night by keeping Tommy, Katie and Dancy up late watching Page Master. The plan worked as expected: it had kids exhausted for our roadtrip the following morning.

{Katie}

This little guy was so much happier with this roadtrip, being forward facing now.

{Samson}

Rosie Atkins

So there I was planning a trip to St. Louis and reminiscing about how I had joked about kidnapping Emily Atkins and taking her on a roadtrip to see her sister Rosie in Independence, Missouri. Then I realized that Independence is on the way to St. Louis and that I could go see Rosie myself! Genius. We made plans to take her out to lunch on Monday. She was excited and said her birthday is on Wednesday and it's perfect timing for a lunch treat.

Then people at church heard I was going to see Sister Atkins Junior and said I have to prank her because that's what Emily wanted to do. So with 24 hours' notice and already being on the road from my house, this is what we came up with.  We bought 2 packs of gum, Sour Patch and mint, and swapped the sticks. Then I got a bottle of sour spray candy and peeled the label off. Shad said to rub hand sanitizer on it to remove the sticky residue. Perfect. We told Rosie it was breath spray. I bought a few other things to complete a fun birthday gift basket--bubbles, sidewalk chalk, nail polish, glow sticks--and put the sour spray and gum in with everything. Oh, and I bought a window paint marker and stashed it in my glove compartment.

We met Rosie and her companion at the LDS visitors' center, then drove to The Happy Greek for lunch. After ordering, I made an excuse to go out to the van to find something for Samson to eat, but grabbed the window marker and decorated their car.



I returned, saying I had a hard time finding his food buried under other things in our packed car, and no one suspected anything.

We said goodbye after eating, snapped a few pictures, then I casually started a video on my phone and followed Rosie to her car.

Now a week later, I haven't heard anything about the gum or breath spray. I sent her a text today asking if she's had the chance to enjoy them yet. I'll update when I hear back!