Pomme de Terre

Here's another wayback post! 2.5 years ago, as Leah looks to be 3?? 

We spent a lovely restorative weekend in one of the  new camper cabins at Pomme de Terre State Park. 

Here's (some of us) on the way with the minivan all loaded down. James did not want to be in the photo & Leah was still rear-facing behind me at the time. 

 We stayed in this camper cabin: 

And our friends got the cabin next door!

They brought their dog:

This one had a bunk bed and a full-size fridge (different from the loft area and mini-fridge of Mark Twain). Here's Amelie in sun-protective swim gear with Sam's phone.

This might have been Leah's last ride in the baby carrier.

Here's Leah in a long-sleeved swim suit hanging out in the top bunk:

James roasting a marshmallow:

 

Sam's taken to capturing nature scenes with his iPhone. Here's a sample of some of the pictures from the short stay:

See the racoon?

Rock Climbing

I might be doing a few make-up posts from last year - depending on how well I can get my photos folder cleared out. This is way back! End of the summer 2021. 

Amelie’s Girl Scout troop went rock climbing for their final activity. The troop is dissolving & Amelie doesn't much want to continue if her friends aren't. We might reassess in the fall if there's another group going at the middle school. 

She did great! And this is super good for her - like way more fun physical therapy.  

Happy New Year!

The kids wanted finger foods & appetizers for supper for New Years. We dressed for dinner & practiced our party manners. 

Pro-tip: If you get sparklers in your stocking, you can do sparklers on New Year's Eve. 

The big kids & Sam stayed up til midnight, but Leah & Grandma & I turned in earlier. 

I made 51 blog posts in 2022 - just shy of an average of 1 per week & the slowest blog year to date (but just by 6 posts). 

Wild Lights at the Zoo

It turned warm! in the 50's! So we took the kids out to St. Louis to see the Wild Lights at the zoo and got home super late last night. They kept talking about "last year," but it was 2 years ago that we went last. A lot was the same, but it was still a lot of fun!

I wanted to eat at Stefanina's on the way out. We got to the restaurant & the waitress asked if we were sick of Christmas food - I'm not! But we're also not eating it all up the way we did after Thanksgiving - two great big similar meals with lots of leftovers too close together, I suppose. The kids (James especially) was not used to waiting at a restaurant for his food! It's been forever since they've been out anywhere - we've kept up our COVID-era practice of weekly carryout with them. Leah and I played the game we learned on Daniel Tiger where you move one thing on the table while the other people close their eyes, and then they try to guess what's changed. 

It's remarkably hard to take photos of lights, and also children who don't care about photos: 

Sam liked these - I think they look like Dr. Seuss: 

We waited in line a bit for the 4-D movie (Sam joked that apparently the 4th dimension is snow) and then bailed and went to see the penguins (& a sleeping polar bear & a rouge opossum that scurried across the path up ahead of us). Then at the end of the night, we waited in line again to see the movie and were the last ones in for the last showing. 

A nice woman in front of us offered to get all of us together: 

At the penguin house (in the puffin portion): 

Selfies are hard, too: 

 We stayed at the zoo until the very very end.