Almost Home, Hooray!

Just completed my sixth pump site change!  The beach was kind to us this year. : )  Clay swam in the hotel pool tonight (which always waterlogs his stickers!), so it pulled off when he was changing into his jammies.  Oops.

We traveled all day back toward home..we are in downtown St. Louis, Missouri tonight.  The plan was for Ches to take the boys to the St. Louis Cardinals vs. Los Angeles Dodgers at 7:05.  It was televised on ESPN, and he thought they'd love it (Clayton Kershaw was pitching, and they think he is the best in the league!).  Problem is..we were in Wheeling, West Virginia this morning..and it takes some skill to plan an almost 9 hour drive!  with stops and meals!  We did make it to the hotel by eight, but he was tired.  They all were.

I got Carter a bath (had to have the fix-it-guy come repair the drain so it'd hold water!) and got him to sleep.  Ches took the big boys down to swim for a little while.  Then I traded Ches after the baby was sleeping well.  It was small and splashy down at the pool!  Mary Claire just hung with me.  She wasn't wanting to get into the small football game going in the tiny pool. ; )

My entire family is just sooo excited about being back home!  It's been a good trip, and as usual, they've all adjusted to traveling, driving long distances, and all sleeping together.  I'm thankful it's possible honestly.  It makes for good memories.

We played football in an empty church parking lot today next to a gas station.  I think it was in Illinois.  It'll be a good memory for us.  I loved watching Clay and his daddy throw the football..so many awesome throws and catches!

We've watched nearly all the dvd's we loaded into my little (old CD) notebook!  Is that even possible?  Mary Claire has watched almost all of season one (6 discs!) of Little House on the Prairie!  We've seen lots of Bubble Guppies, Curious George, Veggie Tales, and I'm so thankful the big kids haven't complained!  (I'm actually surprised they lay back and watch it, ha!)

We are still deciding about going to the City Museum tomorrow with the kids before we leave town.  It's awesome, but we all really want to just get home (and they've already been a handful of times).  They are dying to play outside at our house! : )  We don't know whether to let them in on the vote.  Hmm..six people make it a harder deliberation!

Either way, we'll sleep in our own beds, water our own flowers, and eat at our own HOUSE!!!  Exciting stuff.  Nothing like being away to make you long for home!  I'm so glad the kids miss it and finally feel like it's home.  We've kinda felt like nomads for a while. ; )

Hope you are sleeping in your own warm bed!

You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.  Deuteronomy 28:6

Saint Louis

Friday we checked the kids out of school early...we were going to St. Louis!  We had planned a DOC (Diabetes Online Community) meetup for this weekend (but at the last minute it fizzled out), and since our room was already paid (and we couldn't get a refund!), we went anyway.

Friday night we only had time to eat out and go to the Chesterfield mall-the temperature had dropped so we needed a visit to Justice to get a sweater. ; )  We only checked out a few stores since we were all really tired-and the mall closes at 9! : )

Saturday morning started bright and early-the kids couldn't WAIT!!  We told them the first place they got to go..(Clay prefers it to Disney-even the RiDeS!)..was the City Museum.  I'm sure if you've been following me, you've heard about this at least a couple times already.  We always think we've done it all...but then they add caves, secret passageways-and we found the 10-story slide for the first time and a HUGE rope swing!  They evolve too-love it!

Here are some pictures from our City Museum visit (before my camera went kaput.) : (

We usually park in paid street parking, but this time-we were so early, there was room in the PARKING LOT!  We usually come in the evening-DAY is where it's at! : )  Check out those airplane fuselages and caged tubes to crawl through!

There is the school bus hanging over the rooftop (above the 10th floor), and see that big cage with a metal spire (remember where that is for future reference!)

The kids super excited planning their day!  And doing some oooh's and ahhhh's!

But first?  A train ride.  Through tunnels and around the third floor of the museum.

And then some fun new goofy things, like the Midwest Spatula Museum. ; )

And the hall of mirrors, where flashes aren't really your friends.

And something to make you think.  "What if imagination and art are not frosting, but the fountainhead of human experience?" -Rollo May      ...I always agree.

So..use your imagination.  Who wore the largest underwear in the world? ; )  Oh, and don't touch them.

Love an opportunity to stick your head through a hole!

A good visit with creatively built robots would foreshadow the remainder of our day. ; )

Fun Zone!  I don't know if you can see, thanks to the gorgeous sun, but Clay is crawling across the ceiling in those white bars, Mary Claire is crawling over the rainbow bridge, and Ethan is in the big ball pit.  Love the exercise they get!!

Toddler Area..only lasted a few minutes.  And there are movie theater seats all around the kids' zones. = Happy Mommas.

Big quarter and half pipes.  They run up them after getting a good start, then s-l-i-d-e!  All around us are little holes/walkways in the walls-they are all part of a huge maze with tons of exits.  Clay assures us he knows his way around, and he comes out where planned.  Is that possible?

Then on to the concrete inner shell shapes.  Ethan is a conqueror.  He has to run up the steepest side, and hold on for dear life.  Then he slides to the bottom. : )

I got a picture...of all three!  Then they scattered again.  If I'd never been there, I'd have panicked, but they really do know their way around.

Love the rope swings.

And then they played piano.  Can you see all the carvings in the wood?  There isn't a bare spot on it!

Clay's happily playing solo.

And then...I check out, and check into Watching/Photographer Mode.  They are crawling through the wire tunnels out to the first airplane fuselage.

And now..they have crawled out to the second airplane, and onto the castle rooftop.  Can you see the tiny red on top?  That's Clay standing on the roof, outside the caging, me freaking out. Ches is with them, but I'm still freaking out.

Then they crawl back to the first airplane.

I'd be petrified!  Even when I'm not pregnant, I've never crawled out there.  Ches has to be the brave one.  I do Disney roller coasters, he does wire crawling.  It's a deal.

And then they are crossing over to the tree house-thing.  There are two people in front of them going v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, and Ethan is right up on them.  I can't figure out where Ches is.

A little boy freaked out (like I would do!), and his mommy had to set him on her legs and crab walk out of there!  (Who would take me out?)

He finally crosses when they are almost done-he said the tunnel was shaking with that many people, and he wasn't going out till he could go straight across!

Then..on to the ROOF!  There's so much more to do!  They started with the giant slide.  You walk/pull yourself up the right side, then slide down.  (There are steps along the left side if you aren't into the climb.)

Another slide.  You walk up the caged area on the top, then slide down under the walkers!

Remember that caged spire on the roof top?  Eleven stories up, by the edge?  Yep, there's my boy at the very top!  Ahhhhh!!!!

Very proud of himself.  It makes me nervous.  But I think...how would it be to keep them in a bubble, and not let them live?  What if he got sick in a couple years, and I'd kept him safe at home for years?  I'd totally regret it.  I vote Experience.  I hope it pays off in the future..and not with a daredevil career.

The sister can do whatever her brother does..and with style! ; )

Above the city.

Hark-a new toy!  It's a HUGE dome, and you can crawl up the insides, and swing from the thick rope swing!

Looking up..and there's my little monkey!  He's fast.  Ches ran up the stairs outside-to be on the top when he came out!

Clay in the cage right above the rope-and he bounced.  Fear strikes me here.

Mary Claire scaling up the wall (they are caged against the wall by welded bars)-who invented this place??

They certainly have a sense of humor.  This is the mens/boys/rooster bathroom.

And the women/men/disabled bathroom.  This is where my camera broke.  I hung it on the door handle, locked it, and Mary Claire thought it'd be funny to wiggle/shake the door handle from the outside.  When the door handle was turned, the strap fell down, and the camera hit the floor.  Now the lens won't totally go in, so you can't get the lens cap on..and it won't focus anymore.  So, a few scratchy pictures later...and it died.

So, from here on..no pictures till I get a new camera. : (  We still had fun, and after some lunch, caves, and the ten story slide, we left for new territory.

We went back to the mall, watched Real Steel in IMAX, then had some Macaroni Grill for dinner.  The kids just love to color on the table! ; )

(and we found a gas station in St. Louis that is giving out free car washes to black and orange cars on Halloween.  Cool.  (Ches claims discrimination, but my van is black!) heehee

Ok, a note on the movie.  It was PG-13, but the only thing they hadn't seen.  We checked the ratings, and it was the same as Dolphin Tale...but I'll tell you: LOTS more language.  Lots of words I didn't like (some just used over and over again), some robot violence-they are boxing, and one adult kiss.  Mary Claire was grossed out over the kiss and language, so I had to apologize profusely to her, Clay said it was fine, and Ethan didn't really notice.  He just did some boxing moves afterward (and I wondered if he'd continue..but they're gone!)

Now it's Sunday, and we are headed home.  Only one trip back to the room to get the blanket I left (and a small panic attack over my sunglasses-but we found them!).  We are planning to stop at Ches' mom's house on the way home to visit, but we'll be home by bedtime.  It's a long drive!

And..I think we finally figured out her on-the-road pump basal!  We tried adjustments a couple times on the way here, and kept rechecking (you'd think we'd have nailed it on our 24-hours-each-way trip to the east coast this summer, but no.).  But, 170% seems to be her magic number.  I think we may have had other issues on that trip, but she's fine now.  We did really well!

At the City Museum, we had some constant checking-all that activity kept driving her low!  So she had a free mini-lunch.  We can't mess around with those 50's.  She left her meter with me while she was in those high-in-the-sky wire tubes, so I made her take her vial of Nerds with her...just in case!  That makes me as nervous as the high climbing, I just try not to let on too much-I hate to ruin a great day.  And it was pretty great. : ) 

 

Late Start = Unwealthy?

We are not early to bed.  We are (were) early to rise. But I can't say that we are healthy, wealthy, and wise.  Who said those crazy words? ; )

We left late today..lots of reasons, but none good enough.  An early trip to Honda to see if we could find Ethan’s Leapster Explorer (7am)…only to find it at home!  Ches made two trips to Wal-Mart, got movies at Red Box, we packed a last minute cooler with drinks and all our yogurts, fruits and veggies, and we didn’t leave till about 11:40!  Much too late to start an almost 10 hour road trip…we totally know better.

Here are the kids just riding…we took out the middle row center seat, and it seems like we have so much more room!

The blue shirts were a good call for all the blueberry eating they did! : )  (Oh-and Clay finally got the *bottled* Coke he's been asking for!)

Sweet girl.  She insisted on taking this Paradise Princess shirt...so I let her wear it on the driving day! : ) heehee

We drove through St. Louis and I just have to see the arch.  It’s so beautiful, a real architectural feat!  I had to close-up to check it out again.  The kids wanted to go up, but we just didn’t have time.  We can’t do it all! : (

It's just gorgeous.

We were driving around the brick streets of LaClede's Landing, but there were lots of...bars.  Here are the Rum Jungle and the Drunken Fish. ; )

This is the church by the arch, but you can only park there for Church.  But..there are no posted times..so I guess it's more of a St. Louis members-only club. ; )  Love the steeple though!

We crossed the Mississippi River, and had dinner in Indiana.  Mary Claire had seen my play-doh stash (in the new foil “Ziploc” bags!, and couldn’t wait to try out the new play-doh!  She got hot pink and the included cookie cutter was a teddy bear, Ethan’s was green with a snowman cutter, and Clay wouldn’t open his-he just wanted to play with Ethan’s!  I think it was Play-doh-Self-Preservation (didn’t want to mess up his own!) (lots of imprints of ears, eyes, noses, lips, etc. were taking place!)

A dinosaur!

Now east on Interstate 70 to Indianapolis...

We are finally here-at 11:30 at night!  We are paying for all that free time this morning.  And we forgot about the time change, so it's really 10:30 our time (I think...it confuses me!  Especially since my computer clock now says 11:36, and my phone says it's 12:26 here!)

Whew.  On to the Indianapolis Children's Museum tomorrow, a visit with Hallie, and the drive to Washington, PA!  Woohoo, love vacation! : )

On the Road Again..

We are on tour-heading towards a city near you!  Get your tickets before they sell out!  We have decided that our kids will only travel with us for so long.  We are hoping we have a few more years of vacations with them. There will come a time when they don’t want to travel with us, and I’m not ready for that!  So, we are headed across the country.  Slowly.  Today we’re heading to St. Louis, Missouri.  We’ve been there before, but not for two whole years!  It seems like a month ago.  Ethan doesn’t really remember it, so we’ll relive it all for him. : )  Our plan is to have dinner (we had Cracker Barrel) and hang out at the City Museum until bedtime.  It is amazing!  It’s ten stories, all built from scrap.  There’s a bus hanging out over the roof (yes, you can go out in it)!  A big metal (slinky-looking thing) spiral tunnel hangs out at about the fourth floor, and you crawl through it (well, *I* don’t) and out to an airplane fuselage (which yes, moves around as people are heavy-more reason why I don’t crawl through it), but the kids love it!  There are thick concrete slides and mazes, rope swings over half-pipes (look like skateboard ramps), etc.  It is a Must-See on your St. Louis trip, second only to the arch (yes, last time I was there I forgot to take my camera, so I only have crappy iPhone pictures!)

**Ok..a couple hours later..I’ve been lost in time on Ches’ iPad looking (for our last arch pictures) at old pictures of the kids as they grew up right in front of us.  (Can I just say that I love the fact that there are three lanes going both ways on Interstate 44? Room to move around!)  They were small together, then we moved, and our little bushes were tiny, and now they are so big!  Our backyard was rolling green, bare, and the trees were small.  A lot happens in five years!**

I’d say we’ve had a good trip so far.  The kids have watched a couple movies, I read to Clay from his Edison Thomas (yes, I wrote it right) book, then Ethan took a good nap.  We are almost to St. Louis, and we are getting hungry.  (and now we have four lanes each!)

Can you tell I’ve been writing all day?  I wrote earlier, then came back, Sorry-I know it’s confusing. : )  We partied at City Museum till 10:30pm-and the teens were just getting started.  They turned out most of the lights at ten, and we just finished up.  There are soo many cave/tunnels to go through, and the kids didn’t even get to finish!  There were ten stories of tunnels building up to the ten-story slide!  Everyone was so tired, and Ethan was getting whiny.  It got stormy outside, and I think he might have been afraid or something.

I can say this: our community needs a cool hang-out like this one.  It gives the kids something to do late at night, it’s dark and cool, but safe-big enough to get lost in and give you a thrill, and it doesn’t involve getting in trouble.  It’s basically made out of tough stuff with paint everywhere, so they couldn’t mess it up either!  I give them five stars!  (and the magic show was pretty good too-even though Ches and I had to go onstage for a card trick!)

We’re headed to the hotel for a good nights sleep, then tomorrow we are traveling on to Columbus, Ohio!