Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  He is Risen!  The Easter Bunny luckily found us in Branson - thank goodness for that.  We got lost on the way to church and ended up late, which meant that we had to share 2 chairs between the 5 of us in the narthex, with 50 other "overflow" people.  The doors to the sanctuary weren't even opened until half way through the service, which meant we had NO "visuals" at all, and only scarce "audio".  Not the enriching, spiritual experience we were hoping for, unfortunately, but ... not much we could do about that. 

 

 

 

We had our very own Easter egg hunt at the condo after church! 

 

 

The Easter Bunny brought the kids kites.  We got them aloft for short periods of time, but nothing "soaring".  We'll try again later.

 

 

 

 Quiet day at the condo - swimming, mini-golf, kite flying, and watching the Wizard of Oz.  Dinner was shared with Mim and Pops Aho.   Branson awaits us on the morrow!

 

 

City Museum of St. Louis

No time to slow down - we had exactly 1.5 days in St. Louis and there's just too much to do and see.  We could've easily spent our entire week's vacation in this town, and still not gotten to everything we wanted to do.  We had to triage our top picks - and thus: City Museum of St. Louis. 

This place is crazy.  It's what happens when artists have plenty of money and free reign, without apparent regulatory oversight.  A restored 10 story building turns into this crazy, sensory-overload explosion of a gerbil run - an industrial playground.  There are no maps at City Museum.  You come to explore every nook, cranny, tunnel, and ball pit.  Rob and I made the mistake of following the kids into a giant fish's mouth, and ended up having to squeeze through a life-sized slinky that led up to another floor.  I thought they were going to have to get the jaws of life to extract us. 

I think Rob and I would've enjoyed ourselves a little more had there not been six bazillion other people there at the same time.  I just KNEW we were going to lose a child or three.  No maps, tunnels that take you to goodness-knows-where, and crowds everywhere.  Having helped to design an indoor park, and knowing how strict safety regulations are on such things, I kept marvelling that the owners could "get away with" this place.  Apparently, this museum defies classification, so I have a feeling it's not under any one agency's regulatory control.  It HAS been the result of at least 25 injury lawsuits in the past 8 years, we learned later.  I can believe that.

Parental safety concerns aside, the kids had an absolute blast.  They crawled, swooped, swung, slid, and explored until they were sweaty.  The knees of Quinn's pants disintegrated to nothingness, and Colby's shoes literally fell apart in the span of 2.5 hours.  THAT'S how much fun they had.  It was hard to take pictures, as the kids kept disappearing up hollowed-out trees and behind aquariums full of catfish and turtles... but here's what we DID get.

 

 

 

 

The Basilica of St. Louis

Unfortunately, our timing in St. Louis didn't allow us to actually attend services at this awe-inspiring basilica, but I am so glad we got to at least visit.  The St. Louis Basilica  rivals some of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world, with it's glass mosaics and astounding artistry.  Pictures can not even begin to do it justice... but we tried to capture at least some of it.

 

All those teeny-tiny kazillions of pieces of cut glass, laid by hand to make the most astounding images.  It just boggles the mind. 

 

 

Quinn's Nirvana

After four hours sleep the night before, this family was EXHAUSTED.  Our time in St. Louis was limited, though, so we had to cram in as much fun and excitement as possible!  Ergo... dinner at a rootbeer factory.  Fitz's has just about any type of rootbeer you could imagine, and the rootbeer floats are legendary.  Given that rootbeer is Quinn's ultimate favorite beverage, he was beside himself. 

St. Louis Zoo

I had no idea that St. Louis was such a cool town.  It's truly awesome.  So much history, so many museums, and the architecture is AMAZING.  After the arch, we walked back through the old part of town, on the waterfront, with it's cobble-stone streets and quaint stores.  So picturesque.  After an al fresco lunch, we hit Forest Park and the St. Louis Zoo.  Forest Park is about 1300 acres in the heart of St. Louis dedicated to museums, zoos, trails, sports, paddle boats, and nature.  I had no idea that such public places existed to such an extent.  The zoo was free (FREE!!!)  and we spent the rest of the afternoon dragging our exhausted children sightseeing all the animals. 

I have to mention that the biggest reason we left the Copper Country for spring break was to get away from the snow.  The weather in St. Louis was 65 and sunny - perfect - but apparently they had HAD some snow not too long before our arrival.  That meant that there were dirty piles of melting snow all over the place.  So take a wild guess what the biggest attraction at the zoo was.  No, not the giraffes.  About every 30 seconds, we had to nag the children to stop playing in the dirty snow.  Honestly, kids.  Our whole goal was to get AWAY from the stuff!! 

 

St. Louis Arch

So the "hotel of dubious safety"  (because in the middle of the night it was the only one available) turned out to be a real boon.  Yes, it looked a little rough.  But by the light of day, we saw that it was located right across the street from the newly constructed Four Seasons hotel (what a difference crossing the street makes!), and was within walking distance of the St. Louis Arch!  Score! 

 

 

 

 

The Arch is an engineering marvel. Pictures can't really do it justice.  We took the ride to the top in a teensy tram car that was on gimbles similar to a ferris wheel.  Since our hotel was so close and we were able to walk there, we beat the huge crowds (literally beat the crowds by minutes.  I told Rob at one point as we were walking through the park "Look behind you".  Ahead - serene park.  Behind - throngs of tourists.)

 

 

Our family shadow Arch.  Looks just like the real one, right?  We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Arch, and the views from the top!