St. Louis

We went up to St. Louis this weekend for Matt's grandmother's 90th birthday. We left Thursday morning at 8 am and did not get to Aunt Judy's until 10 pm - that's right 14 hours to drive 640 miles. I guess the addition of 4 hours onto a normally 10 hour trip can be attributed to an exclusively nursed 6 month old and a bladder holding (until she wets herself by leaking through a doubled up diaper - 3 times) 2 year old. The girls were troopers, until the last 20 minutes and then Madeline let it be known that she was done with the car seat.

Friday morning we went to the St. Louis Zoo. It is such a beautiful and well maintained zoo. G was not enjoying herself, so we were only there for a few hours. We assumed it was the 14 hours in the car, oh, and I forgot to mention that she only slept about 30 minutes of the 14. Needless to say she is not a car sleeper, and we found out Misn't either. I was wrong, when we got back to Aunt Judy's she had a fever of 101.5. Over the evening she developed a bad runny nose, congestion, and a dry cough. You can tell by G's face in the 2nd picture that she doesn't feel well.


90th birthday party - I can't believe Matt's grandmother is 90 and still going strong. She was sneaking around trying to get her wine glass refilled and sipping on beer. She makes me laugh and she loved seeing G again and seeing M for the first time. It was also wonderful to see all of Matt's aunts and uncles and numerous cousins that I can't keep up with.

Given that G was running fever and not feeling herself we decided to leave on Saturday afternoon and drive half way to Joplin, MO and stay in a hotel. We got to Joplin around 8 and M was out by 8:30. We planned for G to sleep in the bed with us, so we were laying down reading books waiting for G to fall asleep. Then she announced that she wanted to sleep by herself on the floor. Huh? So, we got a blanket and quilt from the car and made her a bed on the floor. She was out in 5 minutes after laying down. Oh, my independent child. We got back home this afternoon around 3. The drive was so much better breaking it up into 2 days. I still can't believe how great the girls were in the car for that long. We will see how the rest of the week goes trying to get back on a schedule.

The picture below is of G's catching crickets and grasshoppers with her cousins, Anabella and Andrew. G would catch the cricket, pet them, and then announce, "Hey, he's not moving anymore." Then, she would put it back in the grass and get another. This massacre went on for a while. Sorry to all the innocent insects that lost their life to an curious 2 year old.