Our Tropical Vacation...Part 2

As I was saying...

We woke Sunday morning and had an amazing breakfast prepared by our B&B host (Rick). We chatted with him about the city and all it has to offer. He shared about the history of the neighborhoods, the museums and local attractions and helped us map out the day.

Our first stop was the St. Louis Zoo. We both had not been to a zoo in quite awhile (without a small child of some kind as a travel buddy) and it was super fun! We saw animals:

Got a close up with a hippo (he's in the water in the background...for real):

And searched for those wax animal mold thingys that we fondly remember on visits to the Milwaukee Zoo as young children....no such luck:(

Goodbye Zoo. Onto the next adventure! 

Amanda has a dear friend who used to live in Minnesota and now resides in St. Louis....and she owns the most adorable little botique in a fancy shmancy part of town. We stopped by the shop and had a lovely visit:

We also learned that it is all the rage in St. Louis to monogram things...like all the things. Jackets, purses, scarves, necklaces and even car windows. Who knew? We were learning so much about Missouri culture!

We wanted to check out another cool neighborhood for lunch and Tamara directed us to the 'Central West End' on Euclid Avenue. Some cute shops and restaurants. We settled on Dressels Pub and it was yummy:

It also had lots of 'busts' of folks from the olden days...another charming feature that runs true throughout the whole darn city. Busts and statutes.... EVERYWHERE:

After powering up with some burgers and fries, we were off to the CITY MUSEUM. If you have never heard of this place, it is the coolest and craziest thing you will ever see. An artist bought a building downtown many years ago and made it into a magical, amazing playland of exploration for people young and old. Little holes to crawl into, giant hamster wheels, robots (for the Finchster), ladders to climb, hallways of mirrors, slides that lead to who knows where...CRAZY:

CRAZY! I also went down a super scary slide after many moments of hesitation and fear...but I don't know how to post video with my app so you just have to take my word for it. It was scary!

Next adventure. We had been walking all day and our foot wear choice was probably not the best....boots are cute but not for long distances. We were tired.

We headed 'home' and put on our sweatpants for a few hours and contemplated where we were to eat our next meal. 'A' really likes sandwiches so we googled where we could find them. Our choices for food and activities had (to this point) been 100% perfect so we found a place downtown that looked tasty. We got to the downtown area and realized that our perfect decision making streak was over. Downtown is not open...should have looked a little closer to the website and also remembered that it was Sunday night.

It's ok, we must press forward. We honestly were not even that hungry so drove around for a little while before deciding to just stop at a grocery store for a few little snacks. A third staple of the St. Louis area....

Awwww, Schnucks. That's what I said every time we drove by one. Every time. Anyway, we got a pasta salad, chips and some yogurt and headed back to the B&B...and crashed. A long, amazing day that ended with watching Netflix cooking shows on 'A's iPad until we fell asleep. Perfection once again attained.

Until the next post....

Our Tropical Vacation...Part 1

Many years ago, my dear gal pal 'A' and I spent many a 6:30pm hour watching The Wheel (of Fortune) together. Of course, we always knew every puzzle and were envious of the contestants who won trips to far away lands like Bora Bora or Turks & Caicos while we sat on the couch...prizeless.

We joked around how delightful it would be to adventure to such places with all the 'extra money' we had lying around....but then our jokes started to formulate into a real life plan. Why can't we take a vacation like the ones Pat and Vanna give away? What if we just saved a little money each year for 5 years? We could totally do that. Yes...when we are 37, we will travel to a Tropical Oasis.

Fast forward to the recent present....the 5 year mark had arrived. As most of you are probably aware, in real life it's hard to set aside money for vacations. Especially when one of you has 5 kids and the other works 2 jobs just to pay the bills...so, ok, we didn't save the money. But we were not going to let that small detail get us down. We were GOING ON A VACATION. 

Turks & Caicos...out. Puerto Rico...forget it. The Sandy Beaches of the Florida Keys...nope. St. Louis, Missouri...ok! What? Yes.

Hey, we had limited funds and Southwest was having a random crazy awesome sale. We picked a city that was super cheap to fly to and that neither of us had explored and deemed it our 'Tropical Vacation Destination'....Gateway to the West, here we come!!!!

Our lovely weekend away in a nutshell:

Arriving to the airport-

Travel snacks and entertainment-

Matching boots-

Airplane- 

Instead of staying at a boring old hotel downtown, we opted for a charming Bed & Breakfast in a nearby neighborhood. If you have never stayed in a B&B before, I highly recommend it! The owner was very kind, liked to share his knowledge of the city with us, and made monster, amazing breakfast for us each morning. Rick was da bomb! (The Brewers House)-

The room was great! Complete with old antiques, large plants, TV for lounging and relaxing, a huge comfy bed, millions of pillows, free WiFi, a cool ceiling heater thingy to stay warm out of the shower and fluffy robes to top it off:

Night 1...we arrived (thanks to our rental car and 'A's superior driving skills) to the B&B in the early evening, got settled and then headed out to the Soulard Neighborhood for some dinner...its a cool neighborhood (we did some Googling to find where the cool kids hang out...Soulard was mentioned multiple times). Because we ARE cool, we naturally headed that way to find some dinner. We came upon a yummy Mexican establishment and did not regret one moment of the rest of the night. SO GOOD!!!! I had the Cheese Enchiladas and 'A' went for an equally wonderful Chimmichanga.

What could be more fun than what has already transpired, you ask? Tune in next week to see how our 'Tropical Vacation Destination' evolved and blossomed into the most PERFECT gal pal weekend getaway in the history of the world.

Hi.

That's all. Happy Wednesday:)

Toddler Talk: Puppet Party

Last week, our classroom focus was to talk about what our hands can do. We have an ongoing issue- let's call it a behavioral challenge- with knowing how to be gentle to fellow classmates! Although it is developmentally appropriate to not have 100% control of your hands and emotions at the age of 2 and pushing a kid down because they tried to take your toy (or perhaps just walked past you and you presumed that they had plans to take your toy even though they really had no such intention) seemed at the time like the most logical course of action, we want to instill in our little human friends a demeanor of kindness and calm with respect to others. 

For the week's 'What can we do with our hands?' theme, we added books on the topic, had many hands on activities and had a few teacher lead group times to discuss the topic. We all agreed that our hands are used to be gentle to others. 

One of the art activities was to decorate puppets...and then use them of course! Another opportunity to discuss what hands can do and perhaps have the puppets do the talking about how to be gentle...it's weird, but it seems that messages about life are often better heard when coming from the 'mouth' of a puppet vs a grown up teacher type. We didn't have any puppets to decorate, so I made some. I went with a simple cotton mit design that the hand would fit in and be able to bend in half to 'talk' to friends or other puppets:

A rough pattern, then cut out with a seam allowance all around...

Next, ends folded up and ironed down to make the finished product neat and tidy...

Sewed up the bottom hem on each piece, fit two pieces together 'inside out' to sew in place...

Inside out and right side in...

I then cut a piece of cardboard to slip inside each one so the kids could color and not have their designs bleed thru to the other side...

Decorating...

And playing...

I think the kids enjoyed it and we had fun using our hands to talk to each other about life. And about what hands can do...and not do:)