A Visit to Indianapolis

This past weekend we spent 3 days in Indianapolis visiting friends who had just moved there for one year (they are completing a fellowship like we did in Iowa City). The kids (and Joe and I!) had so much fun that we have already begun to look at the calendar for a follow up visit. Olivia experienced her first "sleep over" with Caden by sleeping on a cot in his bedroom, and all four had a blast running all around, whether it be in a house, the zoo, or the Children's Museum.

We started our vacation with a breakfast at a restaurant called "Flap Jack's". Luckily having loud children like Olivia and Caden was not frowned upon at this place!


Our first day took us to the Indy zoo. We watched the great dolphin show, and here is Joe, Ethan, Caden, Olivia, and Curt petting dog sharks. Olivia loved it, but poor Ethan's arms were not quite long enough to reach the sharks.

A rare picture with all 4 kids (Caden, Ethan, Olivia, and Cole)....here they are watching the penguins.

It never fails. You take the kids to the zoo, and their favorite thing is feeding the ducks.

Ethan and Olivia in the reptile house.

Olivia riding her horse "Ginger" in the children's zoo area.

And Ethan taking a turn riding "Sugar".

The boys with their boys.

Olivia LOVED this goat in the petting zoo area.

This was Ethan's version of eating an ice cream sandwich. He bit the cookie part off and then didn't want to eat the ice cream.

Luckily he was able to come clean in the zoo's splash park!

Olivia and Caden playing in the splash park.

It was unseasonably cool the weekend we were in Indy, so the kids did not last too long in the water before needing to get warm again.

The next day we attended the Indy Children's Museum...one of the largest in the world. It was five stories full of activities and exhibits. We spent six hours in the museum, and that was even with us skipping an entire floor. I think we will be heading back here on a return trip! Luckily, Joe was able to see the Star Wars exhibit before it ended. Here are just a few pictures from that exhibit, as Ethan posed with every character and was very insistent on having his picture taken multiple times with them.

Again, another rare shot of all 4 together.

Here is Olivia serving Ethan and Cole tea in the Egypt exhibit.

Olivia in Egypt.

Ethan and Caden climbing the tree house.

Joe and Ethan posing with a Star Wars Jedi Starfighter while waiting for our turn to enter into the King Tut exhibit (very nice...I recommend it if you are planning to attend the museum).

Olivia's favorite dinosaur is the triceratops, so she had to have her picture taken with one in the dinosaur exhibit.

Archeologist Ethan.

Ethan making a Mr. Potato Head.

Caden and Olivia at the Ice Cream Shop.

Riding the carousel.

True couch potatoes!

Ethan thinks that everything is a baseball bat. Thus far he has been a consistent lefty with batting and throwing. He is completely mixed up with right/left in other areas like coloring and eating. We have yet to determine which hand is dominate there.

All Star Game

For any of you who live under a rock, the All Star Game was held in St. Louis this year. When Joe learned of this event about 2 years ago or so, he said to me "I don't care what I have to do, but I am going to that game." I told him that the only thing he had to do was a buy a ticket for me as well. Joe attended the Workout Day/Home Run Derby on Monday, and we both attended the All Star Game on Tuesday (along with my dad and brother in law - Merry Christmas!). We skipped the Legends game and the Future All Stars game on Sunday.

Joe took about a dozen pictures of Albert Pujols when he was up to bat in the Home Run Derby. Attempting to capture the perfect shot or stalking? Here is the best of the pictures with Albert making solid contact.


I must say that Joe had perfect timing on this picture of Prince Fielder hitting the winning Derby homerun.

The day of the All Star game had us checking the weather channel frequently, but luckily the rain did not affect the event. We arrived in St. Louis at 3pm for the 7:15pm game. Did I mention that Joe was excited? We walked around the festivities in Kiener Plaza for awhile before heading to the stadium. Here is Joe under the Cardinals Arch. It is up for sale, but I had to put my foot down on that purchase.

Here I am with the Cardinals' World Series Championships arch.

In Busch Stadium, red white and blue seemed to be the colors of choice. This flag is made up of Cardinals' hats.

The National League team posing for their group picture. The fans that we talked to agreed that we could put our differences aside and root for all of the members of this team regardless of where they came from. Except for poor Ted Lilly on the Cubs. He was booed mercilessly by all.

And the American League team posing for their picture.

This picture is performing double duty...you can see how they decorated the field with the Arch and the old Capital building inside of the Arch. Plus you can barely see the Clydesdales starting to make their way around the stadium (look in front of the left field bleachers).

Do I need to state the obvious that this is a really big flag? Plus a stealth fighter jet flew over at about this time, but we didn't take a picture of that.

President Obama throwing out the ceremonial first pitch to Pujols. While it wasn't a pretty throw, it did cross the plate. We also got a kick out of watching all of the Secret Service guys walking around the roof of Busch Stadium with their rifles. Not exactly a common thing at baseball games.

Obama and Pujols congratulating each other after the pitch.

Trying to capture the moment. Joe has now been to an All Star game, playoff games, and World Series games. He claims that the last thing on his list is to attend a game where the Cardinals win the World Series. He might be chasing that dream for awhile.

My nachos have become a bit of a joke with the family. I walk up to the concession stand and tell them to give me an ulcer by putting on so many peppers I cannot see the chips. And yes, I eat every one of them. These were very disappointing. Not only has Busch changed the cheese to some generic orange slop, but they have now changed the chips. Plus, I didn't receive as many peppers as usual this game. After I sent the nachos back to add more on, the worker handed them back to me saying that they could not give me anymore. You can tell I give great thought into my nachos :)

Celebrating the Fourth of July

This year part of our Fourth of July celebration involved going to the Lincoln Bicentennial/Taste of Downtown/Music Festival in downtown Springfield. We enjoyed the Taste so much that we definitely plan to make it an annual event. Lots of food for a decent price usually means that we will have a good time!

Here are Olivia and Ethan with the Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln statues in the Old State Capital Plaza. Both kids love to play on these, although I never seem to have a camera with me when we are downtown.

Springfield has been invaded by stove pipe hats in time for the Lincoln Bicentennial. We were able to find 4 of them, although I know that there are at least 20 around town. Here is Ethan posing on the Obama/Lincoln hat (you knew we couldn't pass up a picture of this hat!).

Olivia and "beary" on the stars and stripes hat. She won beary in a carnival game from the festival.

Joe and the kids looking at Lincoln's home. We arrived too late for a tour of the inside.

On the Fourth we traveled to Litchfield to celebrate my dad's birthday. Although it drizzled for much of the day, we were able to get some pool time in. Here is Uncle Thomas assisting Ethan with a dunk.

And Uncle Thomas showing the kids some pool pointers.

Ethan and his Great-Great-Aunt Valerie playing Rock Band. One has to be careful around Ethan when he is waving 2 sticks around!

Ethan with his first sparkler. I am happy to report that both kids made it out of fireworks season with all fingers, toes, and eyes intact. But, we were not able to make it to a large fireworks display due to the weather causing Litchfield to cancel their display.

Olivia with her sparkler. She had a great time "writing" her name in the air with them.

Olivia and Ethan posing with their Great Great Uncle Ross and Aunt Valerie. They came down from Chicago for the weekend to celebrate dad's birthday.