Picasso, Snakes, and Legos

St. Louis, Day 4: Art Museum, World's "Aquarium," and the Lego Store

We started off the morning at the art museum. Katie loves art, and our kids actually do a good job appreciating art if we do it in small doses. Say, an hour at a time.

We started in modern art and enjoyed this cool interactive piece of 4 open cubes.

{Katie, Dancy, Megan, Tommy}

{Shad, Thora, Samson}

I liked sitting there, watching people walk by.

We saw 5 Picassos!

After the art museum, we went to World's "Aquarium." Note, this is NOT an aquarium, but more like a guy with a ton of aquatic and reptilian pets decided to open up shop and let people pay him to see and pet and feed his animals. Something my brother Jake might do! Hahaha!

Regardless, we thoroughly enjoyed it...some more than others. Katie wants a pet snake now and is so excited that I said she can have one when she's old enough to take care of it without parental assistance. I'm not squeamish with snakes but I sure don't want something else to keep alive and clean up after.

Katie the Pirate

That pink thing on the side of the tank is a stingray swimming up to touch my hand! I think maybe it was expecting food, but it was fun, tickly kisses! Touching a stingray was the one expectation I had for myself in going to an aquarium. At least this one still met that!

Just a random walkway built in the basement...

{Dancy, Katie, Thora, Tommy}

I love this expression!

{Samson and Megan}

I think we're holding a bull snake. I can't remember all the ones Valenzina pulled out for us.

Look at that excitement!

{Samson, Megan, Thora}

{Dancy, Tommy, Valenzina, Samson, Katie, Thora, Megan}

I had to rescue Katie from the bull snake she was holding--it was slithering down the top of her shirt!

Dancy got brave for one second.

Mostly she liked the animals from a distance.

Again, with the poses!

Tommy had to be bribed to hold a snake. I told him I'd buy a penny book for him to keep his souvenir pressed pennies. That got him thinking seriously.

{Tommy and bull snake}

And right after the picture he was done.

Katie, Megan and Thora

Kaa!

Katie was a natural with all the creatures. Here she is holding a cockroach, Wall-E's friend!

Spunk, this one.

When everyone else had left the basement and it was just me and Katie, Valenzina let Katie feed the turtles, no charge! Valenzina was very impressed with Katie's love and bravery that she felt Katie deserved this.

Valenzina was surprised that I wanted a picture of HER with Katie, rather than asking her to take a picture of ME with Katie. No, Valenzina, we want to remember you.

{Valenzina and Katie with bull snakes}

Valenzina moved from Belarus several years ago. Her name is the Belarusian form of Valentina.

Feeding tilapia to snapping turtles.

Those big black rock-like things in the center are shark eggs!

"Oh, no! Where's Samson?"

"Peekaboo! There he is!"

{Samson's favorite game}

And then it was noon and we tried to go buy tickets for the ride up the Arch. They were sold out. I had called that morning at 8 to ask if the elevator was fixed because they had been replacing the electrical system. They told me it was up and running, but they didn't say that I should buy my tickets online to make sure we got in. They got 3 large school groups and were sold out by 11 am. Tell me, why don't the school groups have to buy their tickets in advance?

So we went to the Lego Store instead.

Samson had a blast pushing the stroller around.

All five kids. We love Lego!!

{Tommy, Katie, Dancy, Thora, Samson}

Samson probably spent about 10 minutes just walking on the mat behind the registers. Down to one end, turn around, down to the other. The employees said that at Lego, they aren't above hiring kids to work, so it was okay for him to patrol the area.

Samson was very done at this point.

{Thora, Dancy, Katie, Tommy, Samson}

The following morning, we left St. Louis and had a normal roadtrip home: lots of movies on the built in DVD system for the kids, and me reading aloud Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to Shad. That book gets inTENSE when you read a lot at a time! Even when you've read it before.