Spring Break

The girls had their final gymnastics lessons our first day of Spring Break. It meant that they got to watch each other and we got to watch them. They're having so much fun.

We squeezed in a quick trip to the Chicago Flower and Garden show. I love the colors and green. The kids loved that they had a project to work on. I loved watching the kids work with hammers and nails.

Devin took the kids to Springfield for a quick overnighter to watch a friend in a debate tournament. They also visited the Abraham Lincoln museum. I stayed home and sewed.

We took a road trip and to split up the drive we stopped at a Chuck E Cheese restaurant. 

I don't know what else to say about it. Except that it was a good way to split up a long drive.

Road trip destination?

Note the Arch!

St. Louis

When in St. Louis one must visit the City Museum. It's a crazy jumble of slides, tunnels, climbing, trains, tops that you can take a ride in, more climbing, more slides, dropping into the dark, ten-story slides that were once shoe chutes, climbing in a little wire tunnel so high above the playground that you get nervous, giant ball pits, being worried that you're going to lose your kids at any moment, not knowing where your kids are going to end up when they go down that pathway, old doorknobs and architecture, and more fun than I've had in a long time.

We visited the Arch. It's pretty impressive. And really funny to see what they thought the future would look like. The pods that carried us to the top are the best 60's future I've seen in a long time. The view from the top was great. I especially liked the shadow of the arch.

We ate some good barbecue. 

Meet me in St. Louis, Louis

Meet me at the fair.

I couldn't resist a visit to the fairgrounds.

(You were singing it this whole time weren't you? From when you first saw the arch. I know it's true! Don't try to deny it. It's running through your head, and will be for a while!)

On our drive home we stopped at the Cahokia Mounds. 

It's an Illinois State Historic Site and UNESCO World heritage site. It's this section of mounds that were built in 800 - 1400 AD. It was a city that was larger than London in 1250 AD.

The best guess is that they built the mounds and then built houses on top of them. It's fascinating to see the mounds all over the place in such a flat place. It's hard to see, but we're on top of the tallest mound looking over a few others that you can see (look for the hay mound looking objects behind Adelle on the left). 

After getting back to Chicago we spent some time at some local museums. Eloise was thrilled to build a tower taller than herself.

It was a lovely Spring Break. We would have loved some warmer weather, but we were happy for the break from our regular routine.