Beilmans Out & About in St. Louis

We had so much fun enjoying the St. Louis Zoo with Grandma Pat & Grandpa Dan!  The sea lion show was fantastic! However, my favorite stop was the penguin house because it was ice cold in there.  The heat & humidity of Missouri in the Summer never ceases to make me crazy, so I could have stayed in that smelly penguin exhibit all day.  Plus, those little guys are cute!

 All the Beilmans waiting to go visit the penguins.

 

Davis doing his best penguin impersonation.

 Sean & his folks.

 Davis cooling off at Uncle Marc & Aunt Cindy's pool!  We celebrated our niece Brooke's college graduation but unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures with her.  So disappointed about that, but we were very glad to be able to spend time with her and the rest of the family.  Such a great day!

 

 Carter jumping in with the big turtle.

Relaxing in the shade with this cutie. :-)

Back at home, Davis loved watching Grandma Pat play the piano.

Stop #2, The Lou

We drove to St. Louis for our second leg of the Midwestern Adventure.  (After a stop in Columbia to see my dear friend, Stephanie, for some girl time.)  We took the boys to the Magic House in Kirkwood for one of our favorite stops.  This place is amazing!  

 Davis climbing the three-story plant.

 Davis dressed as a construction worker.

 Carter digging.

 Carter warming up his seat in the oval office.

 Mary Anne's daughter, Kathryn, and Carter holding court. 

 Fun with pokey thingys.

 She's going to kill me for posting this...Mary Anne swinging like Tarzan.  :-)  LOVE it!!!

 Carter building with giant Lincoln logs.

 Davis floating his contraption.

BFFs.  Love her!

4th of July, Kirkwood Style

We were invited to my friend Mary Anne's house for her July 4th party.  What a treat!  I got to see one of my favorite people AND enjoy her beautiful home and party-throwing skills. We had a great time and loved the fireworks at the end.  We were able to sit in her back yard & have a perfect view of the Kirkwood fireworks show.  The low point was temporarily losing Davis in one of her basement window wells. (He was playing hide-and-seek with the big kids & I was convinced he had been abducted.) That was a bad way to end the night, but I'm choosing to focus on the four hours prior to that!  There's just something about seeing best friends from college that makes you feel whole again.  What a great way to celebrate the Fourth!

 Playing on their Mizzou sport court.

 Perfect yard for entertaining!

 Cool Pac-Man game in the newly finished basement.

 More basement...

 Sean was drooling over their 86 inch TV.

Love this girl!

 My firecrackers.

Silly boy.

City Museum

I'd heard tons of my Missouri friends talk about how cool the City Museum in St. Louis is, so we decided to check it out for ourselves!  It did not disappoint.  Sean & I could believe A) That this place existed, and B) that nobody had gotten hurt, sued the Museum, and forced it to close.  There are so many crazy tunnels and ladders and slides going on that you have absolutely no idea where you are going to end up.  Because of this, I decided that my claustrophobia and fear of heights would not make me a very good companion.  Sean did all the adventuresome stuff and I took pictures.  

 The three-story slide at the entrance of the museum.

 

 Here comes Davis!

 A tunnel/tree house structure.

 Daddy loves robots & so do we!

The boys thought these giant undies were hi-larious!

 Hanging out in the hippie back room was pretty groovy.

 BUSTED!

 We climbed a warped kind of wall.

 Rode a train....

 And, climbed some more.

 Sean was having just as much fun as the boys!

 Multi-story slide/maze area where we sort of got lost and Carter & I got really creeped out.

 Time for an apple, freshly cored & peeled by this nifty gadget.

 And then, the outside exploration began.  There are TONS of elevated climbing tunnels that you couldn't pay me to go into.  Sean got some great pics from his phone taken several stories up in the air. Glad I decided to pass.

 After all that climbing and picture-taking, we decided to treat ourselves to a St. Louis favorite...Ted Drewes!  It was kind of in the 'hood, but super yummy!