Museum, Humidity and a Broken Arm!

What do these three things have in common??? They all have been experienced in our family this month...well, the humidity really never goes away.

So, first: We took the kids to the St. Louis City Museum. It sounds really boring, but it is actually a very fun place. Someone took an old shoe factory in down town St. Louis and converted it to a giant jungle gym (for adults too!). Very cool. As long as you don't think about the fact that you are crawling through a tunnel where 1,000's of people have been and that it probably has not been cleaned...ever, it is a lot of fun.


They have a ferris wheel at the top of the building as well as a big slide, a bus hanging off of the side of the building, an old airplane high above the ground and a slide that covers 7 stories inside the building. We have attached a few pictures for your enjoyment. The picture below is of Taylor at the top of a metal cage thing...










One thing I do have to say...being inside of a building with 1,000's of people, not much air conditioning and tight spaces equals a really stinky (very literally) place! What is really scary is it reminds me of a a time when I toured a facility that made clean rooms for electronics companies. They had a filtering system that was a critical part of the process. The tour guide explained that "all odors are actually tiny particles floating in the air". You can fill in the rest...

Humidity:


The humidity here never seems to go away. Fortunately, we experienced a very mild summer. Even at that, it is an experience to get out of the shower and sweat. Or, while working in the yard, I was amazed that I could sweat enough that it was noticeable on my jeans...yikes!


Cath & Danika have had a bit of a tough time dealing with the humidity when it comes to doing their hair. No pictures on this blog, but I might be able to sneak one in later.


This might be a component of St. Louis that we never get used to.


Broken Arm:


I am sure that you could all guess who the lucky one was that broke their arm...first kid in the family to break a bone. No surprise, but Tanner did this two weeks ago. He was the first to get stitches (and still holds the record for the number of times he needed them) and I told Cath back when he was a year old that he would be the first one to break a bone. I am just surprised it took this long!

He was at intramurals after school playing "capture the football" and slipped on the grass and landed on his wrist. He has a break in two places...fortunately, not on the growth plate. He will have a cast for another 5 weeks and then cannot do anything for another week after that.










Everything else is going pretty well. Our basement is moving along (very slowly). We hope to have it finished before Halloween. It is definitely starting to feel like fall. The leaves are starting to change here and the temperatures have started to drop a bit.


We still see a lot of "critters" around our house. Raccoons, possums, moles, deer, turtles, snakes and lots of bugs (all kinds). We had a bug get in the house the other day, and our brave boys tried to get it (check out the video). Let's just say Cath had to take care of it a few days later...

I have seen more road kill here than any other place we have lived. There is a rumor that the neighboring ward has a member that cooks up "road kill BBQ". Apparently, it is still "warm" when it hits the grill. I am glad we don't do any combined ward dinners.


We also had the opportunity to go to a Cardinal's game. It was a lot of fun! Thanks to Matt Holliday, who followed us here from Denver, the Cardinal's won. Holliday hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th to win the game. We were literally at the top of the stadium! We had the last row of the upper deck. Still good seats, but really high.


That's all for now...

School Is Now In Session

Well, the kids started school a few weeks back. Seminary started the week after. Danika & Connor are doing a great job getting up without our prompting...good thing, because to be as good looking as us, we need our sleep! :)

Hildi really likes to be outside and "hunt" for things. She found a turtle this morning and was freaking out! She barked and got so excited she was drooling all over the turtle's back. Visual is attached. She is still quite careful on the front porch (scene of the snake incident). She sneaks up to the edge of the porch and is quite jumpy at anything that moves.

Tanner & Taylor are finding friends. It is pretty easy for Tanner because he will talk to anyone. Young kids, adults, it really doesn't matter. He went over to one neighbor's house the other day just to see who lives there. The only kid is age is two years older, but other neighbor kids said he should meet him, so Tanner went right over. Taylor is now eating lunch with other kids and not just by himself. It was a rough first couple of days.

The twins are playing flag football again and I am coaching the team. With a reduced travel schedule, this is now possible. Very cool! I wanted to use the team name of Utes, but we had to use an NFL team name (rats!). This should be lots of fun. The age group is a bit broad, but fun nonetheless. Perhaps if we have a winning season, I can call Kyle (Whittingham) and he will give me a job...

Our Ward is filled with several "Zoobies" (a.k.a. BYU fans). They are great people and it is fun to tease them just like those in Denver or other places we have lived. My friend from Denver, Scott Sweeney would be so disgusted with me...I was happy when the Y beat Oklahoma, however!

Cath & I have new callings: Cath is a primary teacher in the CTR 6 class and I am back in the Young Men as the 2nd Counselor. It will be fun when the twins turn 12 in January!

Danika has found out that there are three classes she has to take to graduate. A phys. ed. class, personal finance and a computer class. That was not well received by her as a Senior. She is doing fine. She really like Choir and has some new friends that she is doing things with.

Connor is doing well in his first year at high school. He likes his engineering class and has been doing some NCIS type experiments in his biology class. He has met some very good kids in the ward as well as at school. No sports just yet, but he is currently planning on basketball (we'll see).

Tanner is as outgoing as ever. I already shared the neighbor experience. He is a good one to have in the family because if there is anything we need to ask someone, Tanner will do it for us! He likes middle school and is having fun in his classes. He already has several friends on the street that he plays football and basketball with after school.

Taylor is meeting new friends also. He is much more like Dallin! He actually enjoys his sewing class (yikes, I hope he doesn't see this). He is very creative and is very good with his hands. Taylor learned how to tie his own tie in one shot and does so now every week. He has actually been tucking his shirt in as well!

I was in New York City a few weeks ago at a meeting at the Empire State Building. It is a very cool building. I was very excited when one of our marketing people with us said "this is where Buddy the Elf's Dad works"! That was exactly what I was thinking! The only thing I was bummed about (other than not seeing Buddy) was the elevator did not have nearly as many buttons as the one in the movie! I had my boss with me, so I figured it would not be a good idea to "light up the Christmas Tree"... If you don't know what I am talking about, watch the movie "Elf" with Will Farrell and you will figure it out!

Cath & I stay busy with the house. We have to replace a door to stop a leak in the basement. We also have some landscaping work to do to prevent another leak that we just found yesterday. The basement finishing is coming along pretty well. We have much of the framing done and a lot of work with start this week. It should hopefully be done in the next 6 weeks or so. So, if you are planning to head out this way, we will actually have a place for you to stay (without kicking Connor out of his room).

That's all for now. I will work to be better at regular updates!

Aaron