St. Louis Summer Fun

I know it's been a while since I've blogged and I noticed that I have become the one in the family with the most outdated blog and I couldn't let that be the case for long. 

Without further ado, on to the recent (or not so recent) BS adventures. 

In connection with Sarah's new job, she was asked to attend a teaching conference in St. Louis towards the end of July. Since Sarah's aunt and uncle live in St. Louis and because Nauvoo is much closer to St. Louis than it is to Norman, we decided to turn it into a nice little vacation before school started for both of us again. 

While Sarah was in her conference (learning about a teaching style that involves lots of group work and students helping each other understand the different material), I was hanging out with her cousins Anna and Lacy along with her aunt Kristie, doing all sorts of fun things.  We spent some time at a local water park where almost all of us enjoyed going down the really tall water slides (maybe I'll convince Kristie to try it by the next time we go with them). Sorry there aren't any pictures from that adventure but I figured that water parks and cameras don't really go too well together, especially if you want to use your camera in the future.  We also watched one of Anna's softball games and enjoyed more than our fair share of custard.

 

Despite all the fun Sarah was having at her conference, we somehow convinced her to go see of the sights in St. Louis with us. Even though this was the third time I had been to St. Louis, it was the first time I was actually able to go to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Every time I had tried before this, there was some sort of maintenance or lift malfunction that kept us from going to the top. So, it wasn't much of a surprise to me when we got there and found out that some emergency maintenance was being performed on the lift and they didn't know how long it would take until they had it fixed.  Ever the happy troopers as we waited, we explored the museum and the gift shop and the other store and the replica of one of the lift compartments that you can check out without going to the top (or that you can sit in and imagine what it is like since the lift is having some sort of emergency maintenance done on it).

  

Eventually, the emergency maintenance issue was resolved and we were able to enter a small compartment with some strangers and embark on our journey to the top of the arch (with no fear that another emergency maintenance issue could arise while we were in the top of the arch and be stuck there for hours).  There are eight or so little compartments that work somewhat like a Ferris wheel in that they stay level even as the lift goes up inside of the arch. The top if the arch culminated with a small room full of tourist and some small windows to get a view of St. Louis.   Here is a picture of us at the top and we're happy to know that we didn't have any emergency maintenance issues and that we would be back on the ground shortly.

 

Once on the ground, we decided to take a few fun pictures of the arch being supported by each of us in creative ways.  Some of us struggled more than others when it came to holding still enough to get a good picture but hopefully we got some good ones.

  

   

  

 

 

 

This one is for Gwen. We heard her say in our mind, "That's super cute. You guys should kiss."

 

Our final adventure that evening was to go to the mall at the old train station, where most of the stores were closed, but we enjoyed a whispering arch from the original construction as well as trying to slide down different stair rails with differing degrees of success.

 

After going to Nauvoo for a few days, we spent a little more time with the Slezaks before heading back to Norman.  Lacy was really excited about hula hooping, so Sarah and I gave it a try.  We had a little competition to see who could do it the longest (between me and Sarah) and I ended up winning with a time of about twenty seconds.  Lacy wasn't too impressed - her two times were both a few minutes long.