St. Louis Spring Break

This past week was Williamson County's Spring Break, & our family went to St. Louis. We stayed with Ben's parents, & trotted around the city doing all of the fun family things. And let me tell you, St. Louis has some truly amazing children's places to visit, tour, play, explore, create, etc. The boys had such a blast, & so did Ben and I. We did a big outing every day, & we even got to go out on a date with free child care! That was very nice.

Here is our big day at the St. Louis Zoo. Such a great time...

Here's Lincoln at the entrance of the zoo.



Here is the petting zoo. Oh, what a story we have here. Lincoln has never really been afraid of much. At any point in his life thus far, his fright scale has weighed extremely low. Levi, on the other hand, is terrified of so many things. Whether it be dogs, cats, horses, mascots, anything in costume, any headdress or mask, whatever...makes him go crazy. So upon entering, you can imagine the difference of our sons' reactions.
Lincoln ran straight for the bucket of brushes and then immediately walked up to a donkey & started petting and brushing. And talking, cooing, & cuddling. He was so sweet. Levi, on the other hand, wouldn't even walk into the zoo without being held by Ben. Ben would get within 4 feet of a donkey, and Levi would thrash into hysterics. Here is Lincoln, so happy and at-ease.


And here is poor Levi. He didn't know what to do, except stand there and scream. He was scared to even turn around.



Here he is hiding behind Ben's legs, trying to escape the donkeys.




This was funny. Here are 2 donkeys sniffing Ben's butt. Actually, they were trying to get at the map of the zoo that was in his back pocket. I think they were trying to find an exit.


Here's my dollbaby looking at the sea otters. This was a much better situation because of the huge wall of glass between him and the animals.


Silly boys!


Here we are, inside the big monkey house. Levi LOVED watching the monkeys swinging from branch to branch! He talked about it all afternoon.


About to head into the Snake House. I stayed outside during that tour!


Stopping for lunch.


About to begin the train ride that goes all around the zoo. What a cool thing, right? The boys were in heaven!


After the zoo, we drove through downtown St. Louis and stopped at the famous Arch. We walked up the stairs, & played on the lawn directly underneath the Arch. We had so much fun. Here's Levi being silly.


Right at the base of the arch:


Trying to get a good picture of the three of us, but Levi had other ideas. If I remember correctly, he was sticking out his belly & singing, "I have a fat tummy!" Hilar.


Laughter.


Here we are visiting the Museum of Transportation. Sherry & Mike went with us for this trip, & we had a ball. Here's Mr. Conductor! The boys had to take turns wearing the hat throughout the day.


They had a precious craft table set up right outside the Visitor Center. The boys each made a sailboat. The weather that day was perfect. And Lincoln looks drunk.


Just hangin'.


PawPaw & L-Train:


"I've been workin' on the railroad all the live-long day..."


Family.


MeMaw and Levi:


Mr. Conductor having a thought-provoking & introspective moment while on the train:


ALL ABOARD!


Daddy & Son.


PawPaw and Levi. If you haven't noticed, Danny the Duck made his presence known for the entire vacay. We cannot go anywhere without him coming along. Poor Danny was so dirty by the end of each day.


So excited to be wearing the conductor's hat.


We also had an afternoon of plane flying. Sherry & Mike live on a beautiful lot that looks out in the woods in their backyard, with a big hill. Lincoln flew his airplane all over the backyard with Mike. Here he is trying to fix a few things.






Another day we spent at the City Museum. Two words: amazing place. It's unbelievable for kids, in every way possible. We did, however, find out Levi's first phobia. Black midgets. I'm not kidding & I know it sounds absurd but here's the story. There was a really cute choo-choo train that went all around the inside of the museum & the conductor was a black midget. He was super duper nice, amazing with the kids, etc. Lincoln had no problem with him except to say, "Hey! You're little!" (totally mortifying). So Lincoln rode the first time around without Levi. Then the next time, Levi said he wanted to ride too. So Ben walked him up to the gate to enter. When the midget got out of the train to stand up & open the gate, Levi screamed bloody murder & lost all control. It was like he was frantically panicked. That pretty much describes his demeanor. He ran for Ben's arms, & didn't stop screaming & crying until Ben walked him out of the entire area. Whaaaa?!? We thought maybe it was the train that was possibly scaring him for some reason (some of the train ride went through some dark places, so we thought maybe he was afraid of the dark). So we tried again. Ben walked him back up the train & right when the conductor came up to let him in, it happened all over again. We were so embarrassed! Actually, I was mortified; Ben was laughing. Really, what can ya do? It was, how shall I put this, embarrassingly humiliatingly funny?..? Does that make sense? So needless to say, Levi didn't end up riding the train. Here he is in the moment:


And Lincoln...calm, cool, & collected.


Just having fun at the City Museum:


Wheee!


Now I'm going to show you Levi's 2 new faces. Here's the first one. I like to call this one, "Hurry the hell up."


And here's Face #2. This one is coined, "Get off my skate ramp, fool."


Lincoln having so much fun in the ball pit.


Dad & Lincoln at the outdoor playground.


Levi thought he was such a big boy for getting to climb all around with Dad at the 'big-boy' area.


And here we have the very end of our tour of the City Museum. We were about to endure a 'circus' show inside the museum, & when Ben & I looked at the kids in this moment, we looked at each other & said, "Yup. Time to go." We knew the boys were headed for a meltdown very soon. Look at Lincoln's face. He's so pissed. HA!


So there was our trip, in a heavy-laden picture post. We had such an incredible time there and I hope that the boys remember it for a long time to come.
Can you believe that summer is on its way? Whew.
Ta-Ta, friends,