Days 3-4: St Louis (The Arch Is Made of Metal!)

(Hi, still backdated, ride along anyway.)

Day 3: Driving to St Louis

We got a fairly early start and had a gorgeous drive through the horse country of Kentucky. Nathan read us lots of fun! facts! from his NatGeo Kids Atlas book, which I definitely only regretted buying him once or twice) (probably) (ish).

We crossed the Mississippi for the first time and made it to the city in time for the Cardinals game, which Mark and Nathan and Charlotte had tickets to. Apparently it was hot as the dickens in there (people say that in St Louis, right?) but the view was super cool and it was fun to see a game in a new stadium.

Meanwhile, Anneliese and I drove to the other side of town to St Louis University, to visit their Museum of Contemporary Religious Art. If you're in St Louis, you should go there. It's free, and weird, and cool.

And then we went to a Starbucks in the lobby of a fancy hotel with an arch view, because we know how to do vacation right.

We picked up our Cardinals fans, complete with free promo jerseys, and checked into our hotel where we promptly took a group nap. Because again: we know how to do vacation right.

We went out for ribs for dinner, although we are dubious southerners when it comes to other people's barbecue (excuse me, "barbecue"), our dinner was totally delicious. Not barbecue, exactly. But grilled and meaty and smoky and great. St Louis, you get an A+ on food. (Everyone else, right now: duh Erin.)

I tried every single one, and I am not sorry.

Before her shower, Charlotte did her version of what all our kids call her "bottom dance" which is exactly what it sounds like, but is way more fun in a hotel room with a floor to ceiling mirror. (Not blog postable, obviously.)

I also braided Anneliese's wet hair before bed so she could have curls the next day, except I did too many and too small, and she ended up with crimps instead, which she loved but it made me cringe, so I bet you're excited for the next day's pictures now!!!

Day 4: Saarinen, and Mark Twain

The next morning (after a horribly loud and early wakeup while they jackhammered the parking lot right under our room window) (WHO DOES THIS? It is a hotel! Literally everyone is there to sleep. Everyone. Every single person. Fix your parking lot, sure, but tell your customers, dayum Marriott) we had tour tickets to go up into the famous arch.

Y'all, here is some information that is going to blow your mind. Are you ready?

Really ready? Okay here goes:

The arch is made of metal.

METAL.

Apparently everyone else already knew this. I did not. I thought it was like, limestone. Like the Washington Monument maybe. Which obviously makes no sense because that would be super heavy in ARCH FORM but whatever, I just never thought about it and it looks white so, okay. But now that I know it's metal, I can't believe I ever didn't know it was metal. It seems so obvious now!

(This concludes today's episode of Erin's Existential Crises About National Monuments.)

So we went up into the arch, which was surprisingly cool, and also surprisingly terrifying (look at this tiny little box they use to shoot you to the top, on a curved trajectory! It's 1960's fanciest technology! CUE WIDE EYES).

But once we were at the top, it was crazy cool to see down below, and all around the river and the city.

Did you know that the arch was built as a monument to westward expansion? I did not know that either! Did you know that it was built by Eero Saarinen? Apparently it's his most famous thing! (I could have told you at least five other things he built but had no idea he designed the arch.)

(Nathan also insisted all day that Saarinen is his favorite architect, despite 1- never having seen or heard of anything else built by him in his entire life, and 2- not being able to name even one other architect that ever existed, except himself with a box of legos. So.)

We braved our growing hangry feelings to take a riverboat cruise a la Mark Twain (who probably also had tourists share popcorn with him while listening to National Parks guides teach him about the Mighty Mississippi, I'm sure), whereupon Nathan tramped all over the boat, pretending to be the ship captain, watching out over the rail (for icebergs obvs), with the girls trailing along behind as (the world's most terrible) deck hands.

He seriously stood like this almost the whole time.

Mark took pictures of an abandoned power plant, because he nerds out about electricity in all forms and in all seasons of history (we have pictures of power lines from all over the world and if you think I am kidding, I will do a whole blog post of them).

Apparently this is the first hydroelectric power plant! Or the first one west of the Mississippi! (It's ON the Mississippi, does that really count, dudes?) Anyway even when I use lots of exclamation points it's not that exciting to me, but I like that he likes it, so okay. *shrug*

And then we used the selfie stick to take photos with the arch. As one does, when one is in St Louis (with crimped hair).

We had some fails as well.

Sometimes the fails are more excellent than the good ones, yknow?

And Then March Happened, Apparently

That thing where you are months behind so you just post a lot of random thoughts, because people like that better than carefully crafted themed posts anyway right? Hi, welcome to the March (waaaaaay later than March) edition of I Don't Even Know What This Post is About.

Okay so the most important thing is that my sister had a baby! After a pregnancy lasting forty weeks plus four months (she is a dolphin, you didn't know?) (ask me how I know about gestation length of dolphins anyway *side eye*Nathan*) she delivered her third son (yes THIRD) (yes, her oldest is Charlotte's age) (yes, she would accept any of your prayers for sanity) and anyway, meet my newest nephew Everett! He is perfect.

Also! Ali turned one! ONE! I can't believe it's been a year. I love her so much.

The weather got warm and the girls had been asking Mark to plant something, so he took them to pick out flowers and some veggie seeds, and he pulled some dying shrubs out of an area near the pool, and they turned that space into a little garden.

The girls are totally taken with it. (Nathan too, although mostly he is too cool to act like it.)

Oh! Speaking of cool ("cool") Nathan also did a weather project where he needed to write a report including a media/visual component about some weather phenomenon. He chose monsoons. He did a good job researching and writing the paper, and then he made a little video to show why monsoons can damage houses even if you put plastic on your roof, like some people in monsoon-prone areas have to do.

I'm not sure this video actually proves anything, other than he likes to build with legos (and make videos), but it still tickles me. You know you want to see it. Right?



Another random Nathan thing, from the grocery store one night: "Hey this is the same kind of bread Jesus ate! You can tell by the shape!"

(Pretty good endorsement for Kroger, yes? JESUS HIMSELF ETC ETC.)

Hmmmm I... have no idea what else happened in March. Let's look at some pictures.

Anneliese, wearing a lot of colors, and not one but two headbands, including one with a donut on it, because obviously:

Me with all the kids, taking a walk on the greenway, proving once again that it is difficult to get very many people to look at the camera at once:

Charlotte, looking half teenager and half baby:

Perfectly reasonable outfits for a Target run:

And! Marky made me a brownie in a skillet one night when I had a random hankering, and he sort of made it up from a boxed mix, and then he throw ice cream on top, and it was delicious. You know how some things are just exactly what you had a taste for, except even a little bit better? He wins everything.

We ate it on the couch in front of Netflix, because we are good at being grownups.

Christmas Even Fashion

Merry Christmas Eve(n)! Here is a post about holiday fashion.

Part 1: The part where my children look adorable for church, including Nathan who sang in his sweet little robe for one of the early bell services.

Part 2: The part not very many hours before, where my children got dressed in what they thought was appropriate for a rainy day run to Starbucks, whereupon a stranger told them they looked fabulous, and they took her at her word.

Yes, Nathan is wearing shorts, rain boots, a winter hat, and a scarf as a cape. I don't even know.

Even the good outfits have outtakes, though.

Charlotte is all,
Mom. What is with these two. PLEZ.

Merry Christmas!

December Chaos

Heeeeeeey want to know what December has looked like? Me too! Good thing I took gobs of pictures of the chaos!

Nathan and Anneliese both got random fevers on the one (ONE!) day we were all home and had time to go pick out a tree together. So Charlotte and I went alone, and it should have been fine but it felt oddly sad. Tree day melancholy or something. (She didn't care in the least, she loves doing stuff with a parent all to herself.)

I cleaned out Nathan's desk (he is a baby hoarder, it was quite a project) and I had this whole funny list planned of all the funny and quirky and Nathan-y things I found, but then I found this, and it trumps them all, so here you go. Baby's first boob picture.

Yes, he assures me that is a belly button.

Another Nathan flew into town the first weekend of December and we all drove to Greensboro for our friend Meghan's wedding, which was really fun. So lovely to be back together with all these friends for a night.

Mark got suuuuper fever sick at the reception, but he hung in there long enough to be hella excited when the Clemson tiger (THE Clemson tiger) made an appearance. So, yeah.

Also, I got to shop with Another Nathan at Crabtree mall, which is our favorite thing, and we should have bought lots more (this was before the month got away from us and Christmas Panic set in) but it was still fun and lovely to just wander and brainstorm on our gift lists, like old times.

Monday is the new Black Friday! Or something.

Before he flew home, we also went back to our favorite post-choir beer place, for the first time since this summer. And half of it was boarded up and closed down. We couldn't even tell if it was open, and when we got inside it turns out that half of it (our half!) has been permanently shut down and rented out to a bakery, and it was all very sad and weird and It's A Wonderful Life, like Nathan moved and that whole special place for us is gone now. Weird. So weird. We did not take any pictures because... weird. (At least it protects those memories? It was a moment in time, those Draft House years.)

I took Anneliese to see Frozen on Ice with Andrea and her daughter, and y'all, it was delightful. Not even sarcastic. I don't know what I was expecting (more annoying? more cheesy?) but it was professional and fun and the sets were cool and the skating was amazing and it was full of Disney magic. I don't know why I was surprised. Disney... does things well. It was really fun. I would go again, in a hot minute.

Also, Anneliese wants to take ice skating lessons now. Raise your hand if you never could have seen that coming.

We did our annual Santa's Cookie Worshop™ and made a million cookies in one day, which is always fun and chaotic.

Charlotte colored all over herself with markers, and then didn't seem to understand she was in trouble, and DEAR SELF WHEN WILL YOU EVER LEARN WITH THE MARKERS FTLOG.

Ali wore pink overalls and looked supremely cute in them.

Anneliese wore alllll the colors. All of them. Some days she legitimately cries in the morning if she isn't wearing enough colors. This was not one of those days.

This worksheet about the Polar Express came home in one of Nathan's folders last week. SO LITERAL, THAT CHILD. *sigh*

Seven, No Ten Quick Takes

1.) Anneliese picked out a new winter hat with some Amazon birthday money. Raise your hand if you never could have guessed she'd pick one like this:

2.) I took Nathan on a date to the symphony last weekend. It was a super crappy day and a really lovely break from the super crappy day. He was cellodorable, admiring all the instruments.

3.) I read the Astronaut Wives Club this weekend and it's far from brilliant writing -- mostly a series of vignettes about the first astronaut families in the sixties -- but I didn't need it to be a great novel, I was totally captivated anyway. I am now craving anything about the space race, I kinda want to watch Apollo 13 tonight, and I can't stop wikipedia-ing all the folks for a dose of Where Are They Now. Also I want to go back to the space center at Cape Canaveral (Mark and I visited in 2010 and it was great, but I think it would be even more great for me this week). 

So yeah, I'm hoping they make this into a tv show as has been promised (then delayed, but we'll see). The stories might actually tell better as a series instead of a book.

4.) Anneliese and Ali and I went for a fall walk a few days ago, just as the leaves were starting to change. You would not believe all the things a five-year-old has to tell her infant cousin about leaves changing, but it's a lot.

5.) We closed the pool last week and I miss it already.

6.) Nathan just read the "junior novel" version of the Lego movie and he seems to have internalized its message differently in print than on the screen. He now considers himself a Master Builder and keeps building things and telling us how he VISUALIZED them and that's how he designed them and oh man it cracks us up. (In a good way! He is sweet and smart. I'd hire him for all my aeronautical engineering needs, and no I'm not kidding.)

PS I got a haircut and highlights, as per my pre-birthday usual.

7.) After the slowest loudest construction project in the history of history, and many early-morning and late-night trips in my PJs to fuss at workers causing a ruckus outside of approved times ("I know you're just doing your job, but WE LIVE HERE" = me, sick of hearing myself talk), the house across the street is finally done! It was featured in a Parade of Homes thing, so we went to check it out, and it was nice in the way that fancy houses are always nice, but not our taste at all: some odd mashup of clean/modern and also totally dowdy. It's hard to explain. But anyway, if you want to live directly across the street, the house has a million dollar view!

Yes really.

8.) A few weekends ago when I was in Charlotte, I stopped at Ikea for some new cubes/shelving, which are lovely. (I got a teal cube system! TEAL! For my bathroom! Which I am now 99% sure won't fit but whatever, it's TEAL.) While I was there I also got Anneliese a new duvet, which I have been wanting for her since we rearranged all the bedroom furniture in our house A YEAR AGO, but the one I coveted for years before that has been discontinued, and anyway I never could find one that I liked AND she liked, and then this happened at Ikea, and now she has a very Anneliese bed.

Here is a thing I absolutely did not need but absolutely wanted, and I didn't buy it, but I'm pretty sure I might. It's a neon yellow stool! I mean, I need that, right? Someone talk me into it. Where should I put it?

9.) I have a new-ish phone case, and I love it. This is called a Loopy Case. It is just a case, with a loop in the back, which you can adjust to fit whatever finger you want. It is so simple and SO GENIUS.

It helps me hold my phone much steadier (I was a two-hand typer on my bigger android, and the smaller iphone is still an adjustment - slightly too small for two hands, but slightly too big for one -- and this makes it totally doable). It also means I never drop my phone on my face in bed anymore YES THAT IS A REAL THING. It also means I can knuckle it on the back of my hand and also carry a kid/purse/car seat, which keeps me from sticking my phone in my pocket instead, and that's always a good thing.

PS with the loop on the back you can stand it up for such purposes as alarm clocking. Or facetime dates. Or everyone trying to watch a video at the same time.

Anyway I love it, and I get asked about it all the time, so I am blogging about it. (My first one cracked, and I emailed them and they sent a new one -- with the loop holes now slightly offset, in their updated version, which I think will prevent that stress fracture from happening again -- and anyway with the recplacement they sent me an EXTRA. It's black, and I have a pink and a purple and a gray loop for it, so if you have a 5c and you want it, tell me and it's yours.)

10.) This post barely mentions Charlotte, but she's still the best Booler ever, so here, enjoy a delightful picture Mark took of her swinging out back.

Yes, she is wearing a sundress and some shorts and a tutu. Why, what do YOU wear to go swinging?