Spring Break trip to St. Louis

So, I loaded all of these picture "backwards" and I'm too lazy to cut and paste a zillion times . . . so we'll work backwards, ok? This past week was Joshua's Spring Break from school (yes, it's crazy -- in KS even elementary schools have spring break!) so we took a few days to zip to St. Louis. Not only does it have tons of fun things to do as a family, but we also wanted to see (great) Grandma and Grandpa Smiley. Since grandma has just been in the hospital for a couple of days, we only stayed for an hour or so, but it was really good to see them.

Great Grandma (94 years old) and kiddos

Great Grandpa (95 years old) and Kayla

This is my favorite . . . Grandma LOVES little ones -- and even thought she didn't have a clue who Tyler was, it was still precious to see her interacting with him!

OK . . . Mr. Tyler has a current FIXATION with elevators. We're talking MAJOR FIXATION. When we walked in our hotel to check in and saw the glass elevator in the middle of the 7-floor lobby, I knew it was going to be a hit. The boy LOVED riding the elevator.

We're all excited . . . THE ELEVATOR is almost here! You think I'm exaggerating . . .

One day we went to the Magic House. We had been there several years ago, but it was much better for the kids this time. We were there for about 4 hours, and still had things we didn't get to. Oh well -- maybe next time!

Yep -- Tyler was also thrilled to see the digger (excuse the very non-technical term) at the "let's build a house" exhibit.

Checking everything out with daddy!

Of course Bryan loaded up the sand funnel so that it would make a cool design when it was spinning . . . so creative, that boy is.

Playing the music tubes with the flip flops provided. Very confusing though -- the long tubes were on the right -- although for most people, it wouldn't make any difference I suppose.


Last time we were there, the kids could care less about the bubble exhibit, but this time we loved it! Pretty impressive, Joshua!

Kayla's life-size bubble!

Way to go, bud!

Tyler was NOT to be left out!

The electro-static thing that makes your hair stand out -- Tyler had quite the mohawk going, eh? Kayla would have had awesome hair for this . . . but no such luck getting her to even give it a try :(

Enthralled!

So there's this bean stalk thing that spans 3 floors. The kids were probably the most excited about climbing that thing, so it was the first thing we did. Here they are -- all the way at the top!

They had a Bob the Builder exhibit doing on -- lot of fun to see the characters! (But as Kayla kept pointing out, "Mom, they aren't real, right?)


The hotel we stayed at had popcorn/pop at night and the kids thought eating popcorn in bed AND watching TV was just the bomb. Ya know, it's the little things that makes trips like these memorable, right?

So this pic doesn't look like he's enjoying himself, but he did!

I can't tell -- does she look tired????

Oh yes -- lots of swimming. Even outside. The hotel had a heated indoor/outdoor pool which the kids thought was really cool. We even managed to make it outside the first day before it cooled of.

What a funny girl!
We had a super time . . . always a bummer to have to come back to "real life", eh?