Category: Family

We travel to St. Louis at least twice a year to visit Andy’s grandpa – once right after Christmas and then again on the fourth of July, which is his birthday. I think Kate has been there 15 or 16 times in her six years of life! So during all these trips, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to see what the city has to offer.

It is a fantastic place for families. Admission is free (yes, free) at the St. Louis Zoo, the Science Center, Grant’s Farm and the Budweiser Brewery tour (which is oddly very interesting, even for a non-beer drinker like me). Other must-sees on our list include the Magic House, the Butterfly House, and the Gateway Arch (which I enjoy viewing with two feet planted firmly on the ground. No way am I going up in that thing!).

Of course, we always catch a Cards game.

This past weekend, we went to the City Museum. It’s been on our “to-do” list for a long time, but Andy went there with a friend a few months ago, and loved it so much that he couldn’t wait to take us all there.

It was amazing.

Here’s an excerpt from their website:
Housed in the 600,000 square-foot former International Shoe Company, the museum is an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects. The brainchild of internationally acclaimed artist Bob Cassilly, a classically trained sculptor and serial entrepreneur, the museum opened for visitors in 1997 to the riotous approval of young and old alike.

Cassilly and his longtime crew of 20 artisans have constructed the museum from the very stuff of the city; and, as a result, it has urban roots deeper than any other institutions’. Reaching no farther than municipal borders for its reclaimed building materials, CITY MUSEUM boasts features such as old chimneys, salvaged bridges, construction cranes, miles of tile, and even two abandoned planes!

“CITY MUSEUM makes you want to know,” says Cassilly. “The point is not to learn every fact, but to say, ‘Wow, that’s wonderful.’ And if it’s wonderful, it’s worth preserving.”

It is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in my life. There is so much to see and do – it’s a seemingly endless maze of caves, tunnels and slides. I can’t do it justice trying to describe it, so here are some pictures!

Sammy had a ball in Toddler Town

The Monster Slide was awesome – it’s about three stories tall. Here’s Kate coming down for the 10th time!

We could hardly get Sammy out of the ball pit!

There’s an outside area that has millions of catwalks and slides and all kinds of craziness…

Here’s Kate inside an airplane from the last picture.

See this? I crawled through it! Me! I am soooo afraid of heights… but apparently my daughter isn’t. She started through it and I had no choice but to follow!

It was so. much. fun. I want to go back today. I’m certain it will be a stop on every trip we take to STL from this point forward. It was just amazing.

But here’s the real reason we went to St. Louis – for Kate to hang out with her great-grandpa on his 101st birthday.

I’m linking this to Fun Mom Friday at Please Pass the Salt. Check it out to see what fun things everyone did with their kids this week!

Last night my family returned from a week-long vacation to my parent’s place in Virginia.  Actually Bobby and I were there for a few days BY OURSELVES (!) to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  We had a woooonderful time, there was much sleeping in and laziness and going out to eat.  And then, my sainted parents, who had been taking care of our kids at our house, drove them 7 hours to Virginia where we spent the rest of the week en famille, along with my brother Andy and his four kiddos.  It was SUPER-fun!  Pictures to follow soon!

This morning I think we are all definitely suffering post-vacation let-down.  (Although I did have an emotional reunion with my kitchen floor in which I lovingly caressed it with a broom. Or, as some people would say, I swept it.)  Joshua misses his cousins, (he goes back to school tomorrow, at least he’ll see his friends!) we all miss Bobby who had to go back to work today (and woke up sick, of course), and of course there is no milk in the house!  Also, the weather was perfect both in Ohio and Virginia last week, and today, it is GRAY outside.

And, my living room floor is covered in luggage!  Oy.

Still, I must say, I was so thankful to sleep in my own bed last night!  I missed it.

Now I’ve just gotta get my butt off the couch and commence getting back in the swing of things!

This is a picture of my and Emily’s great-grandparents, Florida and Ambrose Burns, with their five children.  In the back row on the left is their son Milton, whom I barely remember, and on the far right is my and Emily’s grandfather Laton, (who I’ve written about here and here) who died in 1970, years before we were born.  In the front row are our Reva, Polly, and Roy, the three siblings I remember well.  My grandfather’s sisters, Reva and Polly, I have especially fond memories of.

Uncle Roy died three or four years ago.  Aunt Polly died when I was a freshman in high school, after an awful battle with ALS.  And Aunt Reva passed away this weekend, on Saturday after a short battle with cancer, at age 77.

So a generation has passed.  My grandfather’s siblings are gone.  But not forgotten.

“Extended family” is something of an anomaly these days.  Something I remember and respect about my Aunt Polly is that extended family was very important to her.  Her brother Laton had passed many years ago, but she often had his children and grandchildren over to her house on Sundays and holidays.  She wanted to make sure his grandchildren knew her grandchildren.  She would come over to my grandma’s for Sunday lunch often, too.  Aunt Polly, like my grandmother, was widowed very young.  Unlike my grandmother, she was sociable and outgoing.  She got my grandma out, they took trips together, and they were great friends.  Aunt Reva was a great friend to my grandmother as well. They were more than sisters-in-law.  They were friends, and they took care to make sure my grandma didn’t sit at home by herself all the time, as was her inclination.

Another thing I really appreciated about Aunt Polly is that she always told us she loved us.  It became a joke as we got older, to do an imitation of her saying “Aunt Polly loves you!”  in the cheerful, sugary tone of voice she’d use with us.  It may have made me giggle as I got older, but looking back, I am so thankful for that.  That is something many children long to hear from any adult, and Aunt Polly always made sure we knew she loved us and that we were special to her.

When she fought ALS, she fought it with valor.  She came to every family event she could, even when she couldn’t talk, had to hold onto another person for balance, and had to wear a mask to cover her uncontrollable facial muscles.  It was more important to her to be with us than it was for her “keep up appearances” – so by not being afraid to lose her dignity she has cemented herself in my mind as one of the most dignified people I will ever know.

My Aunt Reva was the youngest of the bunch.  She was beautiful.  I always remember her as a blonde, even though her hair is quite dark in the picture above.  She had a great smile, as you can see, and was always very warm.  What I remember most about her is her hospitality.  It was also important for her to keep our extended family together so she and my Uncle Jim hosted family reunions at their home every year when I was growing up.  They lived about four hours away and we’d take the drive down to the Lake Cumberland area where they had a big house, with an attached pool house with an indoor pool.  To us kids, it was like heaven on earth!!  Aunt Reva was always the most gracious hostess, she and Uncle Jim housing and feeding and extra twenty or so people for an entire weekend.  Every association I have of them is fun, fun, fun.  Good food, swimming, relaxing, family, warmth, fun.  I have especially good memories of being with Emily and her sister Anna there.  Those are some wonderful memories, and I am thankful to my Aunt Reva for facilitating their making.

It makes me feel sad, but not just sad, that they are all gone now.  Reflective, I guess, about things I’ve never reflected on before.  Emily and I are close, and we’ve done a good job so far of making sure our children know each other.  Anna will have a child soon to add to our cousin-brood.  My brothers have children and my kids looove their cousins.  I am thankful for the example that was set for us about how important our extended family is, and I hope we will continue to be intentional about being a family who truly spends, loves, and values our time together as life gets busier and more complicated.  Because it will slow back down again, and I don’t want any of us to be alone when that happens.  When my brothers and I are gone, when Emily and Anna are gone, I want my children to have not just each other and their children but their cousins and their cousins’ children to live life with, to be friends with as well as family.  That’s what we’ve been given and what I hope we can give them.