Pictures of Life in the Land of Oz: Flowers, Chocolate, and Ikea

St. Louis, Day 3: Botanic Gardens (sort of); Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate Store and Factory; Fitz' Bottling Company; Ikea; Gateway Arch; Riverfront; Laclede's Landing. Split in 3 posts.

We drove to the Botanic Gardens for our morning activity, thinking it was another free attraction. Well, it's sort of free--free for kids, $12 for adults. Not bad, but still, we decided to just enjoy the flowers out front and go to a chocolate factory instead.

Katie with her new umbrella!

Not quite black tulips, but really close, Mother Nature!

This is a tulip. And it blows my mind.

Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate factory!

(free tours)

Samson looks thug with his over-sized shirt and do-rag.

{Thora, Megan, Samson, Shad}

Testing out our mixing skills!

{Katie, Tommy, Dancy, Thora, Megan}

Didn't I say Dancy has been getting really good with her posing?!

We went to Fitz' Bottling Company and watched their pop bottling process through the viewing window in their restaurant. Shad thinks we should set up our own brewery because it looked pretty easy with all the machines doing the work like that. We bought a couple cases of pop, but decided to eat elsewhere (Ikea!) because prices were more than we wanted to pay at a restaurant with our kids. That one is a date restaurant.

Chuck Barry statue out on the street by Fitz'. Fans have left piles of stuffed animals, necklaces and albums to tribute his recent death.

A street musician sitting next to Chuck saw me walking with Katie and Samson, and said he had to play something special for us. He played The Beatles' "Twist and Shout." I'd have tipped him, but I had already given my spare change to the sax player across the street. Ooooh, that was some nice jazz that sent me back to New Orleans!

*This is not my video*

Eating at Ikea is fun!

{Samson, Tommy, Thora, Dancy, Katie}

Samson was very happy with his chicken meatballs again. I thought I was choosing something that would be okay for him to eat, but in hindsight, those probably had eggs in them. Toward the end of the trip his rash did flair up. Thora devoured her Swedish meatballs. I had already picked up a salmon fillet plate and then turned around and saw that the soup was Gumbo. I had to get that too. A taste of New Orleans was on my food wishlist for the trip!

Happy boy, showing his momma his delicious food.

And that's the winner. That's going on the wall.

After lunch in Ikea, we played in the display room while waiting for our time slot in Smaland.

{Tommy and Samson}

Thora is so happy when no one disturbs her! She's making cookies!

"See, Dad?"

"See my cookies?"

Thora Making Cookies at Ikea

The little ladies did a great job playing kitchen while the boys wrestled on a bed.

{Katie, Dancy, Thora}

I dropped Tommy, Katie and Dancy off in Smaland to play, and Shad and I tested out couches with the little two and all was happy for about 40 minutes. Then we got a beep on our Smaland pager. That means emergency. I booked it downstairs and found that Dancy had had an accident right in the bathroom at the toilet. Just missed getting there in time. So I cleaned her up, put a diaper on her, borrowed (in a non-returnable way) a trash bag for her wet stuff and continued our couch testing. Luckily, Smaland is a shoe-free zone, so Dancy's shoes were safe.

This couch. We're gonna get this couch. It has a pull out section that Tommy is sitting on that rises to be level with the couch to transform into a bed. And the chaise cushion lifts up to reveal a storage compartment.

Thora enjoyed zooming around on the cart.

I don't remember how Dancy and Samson hurt themselves, but Tommy was goofing around with Katie and ended up falling and smashing his head on the concrete floor of the warehouse. Shad and I were so frustrated at the end. We did buy a three-tier rolling cart to take home with us.

Man, sometimes Ikea can be rough!

{Shad, Samson, Tommy, Dancy}