Our trip to St. Louis and other things BACKWARDS

I always forget to upload my pictures in reverse order, so here they are backwards. I don't know why it is typing in bold, but I cannot get it to stop either.

This is Rachel sleeping with her new/used pillow from Katie. She normally doesn't even sleep on it, so I thought this was cute. This girl slept so well on Monday. I think she was just catching up on sleep as we are all exhausted from our trip.

Playing with a box of diapers I bought. She thought is was fun to push it around and then try to crawl on top of it every now and then. It looks like some sort of balancing act.


She is also now able to climb on and get off her rocking horse herself. She likes it.
We had all three girls (left to right, Hannah, Rachel, Kate) at Suson park. That is where the next 10 or so pictures are from. It is a neat park with a lake to fish in, playgrounds, pavilions and farm animals.

Piglets are so cute.
Hannah and Kate were thrilled by the animals. Rachel didn't seem too interested yet.
One of the goats is sitting in the trough to eat.
Hank petting a miniature horse.
Sleepy Rachel at Lone Elk park.
One of the few elk we saw on this trip to Lone Elk Park. It is a free drive thru park where you can usually spot many elk, bison, deer, and turkey. It was a very rainy day though, so maybe they were hiding.
One of the many clydesdales we saw at Grant's Farm. This was a park we always went to as kids and had a great time. It is again FREE and has lots of animals, a nice tram ride, place to feed the goats, and elephant show, yummy brats to eat, and free beer (to those who like beer).

Hannah cracked up the whole time feeding this little goat.



Grant's farm has two African elephants, which really surprised me because most places have Asian elephants. These two have been there many years.

Lauren and Hannah. It was quite difficult to keep the girls still at the elephant show. For some reason, the monstrous elephant doing tricks was not interesting to them.
American Bald Eagle
Lauren and Kate on the tram ride.
Rachel eating goldfish on the tram ride. It was the only way to keep her happy sitting still for that long.
The next many pictures are from the St. Louis Zoo, which is also FREE and awesome!
Grizzly bear
penguin
The bird house has never interested me much before, but this time, I saw some really neat looking birds. I do not know their names.
Toucan


Kangaroos
I liked the ostrich running amongst the giraffes. At one point, it looked like it was trying to corral them all by the door.

Chimpanzee

Asian elephant

My favorite nieces!

I am enjoying not working, but decided to up my class load in the fall. I will be teaching three classes, still two nights a week. I will start around 2:45 and end at 9:20. So, long days, but Matt and I have some plans for the extra money. I also have a student who really wanted to me in my class, but it was the earlier one that I didn't have a sitter for Rachel. His mom offered to watch Rachel so I could teach and he could be in my class. They are a wonderful family that I have been tutoring the past two years. So, it worked out perfect. I will most likely not teach three classes for a while after the fall term.

Matt was lonely without me and Rachel. He spent the evenings away from home almost every night, hanging out with friends or family. We are looking forward to a family trip on Memorial Day weekend camping with the Lantz's and other friends.