St. Louis Part One

We spent most of our vacation in St. Louis (so be prepared for LOTS of pictures). I had never been there before, and I'm not sure why my parents never took us there for vacation. It wouldn't have been too far from home, and it was a lot of fun. Our first stop on Friday morning was the Gateway Arch. I was a bit freaked out riding to the top in this little circle "cube". They were so old and tiny, but making it to the top was worth it. Some of the pictures are from the morning when we were there, and then we went on Sunday to get some dusk shots. When we got to the top, I held the camera and snapped a bunch of pictures. My genius husband put them all together to make the panorama of downtown St. Louis.





While Noah was shooting some shots of the Arch with his large-format film camera, Darrin and I checked out the old Courthouse next to the Arch. The Dred Scott trial took place there. The place was all decked out for the 4th of July. They were hosting a celebration like what would have taken place in 1857, so the flags they had hung up only had 33 stars.

We had to change our plans a bit after that, as the Cardinals game was standing room only, and we weren't going to stand. Instead we opted for a tour at the Budweiser brewery. The brewery was HUGE. It was more like a campus of buildings, and the buildings were SOOOOO gorgeous. We met some of the Clydesdale, froze in part of the building, and enjoyed two free beverages at the end.

(Can you guess who drank the pop?)

After a bit, we headed to City Museum. I'm not exactly sure why it's called a museum. It's more like an indoor/outdoor playground built out of recycled materials for big kids (it's open til 1 am). While Marlena and I enjoyed ourselves, I think the boys LOVED it. They were in heaven crawling around and exploring things. The museum had tunnels, slides, stairs, and structures all built out of other things, especially wire. It was CRAZY! It's really hard to describe what it was like. You just have to go there- Trust me.

(We were able to climb all over and through the wire/airplanes pictured)
(2-story slide)
(Darrin's shot inside the slide)
(the far spiral is a 10-story slide Noah and Darrin went down)(Darrin climbing up the spiral to the tunnels above)

That was the end of the first jam-packed fun-filled day in St. Louis. More to come later about the rest of our travels.

First things first

Whew. I'm back from road-tripping through Missouri and am exhausted. Before I recap the trip, though, I need to post my UFO finish. Missing a week of sewing time cut into my productivity a bit. I got the binding sewed down on my May wall-hanging while in the car on our trip. I worked on a few other things during the car ride, but no finishes.


Now that the important stuff is out of the way, vacation recap part one. We left about 8:30 Wednesday morning for Iowa City, where we met my mom and handed Ian over for the week. Darrin and I kept saying goodbye, but he was ready to go with Grandma and had to tell us to get out of there so he could go. I think Ian had the best nap he's ever had during the car ride- could be because of his sleeping buddy.

From Iowa City we headed to Hannibal. While there, we had dinner on the Mark Twain riverboat and toured his home. Sad thing was, most of us on the trip hadn't read many books of his (I've only read Huck). I was surprised at some of the titles he had written; I had heard of the books before, but didn't realize he was the author. In the Twain Museum, they had original Normal Rockwell paintings for the editions of Huck and Tom Sawyer he illustrated. They were very cool. We also stopped by a quilt shop. I didn't buy much, just backing fabric for my next quilt.

Vacation Preparation

Tomorrow morning bright and early we're leaving for vacation- a road trip through Missouri with Marlena and Noah. We'll be spending most of our time in St. Louis, but hitting a few other spots, too. Ian will be enjoying his grandparents' undivided attention during the week we're gone. I've just finished making my list of morning to-do's and putting together my car ride entertainment. I've got some binding to hand sew, which will complete another UFO, and some needle-turn applique for one of my oldest UFOs. And hopefully, I'll have some embroidery for a Start to Finish project. We'll see how much time I get on the road for posting, but don't be surprised if all is quiet on here (not that I write THAT often anyway).

Top Finish

I finished the top of my Shadow Play quilt today. It turned out really well, and was much easier to assemble than I thought it would be. Now I just have to figure out how to quilt it. I have a few ideas running around in my head I'll have to try out.

Railroad Days

This week is Railroad Days in Omaha/Council Bluffs. For a total of $10 for all three of us, we could visit the Botanical Gardens, Durham Museum, Union Pacific Museum, Rails West Museum, and General Dodge house. We only made it to two of them. We probably could have seen more had we started earlier, but Darrin and I slept in. Ian spent the night with Marlena and Noah so that Darrin and I could go celebrate our 5-year anniversary (nothing too exciting, just dinner and Star Trek).

We began our day at the Botanical Gardens, where my friend Sara works. She had the fun job of directing traffic all day out in the sun. The part of the garden we spent the most time in was the model train section. They have recreated many of the "famous" buildings of Omaha and the world out of all natural materials. Those buildings are very lacquered to make them waterproof.

After watching those Ian and Darrin took a trip around the park in a miniature U.P. train. It was probably the highlight of Ian's day.



After that, we headed towards the school buses. I wish I had a video camera along to capture Ian's expression when we told him he got to ride a school bus. He inhaled deeply and took off at a dead sprint down the path.

We took the bus to the Rails West Museum, where they had old train cars you could walk through. Ian and Darrin are on the top-right of the engine, and he's waving in the window of the caboose.


It made for a long day for Ian, and he was getting very cranky, so we headed home. Karma made a good pillow for him.

Out with the Old...

and in with the new. My wallet was in desperate need of replacement, but everywhere I looked, I couldn't find something that I wanted: essentially what I had, only in better condition. Since I couldn't find what I wanted, I made myself a wallet. It's called the Wonder Wallet by Lazy Girl Designs. It took me 45 minutes from start to finish, and that included Toddler Time (reading books and playing in his fort).
That's another finish for me- three weeks and three finishes. Hopefully I can make it even more this week. Too bad I can't count scrapbook finishes. I spent Saturday and Sunday at a scrapbooking retreat. I'm attempting to get Ian's baby book finished (yes, I still haven't finished his life before his 1st birthday, and he's two-and-a-half).

Here are a few of my favorite layouts I did:
This one is about starting baby food.

These are about his BIRTH day. The green paper on the left page tells all about what happened that day.

And this one is about how we used the vent on the microwave to get him to fall asleep.

One bad thing about scrapbooking all weekend was that I missed the sun. It hadn't shined for a week, so today, when it came out after some showers this morning, Ian, Karma, and I headed to the park. It's great going in the early morning; only the young kids, if any, are there. None of the teenagers.

My New Purse

I was thinking my current purse was too fall with all the brown and tan tones in it, so it was time to make a spring/summer purse. I love that for about $5 I can make my own purse to fit my own style. From start to finish, it took about 2 hours.


That will be it from the quilting front for me this week. I'm scrapbooking from 9 am on Saturday to 7pm on Sunday, so I need to get stuff ready to go. It's not at Archiver's so I won't be able to search for the perfect paper for each layout- I need to get all that ready now.

My goal for Waun-A-Finish is to finish up something small each week, while making progress on my big quilt. Otherwise, I could probably get a bunch of small things done, but Shadow Play will sit and sit, and I have other big quilts I want to work on!