All Things Beilman

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Leaving the 'Lou

On July 5th we hugged it out with Sean's parents and hit the road for the third leg of the journey. We had a really great visit & were especially glad we got to spend time with Grandma Ioma and Aunt Rosemary, too. Thanks for the hospitality, Beilmans!

Grandpa Dan acting as a pony.

What could be better than five Beilmans?

SIX Beilmans, of course!

Missy looked sad to see us go...

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.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

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!

Next Stop, St. Louis

The boys & I picked Sean up at KCI and drove on to St. Louis as a family. It was SO nice to have another adult to rely on and to share the driving. Who am I kidding? Sean did most of the driving the rest of the trip. We stayed with Sean's parents and got to spend time with all four of his siblings. As a special treat, Grandma Ioma & Aunt Rosemary were in town from Oklahoma. I really enjoyed spending time with all of "the girls". (Nothing against the boys, of course.) We had a Beilman Bash the first night with most of the cousins over. Our boys LOVED it!