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st. louis

Blog, friends, photoshoot, st. louis

arch madness


Today’s post has 3 main characters–the arch, Maggi, and Mary Kate. I happen to love all three…hence the multitude of pictures of them.
 
When Maggi and I heard about the Malcom Martin Memorial Park in Illinois, we both immediately said “let’s go!” The park has the perfect view of the St. Louis skyline. And while the park is located in East St. Louis, the only people we even came across complimented us on our coordinating outfits (and maybe made fun of Maggi for taking a picture of a bush.) So it doesn’t fit in with the usual bad reputation that East St. Louis gets.
 
We started off our adventure at Bob’s Drive-In for Kim’s birthday lunch.
3 young women smiling

 

my friends

 

more friends
Then we headed out to the park
2 women at the arch

 

that fountain behind Maggi is a little hard to see but it’s actually the second tallest fountain in the world, reaching a maximum height of 600 feet (which is the same height as the Arch…for all you trivia people)
tall fountain in st louis

 

isn’t that view amazing?
st louis arch

 

holding hands under the arch

 

arch 4

 

Mary Kate nailed the Senior pose
arch 5

 

and Maggi nailed that jump!
woman jumping

 

there are 250 cakes around the St. Louis area–we found 6 of them yesterday
st louis birthday cake

 

american flag

 

woman with statue

 

the sky was pretty much this color…which makes the pictures not so impressive. But the view was still pretty amazing
downtown st louis

 

there’s a lookout point to get a better view
arch 7

 

jessica roberts and maggi

 

jessica roberts and friends

 

arch 9

 

check out that reflection
young woman wearing sunglasses

 

in case Mary Kate did not see the 600 ft monument across the river
pointing

 

friends 4

 

girls hugging

 

maggi 4

 

After finding a few cakes in the downtown area, we met up with Kim and the rest of the group (who had gone rock climbing) at Ted Drewes.
ted drews st louis birthday cake

 

friends 6

 

ted drews frozen custard sign

Such a delicious way to end the day!

Blog, Family, friends, st. louis

do you believe in magic?


Today, I experienced a bit of chaos. The Gunbys have a Magic House membership, which includes a certain amount of free guest passes. When Molli first mentioned taking me and my kids and Val and her kids, I don’t think I realized what I was getting myself into. You see, between us 3 girls, there are 10 children, 5 years old and younger (with 2 more on the way!) 
 
We were able to borrow the Lovings’ big white beast (a 15 passenger.) Only after all the kids were strapped into the 10 car seats did I realize how crazy we were. I had to snap a picture with my phone. It seriously looked like we were running a daycare. 
lots of kids

 

And if I didn’t have enough to do while there were 10 kids running in different directions, I decided that I had to bring my camera too. The picture quality definitely suffered but I couldn’t just not take pictures of our outing. I didn’t have much time to fiddle with the settings, but I’m glad this day was documented. So enjoy this very picture-heavy post 🙂

 

boy holding pineapple
toddler at magic house
boy at magic house
cute baby in stroller

the Magic House has a “Sid the Science Kid” exhibit. I didn’t realize the kids would be so in love with Sid. They ran, yelling and giggling, towards him to give him hugs and high-fives

toddler boy with sid the science kid
toddler boy with sid the science kid

 

little boy looking bored
boy holding magnifying glass over eye

 

boy using magnifying glass
mom and baby

 

5 kids
liam 4
baby girl playing in rocks

 

toddler using phone
There’s also a sand castle exhibit going on right now. This massive sand castle was pretty impressive!
awesome sand castle
By the time we made it on the highway, 5 kids were already passed out. One more fell asleep by the time she got home.
sleeping in the van

 

The “after picture” with my phone. It’s probably a good thing that there wasn’t any after pictures of the moms 😉

nap time in the van
The most magical part about the Magic House today was the fact that we all made it out alive, and with the same 10 kids that we went inside with!
 
Okay, so if I’m being honest, it really wasn’t too bad. The kids were all good listeners and didn’t make us work too hard. In fact, buckling them all in afterwards was probably the worst part. 
 
Thank you Molli for treating us to a fun day!