Spring Break

Over Spring Break we headed down to St. Louis with our friends the Hills, Sagers and Crossleys.  First stop...Heaven Scent bakery!! My friend recommended this incredible bakery right outside of St. Louis.  The maple bars were so fat and huge and yummy!  I really was in heaven!

 Group Shot!

 Next stop...the free Science museum!

Posing by the life size T-Rex!

 Checking out some fossils

 Watching the cars drive under us on the freeway

 For lunch we ate at this really cool restaurant called Blueberry Hill.  It was owned by Chuck Berry so it was full of Rock'n'Roll memorabilia and crazy stuff like a whole pac man room!

 I didn't know telephone booths even existed anymore!

Posing by the statue of Chuck Berry

 Our next stop was to see the Gateway Arch.  We've been here quite a few times but we've never been to the top!  Here we are waiting to go up!

This was the view from the top of the arch, amazing!  It was so crazy to think we were really up that high!  You can see Cardinal stadium!

 Our girls looking out the little windows from the top of the arch

Going to the top of the arch really was so cool, I loved it!

 This is the tiny little tram you ride in to get to the top.  It's actually even smaller than it looks but somehow we all squished in!

 After a busy day we headed back to our hotel to do some swimming!  Then we put the kids to bed and played reverse charades!  I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time...and apparently it was really loud too because one of the hotel staff had to come tell us to be quiet haha!  It was a super hilarious night.

The next morning we tried to go to the St. Louis temple and found out it was closed for cleaning.  Bummer.  Then we went to the zoo!  It was a little bit cold but we just wore our coats and it felt great to be out in the sunshine.

 In the under water seal tunnel!

 Me and LJ

This cougar jumped up right where we were standing.  I literally could have reached out and touched his paw and I almost did...until I chickened out and he moved!

Oakley loved all the colorful birds.  I think it's because her favorite movie is Rio!

In the penguin house! I wasn't afraid of touching a penguin so I totally did and got yelled at...again.  Ty said they are going to put my picture up so I can't come anymore because I touch the penguins every time.  I just can't help it when they are swimming right in front of me!

Oaks fell asleep sitting straight up in her stroller because she was so tired.

The Hippos were going crazy and splashing around everywhere, look at those teeth!

Oakley snuggling up to Lisa

Oaks hanging out with Tanner and Mariah

After a really fun day at the zoo we drove down to the Lake of the Ozarks with the Hills.  This was the view from our hotel room, it was gorgeous!!  Totally reminded me of home.  It felt like the McCall of Missouri.

After being pretty busy in St. Louis, we kicked back and mostly relaxed in Lake of the Ozarks.  It felt great to hang out with our boys!

Playing some ping pong...

Even Max learned to play!

The girls trying to play video games...

They have amazing outlets there and we especially scored some major out of control deals at the Nike outlet!!  We stayed up at night and watched movies, played games and ate way too much good food.  We also took turns going down to the hot tub.

Our last day there we went on a hike to some really cool castle ruins.  It was was pretty nice out and it felt great to be out in nature and get some exercise!

This was another little hike we did to a natural bridge.  It really made me feel like we were in Utah and that made me happy.

We came home Thursday night and spent a few days at home doing some spring cleaning!  Saturday morning I got up and ran 18 miles!!!!  After finishing that run I feel like I can run a marathon.  It's going to be tough, but doable. It was so nice to have Ty home because we didn't have to wake up at 5:00 am to go. When I came home he cooked breakfast for me and let me lay on the couch and relax while he handled the kids!  I also got to take a nap that day and just be pampered which was amazing. Usually I come home from my long runs and Ty rushes to the school to study and I'm left with the kids all day when I'm so exhausted.

Our last day of Spring Break was St. Patrick's Day.  I love holidays so much and it really doesn't take much work to make it special.  I love reasons to celebrate and have fun. Saylor has been talking about the leprechaun that came to visit ever since last year.  So I went and dyed a few things around the house green (the toilet water, the milk) Then I made a little scavenger hunt so Saylor could find the leprechaun's gold.  Saylor eats stuff like this up.  She seriously gives the best reactions EVER and gets SO happy and excited.  I love it! For dinner we had green eggs and ham, green pancakes, and rainbow fruit!

That night we had some friends over for a big settler's tournament!  Everyone brought yummy green snacks and we had two Settlers games going on at once!

Saylor dressed up as Minnie and was being Mindy's servant

Such a fun party to end Spring Break!  We had a great week!

Ty is back at school now but I feel like Spring Break was just enough fun to get us through until summer.  If only the weather would warm up! We woke up to about 2-3 inches of snow today and we only had sacrament meeting.  Missouri is so wierd!  They seriously cancel church so much.  But I'm not complaining haha.  I'm getting so excited about my marathon that is only 4 weeks away!  We only have 2 more double digit long runs to do until the race.  (20 & 12) Its crazy to me how we run a half marathon or more every single weekend.  It's been A LOT of work but I think it will all be worth it!