St. Louis, Part 2

We did so many fun things in St. Louis (Molly was a great host!), one of the highlights was the botanical garden!

Doug shot some wonderful pictures of us! You could never tell by looking at his pictures that is was ridiculously hot and whenever possible we would back away from each other (it was steaming being so close!) and try to cool down before the next shot!

The botanical garden was huge and poor Shayla got very tiered of walking, so Dave and I took turns giving her piggy back rides. Strangely enough, as soon as there was something fun to see/do Shayla miraculously got all her energy back and was ready to be off : )

One of the highlights (especially for the kids) was the fish you could feed. Christen, Paul, Anna and Shayla all tried to make sure the fish were fed and not the geese that were trying to move in on the fish's territory!

This picture does not accurately depict how many fish there really were or how big they were!

They would just swarm when the kids threw the food at them.

There were fun things all around the gardens for the kids to see and play with. As soon something fun came into sight, the kids were off running as fast as they could towards it. They knew we didn't have much time and as soon as the adults caught up, they would have to move on to the next thing, so they tried to get as much play time in as possible!

This is another picture by Doug, it was taken on a little dock. The gardens had so many neat and interesting things all around it, we had such a good time!

St. Louis, Part 1

Last month Dave and I went to St. Louis to visit family, we got to stay with Molly and her beautiful family (Anna, Paul, Christian and baby Peter) along with Larissa and her two kids (Shayla and little Mitchell). We went to the Gateway Arch and Dave and I, along with Shayla went all the way up to the top of the arch.

This is Shayla and I waiting to get into the pod that take you to the top! Dave, Shayla and I were the only ones in our party who had never been, so just the three of us went up together!

This is Shayla sitting in one of the chairs that takes you to the top of the arch. The pods were pretty small and you had to bend down just so you wouldn't hit your head getting in! There were five chairs in each pod, so you got pretty friendly with anyone else who was in there with you!

When you get to the top you get to walk around the top of the arch, they have small windows all along the sides so you can look down the 630 ft. to the ground!

It took about 10 minutes in the pod to get to the top and we had a really fun time! After we came back down, we all had a picnic in the park. It was a really nice day.