{Food, Friends & Fun} St. Louis, MO

 I just got home from St. Louis, MO where I spent a few days attending a volunteer leadership conference ~ my last of 7 total conferences that went along with my most recent volunteer "job".  Celebratory, yet bittersweet, it was a wonderful way to end an incredible 2 1/2 years... 

I hadn't been to St. Louis since college, and it was nice to make my way back and visit.

We flew out early Thursday morning and were able to make it over to the Gateway Arch first thing before the conference got going...

 

 

 I must say that I had forgotten how small that little tram is that climbs up to the top!

 

  

This is one of the planned stops on our road trip this summer...

so hopefully I'll be back to visit again soon!

Here are some of the highlights (friends, food & fun) from our trip!

After a morning of sessions, I attended the Opening Reception at the Missouri Botanical Garden...

 

and met up with the other South Carolina girls for dinner at Nico...

 On Friday we had a full day of sessions, along with a luncheon.  That evening we headed out to the ballpark to catch a game, one of the planned events by the conference hosts. 

As luck would have it, our Atlanta Braves were in town, but sadly, they lost...  The game was little too cold for us South Carolina girls, so we headed across the street to enjoy it from a balcony at Cardinals Nation, which was great!

 

Saturday morning was packed with another session, the annual (voting) meeting and keynote speaker.  The afternoon was free, and we signed up to tour the Anheuser-Busch brewery...

 

 where we saw a few of the famous Clydesdales...

 

 
 

toured the brewery buildings...

 

 and tasted a couple of samples...

 

 

 

 before heading back to get ready for the final event of the conference, the Awards Banquet...

  

 

   

We headed back home Sunday morning & were home in time to spend the afternoons with our families...

What a fun ride it has been!

 

January, 2012 - Houston, TX

April, 2012 - San Francisco, CA

September, 2012 - Chicago, IL

January, 2013 - Las Vegas, NV

May, 2013 - Washington, D.C.

September, 2013 - Detroit, MI

 

As has been tradition with all of these travels (except Las Vegas ~ couldn't find anything there!), I've brought back a book or two (that relates to the city or state that I visited) for each of my little ones.

This time I got this one for B...

 

 

 

this one for L...

 

 

and this one for M...

 

{Spring Break} Jumping for Jackson

To round out our state capital visits, we hit Mississippi's own, Jackson, today.  Believe it or not, it was my first visit.  Though I'd been up to Cleveland, MS (a small town equal distance from Jackson and Memphis, TN, but further west near the Arkansas line) once several years ago to visit my cousin and her family, every single one of my Mississippi visits have been to the coast...

Though we weren't there very long, I really liked what I did see of Jackson.  Our first stop was the Mississippi State Capitol building where the littles all ran to the top of the stairs (our customary thing now)...

and took a photo out in front, too...



not leaving without the "silly shot"...

Oh, they are such little messes...

From the capitol building, we stopped for lunch at nearby Brent's Drugs, at the recommendation of one of my Greenville friends that grew up in that area...

After fueling up, we were ready to spend the afternoon exploring the Mississippi Children's Museum...

Wow, what a treat!

When we walked in, the littles were less than impressed as it looked as if we could see the whole museum from the front desk, but there were all sorts of great exhibits hidden everywhere...truly a surprise around every corner, and on multiple levels!  I also really loved that there was a lot for the children to do, but whenever possible the exhibits were built around or intertwined with information about Mississippi.

The top floor consisted of administrative space, the café, the gift shop and the World at Work exhibit...

We explored all different types of energy...

 

how to fuel and drive a car...

{L L-O-V-E-D this}

working (& playing) on a farm...

clearing logs in the forest...

 

and learning more about the great state of Mississippi while driving cars and trains...

{I seriously LOVED this table.  It was shaped like the state of Mississippi and included the interstates and landmarks like the capitol building and Beauvoir in Biloxi.}

From there, we walked down to a mid-level (it was kind of wedged between the top and bottom levels in the middle of the museum) that featured the start of the Exploring Mississippi exhibit (that was really on 3 levels itself!)...

where we...

climbed in the capitol building (it worked out well that we had just visited this morning)...

learned new facts...

and spent most of our time on the large riverboat climbing structure with entrances and exits on all 3 levels of this exhibit...

We excavated fossils...

played in the Mississippi River...



and constructed and  raced our riverboats...

before going underground...

From there, we headed over to the Wild About Reading! exhibit...

where we read books, built puzzles and dressed up like knights in the Between the Lions library...

 

 

and dressed up again to play with puppets in the Readers' Theater area...

before visiting the Healthy Fun! exhibit...

Here, we exercised with a skeleton...

{Leave it to M to strike up a conversation with him.}

shopped in the Farmer's Market (and learned a little more about our favorite fruits and vegetables)...

and spent most of our time playing in the Gastro Climber...

 

We finished up in the Express Yourself! exhibit...

where we gave a few really great performances dancing and singing...

and watching ourselves on the monitor!

 

The absolute best was L's (and her sidekick, Cow, mooing along in tune) rendition of "Go Tell It on the Mountain"...

Oh, we had so much fun ~ could've stayed there all day long, and then some...  We hadn't even gotten to the car and the littles were asking to go back and visit again...  Hopefully, soon...

We headed back to the coast to meet back up with Grandma and grab an early dinner before visiting some more with my grandmother...

With that, part one of our Spring Break has come to a close, and we are headed back home tomorrow.  Looking forward to reuniting with Hubby and switching gears for the second half of the week...