Exciting moments from late March and early April

My dear friend Ms. Angie, asked why I haven't blogged lately-and I thought-I really haven't, so here I am. And I finally downloaded some fun pics so what better way to update my dearest friends on what is going on then w/ some pics of what the kids and I have been up to :)

I'm going to start out w/ the last time we went to The Healthworks Childrens museum downtown South Bend. For those of you who have kids-take them-its fun! My favorite sister in law, Kasia, let me know that you can rent a pass from the library if you have a library card, so that like you and 5 other people, maybe 4 I can't remember, can get in for free!! What is more fun then fun for free! Parking does cost a couple bucks. This last time we went we met Kristy, Lucas, and little cutie pie Lola there. Lily had a half day so she actually got to come w/ us this time. She complains that Ty and I do all kinds of fun stuff with out her. I explained she does all kinds of fun stuff with out us at school too! But she just doesnt see it that way.
This dance floor was so cool. There were all these different games. Like dodge ball, pong type games and even ones where you have to chase a certain color. The kids loved it, it represents something about your nervous system, I guess we missed the educational stuff, ha! Tyler just thought it was one big dance floor. A great way to wear the kiddo's out!!

The one to the right was really fun, I don't know how it worked, but when your shadow came in contact with the soccer balls, they bounced way from you... you could do all kinds of sports, super fun!



I loved Operation Growing up, they have a huge one there. With really big gross looking body parts, they are not plastic like the game, they are more rubbery.
Tyler really liked it but had a hard time b/c the pieces are really heavy.

Ah, here is lily climbing the rock wall, I think this was the section about mites and stuff. Gross, and the wall is really short, I don't think she could go any higher, she's getting so tall!




I'm really bummed, and embarrassed to admit that I only have one picture from one of my favorite evenings out in the month of March. The night before Ana's 29th birthday-her last official 20 something birthday!-Ana, Trisha and I went to Trio's Jazz restaurant downtown, it is so nice in there. Great service, awesome food, good music-a little loud though. We shared a bottle of wine and had a really great evening. And the only picture I have of the evening is one of Ana in the car. Ana-Banana you looked beautiful that night! Ana took some pics-so i'll have to facebook them when she sends some my way :) Isn't my BFF, a hottie!
I did get a couple shots of Ana, Brittney, Dawn and I from Saturday night-Ana's actual birthday at Houlihans. Yum, I love Pomagranite Martini's! And Mediterranian Orzo!
Our waitress was super overly friendly and kinda bossy. She offered to take pictures and the second was worse than the first she took, b/c Dawn's eyes were closed. But she had her tip by then so I guess she was done with us. She even helped us to move from her table in the dining room to the bar for dessert.


Last Sunday, Tim, Jordan, Lily and Tyler and me :) went to St. Louis, Missouri. I'd never been. It is really a fun city! This is our first view crossing the Mississippi River of the Arch. I do have to say that the Arch is Tylers favorite monument. Everywhere we went Ty was like "where is the Arch, I can't see the Arch!" Luckily our hotel was right next to it, you could see it out of our hotel room window. The hotel restruant had a wonderful view of the Arch. We went to St. Louis because Nadja was involved in the Pinnical of Fitness Competition through school. She did pullups. Her school ended up coming in 5th in the state! Go Nadja! It was kinda a last minute planned trip. We really didnt have the money and I had to cancel some plans, the main reason I went to begin with was I was worried Tim would fall asleep at the wheel driving so far by himself. We left a 7 a.m. Sunday morning and drove to Indy to drop off Tim's nephew who stayed w/ us last week. And got to St. Louis about 3 p.m. It was a long drive. We also saw the biggest Cross I have ever seen in my life on the way there. It was like as tall as 12 story building, just a huge white cross in the middle of a field, so weird. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it.
This last one to the left is the veiw from our room, you had to push your face up against the glass to get a view of the whole thing but Ty didnt have a problem with that at all.

Here is my clan waiting for Nadja to start. She was really nervous and she had to go first! Yikes, I dont think I could even do one pul up, I think Nadja got 10 pullups in 1 minute!!
Melissa (Nadja's mom) Aldo (her step dad) and Annicka, her little cutie 1 yr old sister were there too. Ty had fun playing w/ Annicka. There were so many things for the kids to do at the Hoops City place. Here is Lily, Jordan, Tim on the phone-as usual, and Tyler ;)

Here is Tyler playing softball. They had all kinds of little activities for kids and adults to play. Golf, volleyball, lots and lots of basketball. Tyler had lots and lots of snacks, cotton candy-guess what color-popcorn, pop, candy, pretzels, chips and a belly ache by the end of the day.


Ty and Lil w/ J.J. Hoops the Hoop City
mascot. And their balloon animals. Lily
got a blue butterfly and Ty a pink snake.

I actually popped Tylers snake about 5 minutes after he got it b/c he wanted me to tie it around his waste, so for most of the day he just had a snake head, he also took the fangs out. At least we have a picture of the complete thing, ha :)


Lily got a blue butterfly painted on her face to match her blue butterfly balloon. Tyler did not want to get any face paint, I could not even convince him to get something on his hand or arm. Not even a pink snake. He did however not have a problem getting as close as he could to the lady while she was painting faces. Its funny how little kids have absolutely not concept of personal space.
There was a juggler on stilts walking around. Tyler thought he was really cool and had to hi five him every time we saw
him.
Here is a picture of Nadja's team from Jefferson Intermediate receiving their awards, and free swag. They came in 5th in the state over all. Not bad, not bad....




After playing around most of the day at Hoop City we decided we were going to go to visit the Arch. We walked over and it was sooo super cold out-we'd taken a cab over and so we actually stopped and bought some St. Louis sweatshirts. Yes Tylers has a picture of the Arch on it. We took a ride to the top of the arch! It was really cool!

Here is another pic of the
Arch, on our walk over. Here is a side view of the Arch, it is really massive, when your standing under it. It was built as a symbol of westward expansion.
You take this little shuttle pod type thing up to the top it is a little rocky-kinda like the Ferris wheel ride is but totally enclosed egg shaped thing that only seats 5 people (exactly how many we had) it looked very futuristic. Lily was a little nervous but she survived.
Jordan looks like he is nervous lily will puke on him.

Jordan and I, squished in the middle of the scaredy cats.


Ty looking nervous when the car took off.





Tyler, Tim, Lily and Jordan at the top of the Arch. Tyler kept asking where the arch was, he didn't understand that we were in the arch :)

Lily and I in the viewing area of the Arch-its a pretty small area-and the windows are really small.






You had to lay on the edges to see out the windows, so when you walk down the isles you just see every ones butts!
Lily the butterfly 630 feet up in the air. We gave her a crash course on getting over her fear of heights. After about 5 minutes she was ready to go though.




Look how murky the Mississippi River is! There was a sinking barge across the river. And a big casino-but I didn't get a pic of that.





Lily and Tyler in the egg pod, on the way back down. Lily was very happy to be back on solid ground.
Here is a shot of our hotel from the top of the Arch.
The two round buildings are the Millennium Hotel where we stayed, behind it you can see the baseball diamond there was a game that day-a whole stadium of red shirts!

Underneath the Jefferson Monument Arch is the museum of Westward Expansion-we hung out their for a little while, and gained some historical knowledge.

Right at the entrance of the museum Tyler got attacked by a bear!
We hung out w/ some of the local soldiers. And Buffalo were there!










We took a chilly walk back over to a restaurant we saw on the way to the Arch that looked tastey-and it sure was. It was really nice inside-the fanciest Chinese restaurant I ever ate at, kinda expensive though. I loved the lights.


Here is a close up of Lily's butterfly face, it was starting to get smeared.

I think tylers favorite part of the trip was riding up and down the elevator to get snacks. He made lots of friends in that elevator-my little social bug. That and the swimming pool they had a little indoor pool, they got in a couple times.

Tyler after eating his candy bar. yum chocolate!








Playing around w/ Nadja's sun glasses!!















Here are some senic pictures of Lindell Street on our way to Forrest Park where the zoo is. There were so many huge old beautiful buildings. It is so nice in St. Lewis.

























The last picture is of the fountain in front of the Museum of Art, it was massive, like a french castle. They had art from the Ming Dynasty on display. That would have been really cool to see.

St. Louis Zoo!

St. Louis has a very large, very pretty Zoo, and its free! Doesn't cost a penny to get in! It does cost for the kids petting zoo, and to ride the train, and to ride the carousel, but we didn't do any of those and we still spent like 4 hours there :)


The only Elephant we got to see was this metal water fountain one! I was so bummed! It was the last display we got to and no elephants were out, No Hippo's, no Rhino's! All we saw for all the walking was some Hienna's and something that looked like a chipmunk! I guess we got our exercise in for the day!
The first picture of Ty and Tim has some bears in the back ground we saw several but they were all sleepy!

We saw some very cute penguins! These two were right up front to greet us, and just staring at us! Then we went inside and saw some more that looked like the ones in Happy Feet. Tyler was excited, they were so cute! But boy did it smell like fish in there!
















This bear was away and walking around!









They had the cutest bridges and buildings at the zoo. It really was quite beautiful! Just look at the entrance to the Bird House!



















The birds had a pretty nice place. I wish I had a garden/courtyard like that in the middle of my house!
These two were really pretty but really loud!!! Tyler kept asking me why they were yelling at him.
This guy is a King Vulture, he was pretty ugly looking!



Check out this guys head, it was really weird looking! Next were the giraffe's!!! They are one of my favorite animals! they are just so pretty. They didn't get to close to us. Tyler was more interested in pringles as you can see than the giraffes!



This guy was stuck inside all by his/herself. But definitly warmer than its buddies out side!










This thing here is called an Okapi! It had Zebra feet and was the side of a large horse, or a small moose. The sign said it was more like a cousin of the giraffe though.....








There was this huge metal sculpture, it had animals in it, but I didn't get a very close shot. It was pretty cool but a little scary!


Here is a nice shot of the giraffe's they got closer after we left!
This guy had spit all over his beard!










This tiger was enjoying the sunshine!!





The zebras were just chillin' too!

Here is the monkey house!

















These little guys were sooo cute!

From monkeys to reptiles. We saw some pretty cool stuff in the reptile house. Like the Bermese Phython, dad had these big ol' snakes when I was Tylers age.






And Tortoise's !!!
















We saw some pretty cool and some pretty gross bugs in the insectatrium. They had a butterfly dome you could walk through too, you even had to check yourself before you left to make sure none of the butterflies were trying to hitch-hike outside the dome. We saw bugs that looked like leaves, and sticks, and huge cockroaches, and a huge ant farm! Cool stuff!
One of the coolest things Ty found about the zoo was the eco friendly toilet handle in the bathroom, they were green. You flushed up for liquid waste, and down for solid, to save water!



After the zoo we headed home-and got some more senic shots of beautiful St. Louis. The huge building w/ the green dome is the Cathedral of the Basilica which they say is even more beautiful on the inside w/ mosiacs and stuff. It is where the Pope stayed... They closed early so we didnt get to check it out. We did however stop in Springfield IL at the Bob Evans on the way home-the Land of Lincoln!

Here is tyler in front of the huge fountain that is in front of the museum of art. We stopped and walked along there a little. There were alot of people just hanging out in the grass enjoying the sunshine. On the way back through town, we saw alot of people out running, walking and biking. St. Lewis is a very heatlhy city, it seems. They even have a green bike program where there are lots of places you can rent bikes, they are green, and eco friendly. Our hotel was one of the places, but we didn't rent any.

Here is St. Louis-in front of the musuem of art. His horse had a huge cross on his forehead.














There were so many pretty tree's in bloom. Even though there were super cold winds monday when we were there and some snow, spring has sprung.

Tim loved this orange fountain-looks like Gator-Aid














This building was completely gutted and grafedied!

And out last glimpse of the Arch and the top of our hotel before we got back on the road. Good bye St. Louis! It was fun!!!!
















Just a few finishig notes....

I'd love to thank whoever created Pandora Radio-your amazing-i love it.
A few quotes from songs I was listening to while completing this super long blog-its not that long-but my computer is super slow-so it took awhile....

"You talk about the world like it's some place that you've been" Goo Goo Dolls

"Where were you while we were getting high" Oasis

"where these dreams go when the world gets in your way" not sure who that is

Things i'm looking forward to:

lunch, i'm starving.
seeing J&K this weekend, I love you guys, the kids always have a blast as do I when we come to the Fort of Wayne to see you! Looking forward to Lego city at the Musemum in Indy!
Liz coming in May-its been so long since i've seen you!
Seeing Becca next week, b/c my dear friend I feel like I havent seen you in like a month!
Kasia's grad in Indy next month-and her parents being here....Thanksgiving in May!
The kids being out of school in a about a month and a half!
April 21, Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr is out...its going to be a great book!
Angie coming back in June.....unless she plans to make another trip before she comes home-i miss my angie!
And.......WARMER WEATHER...it will be here soon right? right? we will have warm weather this spring...i'm so ready!
Seeing Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D!

another little side note here. It is really hard to loose weight no matter how much yoga I do when cupcakes w/ chocolate frosting taste so good. McD's isn't helping either w/ those tastey little egg McMuffins!

Love you all!