Some of the Stuff We've Been Doing

We went to the Arch.



The kids hadn't realized it was so tall.

We went up inside it and looked down.


Very cool. We also watched the documentary on how it was made. And we spent a lot of time in the museum of westward expansion in the base of the Arch -- the kids loved the museum, to my surprise. Maybe it's because of all the months upon months of reading Little House books and Birch Bark books -- it was sort of cool seeing stuff from that era. They also loved the General Store.

If you come to St. Louis, don't hesitate to ask us if we'd be interested in going back. We'll go with you to the Arch! But don't expect to share a tram car up to the top with us -- we want our own.

We also visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which are beautiful, not to mention more interactive than I expected:



This wasn't part of the Children's Garden, by the way. This was just a sculpture along a path. The Children's Garden is really nice, though. It's one of the nicest play areas I've seen.

Kid1 has been taking a sewing class all week. Since Kid2 and I have been home alone, we've been hanging out in the kitchen. We've made peanut butter, a cake from scratch,



chocolate chip cookies, and ice cream in a ziploc. Overall, we've used more sugar in the past few days than we have in the preceding 6 months.

We've also gone to the doctor a couple of times, and Kid1 had her first medical stitches (it was oral surgery, not an accident, but still sort of exciting). My car is having hot flashes, which is always exciting.

And, well, let's see...in general we've been up to all the other stuff people do this time of year, like playing in sprinklers, telling stories, catching fireflies, and watching Star Trek.