Science Museum

Trip To St. Louis, Summer 2009

Trip To St. Louis
Summer 2009

Sunday:
We drove to Columbia, Missouri (about 6 hours away) and stayed overnight at a hotel. It was the first chance we have had to take a family trip with the van. The dual DVD players were awesome. A mom must have invented that!

Monday:
Bob took the kids to the pool after breakfast and then we checked Marisa in to EFY at the University of Missouri (apparently called “Mizzou”). She was very excited to attend along with her cousin Jared. She will be posting pictures and info on her blog soon. She had a great time!

The rest of us drove the two hours to St. Louis and went straight to Six Flags. We spent several hours there checking out what rides we wanted to go on and what we wanted to do. We have learned that the daredevils in our family are Tyler, Kayla, and Bob. They rode: Evil Kenieval, Xcalibur, etc. Tyler has listed it all in detail on his blog. .
Alayna wanted to try a rollercoaster. She went on the Tony Hawk with the rest of the crew, but it scared her spitless and she said she never wants to do that ride ever again. But we did find lots of rides that she loved. We also got her picture with Scooby doo and other fun characters. (will post on the blog)

Tuesday:
We started out the day at Hurricane Harbor at six flags. We had an absolute blast! Alayna and I spent our time on the Lazy River and in the wave pool. Bob, Kayla, and Tyler went on some big slides and this giant funnel thing called the Tornado. Then we met up with them and they all went on the family raft slide, the Wahoo Racer, and some other slides. We were there from 11-3 and then went to six flags from 3-7. Our daredevils rode lots more rollercoaster’s while Alayna and I hung out at Bugs Bunny Nat’l Park so Alayna could ride all those rides. There were no lines so she got to go on every ride many times! While we waited for Bob and kids riding the batman, batman and robin came up and asked to get a picture with Alayna. It was so cute. (I will post)

Wednesday:
The kids went swimming at the hotel in the morning. Then we drove downtown to show the kids the arch and we ate at this really cool restaurant called “Crepes in the City” and it had the awesoemest food! We got a crepe with bacon, eggs, and cheese; a crepe with strawberries, nutella, and powdered sugar; and a crepe with strawberries and crème.

Then we met up with the Hart Grandparents and spent the afternoon at the St. Louis science museum. It was a free museum and had all this really neat stuff. We wore dr coats and got to do real experiments with an interactive touch screen computer. Awe got to see a science presentation (where Bob got to be the assistant). They were able to put together dinosaur skeletons (like a puzzle), and interact with some really neat displays.

Then we came back to the hotel and met up with the Missouri cousins and went swimming in the hotel pool.

Thursday:
We spent the ENTIRE day at Six Flags! It was perfect weather and the kids had a great time. I think they did every ride in the entire park. When we came home they did another swim in the hotel pool.

Friday:
The kids went swimming in the morning and then we drove back to Columbia. It worked out that Kayla could go with the Wilkinsons and spend the week in Missouri before teen week so we wont see her for 2 weeks.

Bob and Alayna went with the gparents to see the botanical gardens while Tyler played on the computer and I crashed out cold for a nap. Then we hooked up the laptop to the hotel TV and watched Inkheart.

Saturday:
Bob picked up Marisa at 7AM, bright and early. We got breakfast at the hotel and headed home. We arrived home around 2:00 and then hung out downstairs to watch all our fun shows for the 4th of July. (Actually we were all so exhausted we just couldn’t get off the couch.)

Now we are back to our regular schedules, Alayna starts swimming lessons Monday and Marisa has youth conference this week. This summer is going by entirely too fast!

BEFORE summer vacation trip

June 28, 2009
BEFORE summer vacation trip

I just didn’t have time to get this off before we had to leave for St. Louis.

Scout Camp: Tyler had his last year of cubscout camp. We had record heat and humidity that week and it was the worst on the day that Bob chaperoned! Maybe Tyler or Bob will write up how the week went?

Girls Camp: My fingers are crossed that Kayla and Marisa will write up about camp on their blogs (hint hint) We had a major storm with 60 mph winds and tornadoes come through so they had to be evacuated from camp. When they came back, all their tents were flooded and all their stuff was wet. So they slept in cars and other tents I think. They came home on Friday and were out cold.

Alayna and me: We had a fun week together with just the two of us. We went to see “Monsters VS Aliens”, we went to lunch with daddy, played some games, and watched some shows. We had so much fun.

Ok, that’s the week in a nutshell. I wish I had written it while I still remembered details.















Kayla with the gorgeous sunset!






















Unpacking girls camp and scout camp and packing for St. Louis. Yikes!

Canoe trip

Canoe Trip

Yesterday was such a fun day!!! Corey and Hal came up and we went canoeing on the Wapsipinicon River. You can choose a 2 hour, 4 hour, or 6 hour trip. We chose the 4 hour. We got 3 canoes and they shuttled us farther up the river.

We stopped at a sand bar for lunch and we called the place “Butterfly Beach”. It was more like “Attack of the Butterflies” though! We kept stopping on sand bars along the river to swim and relax. Sometimes we canoed and the kids floated along side us. (But it slowed our flow down)

We put on sunscreen, but it didn’t hold all 5 hours it took us. Some of us ended up a little “krispier” than others. Marisa and I had to make a late night run to get some aloe. Ouch! We had some pretty sore arms today too.

Anyway, it was a very fun trip and if anyone ever wants to come visit and try it with us, we would love to have you!!

Summer Vacation begins

Summer Vacation begins…
June 21, 2009

Well, we started out our first full week of summer with a bang! Man! Have we needed this break or what? We have a daily schedule to keep us in line and so far, so good.

We have a daily workout routine and usually workout both morning and night as a family: family walk, tennis, bike riding, etc. We love it except when the humidity becomes unbearable. We also signed up for the library reading program.

Exciting News: Alayna learned how to ride a bike without training wheels!!! We took her up to the big school parking lot and it only took her a couple of times and she had it! She was so excited and so were we.

We kicked butt on the Spring Cleaning. We spent hours on the shed and storage room. We are so close to being completely done. I can hardly wait. Only the kitchen left.

Off topic: Our new favorite way to eat French Crepes is to stuff it with cut up strawberries and bananas and top it with nutella! You have to try it!

We had a good Father’s Day! Happy Father’s day to all you Dad’s out there!

This week:
~The girls leave for girls camp tomorrow. It may be a little wet, but they will have a blast.
~Tyler goes to cubscout day camp on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
~Alayna and I are planning a mommy/daughter fun week since everyone else will be gone. I think we will go see Monsters VS Aliens. Anyone wanna come?
~On Saturday, we pack and then head out to Columbia Missouri to take Marisa to EFY. While she attends that, the rest of our family will be spending the week in St Louis going to six flags, etc. We are so excited!!

PS- see my next Blog entry for our exciting trip yesterday!

WE SURVIVED SCHOOL!!!!

We are officially out of school! Hallelujah!!!!! We are so excited that it is summer and we hope to soak up as much sun as possible. I am not writing my normal newsletter today. Instead, I helped the kids update their blogs so you can hear how things are going here from their perspective. We have a ton of summer plans and will keep you updated as they occur.

Shopping Day 2