Saint Louis

Most of the time I've spent in St. Louis has been at the airport. When we lived in the DFW area we would fly home via St. Louis on TWA. Hey, it was cheap. We spent A LOT of time in that airport during a four year period. And saw lots and lots of stuff and have many, many stories that include things like Karen's first plane flight ever! possible sighting of Slobodan Milosevic in the late '90s, a for real sighting of Troy Aikman & Jason Garrett, storms... Those are for another post. Today we went to the zoo. I think I've been to the zoo before, but it was right after we got married so there is very little chance that I remember anything of it. We had a really awesome day and I thought I would share the highlights with you:

• On the way there--Nathan: "How old do I have to be to drive a semi?" Mom: Umm, 21. (where did I get that number???)
• I got completely nauseous watching the 3D movie and this was even after I took the motion sickness medicine before I got there.
• The train, the train, the train--we rode it so much I'm surprised they didn't kick us off.
• Ashley really, really wanted to see the snow leopard
• Nathan really, really wanted to see the camel--odd? I think so.
• John didn't care what he saw as long as it was huge and made a cool noise.
• Sara got to see tons of butterflies. She was in heaven. It was great.
• John can do a great elephant imitation. Not real sure the others on the sidewalk completely appreciated it
• The hippos were swimming around. They are HUGE!
• We managed to avoid the carousel as I wasn't sure I would have been able to ride it with them without throwing up.
• We also managed to avoid the snake house--yeah, me!
• The appearance of a seeing eye dog drew the male lion out of his cave...that was entertaining.
• Sara's quote(s) of the day : "Oh, yeah I know that. I learned that in school." yeah school!

And now I'm off to find my monopoly pieces (if I can move). I may have won...

What are the odds?

Between Joe and I there are a combined 9 siblings on both sides of our family (including spouses and us). Right now 6 are (or soon to be) out of the country. And they are not traveling all together on the same trip. Okay, so in this particular family the odds of that happening may be greater considering we have both a military family and another family that lives semi-permanently out of this country. But still...

It was an interesting morning...

I had to figure out how to explain to John the difference between a 2-wheel drive vehicle and a 4-wheel drive vehicle. I just hope I was right. I could have really messed him up. I can hear him wrongly correcting the son of a car buff in his kindergarten class next year. (Mrs. Horn, your son got into a fist fight today...)

And then I had to subdue Nathan in the doctor's office while I got John checked out (his allergies have been absolutely horrible). Nathan is usually really, really good in the doctor's office (actually they all are at this point), but I evidently didn't prep him enough today. Why was he upset? He wanted to get checked out and was very upset that they didn't look in his ears. (Definition of very upset: laying on the floor kicking and screaming and very verbally expressing exactly why he was upset) Yes, I think I sometimes work too hard at making my kids enjoy things that most kids hate. I tend to pay for it later.

The nurse at the doctor's office was shocked that the boys knew who Eeyore was on her shirt. I guess the Disney channel version doesn't have Eeyore anymore. What's Pooh without Eeyore? It would totally take the fun out of reading it if you didn't get to do (as my sister-in-law puts it) the Debbie downer voice of Eeyore.

On the way home John paused and took a breath between questions. After we all enjoyed a moment of silence John proclaimed : "I ask a lot of questions, don't I mom."

And in the last 5 minutes I have realized that I have done something to my finger. The crazy thing is that I have no idea what or when. I've narrowed down the time frame to carrying the groceries in the house. It is throbbing at the top joint and starting swell. I think I pulled something. Is there anything up there that can pull?

So What's Up?

I haven't been real diligent in keeping you up to speed with the happenings here. So I'll give you a brief update while I wait for my coffee to finish brewing. (I really slept hard this afternoon and need a pick me up. I also missed Peyton bringing the Colts from behind. I should have known not to fall asleep. It is the Colts afterall.) Anyway, here's what's up:

Ashley lost another tooth. This one is on the bottom. There is absolutely no sign of any teeth emerging on top. In case you didn't know, I am missing two top permanent teeth as is Joe's sister (the same two teeth--what are the odds?), so anytime the permanent ones are a little slow in showing themselves we tend to worry, panic and continually question how in the world we are going to pay for implants. Then one day we are proven that it was all for not--here's hoping that is the case here.

Sara is enjoying getting letter grades in 2nd grade. This is the first year that she doesn't get a E, S, or NI. She actually gets grades and she is thriving on it. She is studying for her pretest spelling tests so that she can get a whole new set of challenge words for the actual test on Friday. She's very driven--not really sure where she gets that from...

John is, well, John. His current passions are batman, star wars (he alternates between Luke & Darth Vader), and basketball. He also experienced a crushing moment the other day when he found out that he doesn't actually get to start kindergarten the day after his 5th birthday. I think he cried for an hour. He's most recent stumping question: "Why is honey sticky? Bees aren't sticky so why is the honey sticky?"

Nathan is almost potty trained!!! I'm not sure how many posts I have begun about the transition of our family now that we are diaperless and he literally proves to me while I am typing that he is not fully potty trained. He turns the big 3 the end of the month.

For those of you who are interested, Joe has made it to where he is going and we are all doing fine. I'll try to add some pictures later. I'm still have problems getting them to upload.