The Muny

I love the Muny! It's one of my favorite things to do in the summer! The Muny is "America's oldest and largest outdoor musical theatre." And the best part...they have free seats available! You have to come early to claim them, but I think it's worth your time. I've sat in the free seats, really good seats and in between seats. Really good seats are awesome! For the price, I don't think in between seats are much better than free seats, but that's just my opinion.

Here's a shot from the free seats.

The Muny has a great schedule this year. We had a family and friend girls night to Legally Blonde. Casey's sisters and I saw it in NYC a couple of years ago and we still loved it at the Muny. Last week, Hailey and I took Grandma to see The Little Mermaid. It was really good!

Singing in the Rain is playing this week. I've seen it twice before. It's one of my favorites, so if you haven't been before this is a great week to try out the Muny. I'll even go with you!

Missouri History Museum

I've mentioned Hailey loves museums. I think she's how we stumbled upon the Missouri History Museum in the first place and definitely the reason we went back a second time. However, the second time we discovered the great storytime crafts they host. This summer the museum is hosting a Summer Family Fun series with a special visitor or children's act on Tuesdays, and storytimes and crafts on Thursdays and Fridays. It's all free, so if you have kids, I highly recommend it. Your kids might pick up on some history afterwards, or just make you nervous they are going to break something.

Tuesday we went to the Missouri History Museum with Grandma, Mom's cousin Laura and her little girl Brynlee. It's located in Forest Park and is just as pretty as the rest of the park.

Mr. Saxophone was performing Tuesday morning. He played the saxophone, guitar and sang and danced with the kids. I've noticed my kids have found a way to get to the front for things like this.

This is how Ethan participated.

But I did get him to smile for me.

The museum has a replica of Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis.

The plane gives the museum my kid's stamp of approval.

They don't care if they really see anything else after the plane as long as they get to listen to the phone type things. I think the replica of the inside of Lindbergh's plane is really cool. However, Brenton was more excited to hear a plane take off.

The museum has a nice World's Fair Display (and I know it's getting old...but I can't help being reminded of Meet Me in St. Louis, I really need to track down that movie).

A couple other exhibits also survived our visit, but I didn't manage to take any pictures of them.

Jordan, Laura and Brynlee just moved to the area. We're so excited to have them close and to get to play with them!  If you are family, there is now even more of us here in Missouri to come see!

Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

We had so much fun while grandma was here that I'm a little behind in posting.  But I ate some really good food and have fun things to post about! Monday night we headed to Ted Drewes on the old route 66 for some frozen custard. I'm almost embarrassed to say that I had never been there. Ted Drewes is not just St. Louis famous, it's...well, take a look at what Casey's sisters and I found in New York City a couple years ago.

And since it's always better when someone's in the picture! Go Megan! This is while we waiting in line at The Shake Shack! So good! So good, it was listed as one of the best places to get a burgers just the other day on msn.

Anyhow, back to St. Louis.

Casey says Ted Drewes is known for their concretes and the ability to turn them upside down without losing it. They have a trophy in the window of this position and I think the girl might have flipped it upside down before handing it to us as well.

They have lots of things to choose from, but I would recommend the concrete. I actually got a brownie sundae, but was less than impressed. Then my husband said, "I told you to get a concrete" and switched me (he is a nice guy). The concrete I did enjoy. Brenton was a little surprised by his toppings, he was convinced he needed to order something with the word fox in it.

Hailey ate all of hers and some of everyone elses.

Definitely a fun treat in our hot summer weather! Oh, and in the winter you can buy Christmas Trees there!

Crown Candy Kitchen

Grandpa and Grandma are here, which calls for some St. Louis fun! I had a whole adventurous day planned for last Friday, but then they had some major delays at the airport and didn't end up getting here until Friday afternoon. I was still determined to cross something off our bucket list, so we headed from the airport to Crown Candy Kitchen for a very late lunch.

When I searched for "must eat" places to eat in St. Louis, Crown Candy came up several times. Opened in 1913, the Crown Candy Kitchen is one of St. Louis's oldest soda fountains and most popular places for desserts. We were even in line next to a family from Michigan that comes every year and told us the wait was worth it. These are just some of it's most recent recognitions above Ethan's head, thanks to the boys wanting their pictures taken random places.

However, one of the Crown Candy Kitchen's biggest claim to fame (in my opinion) is being featured on The Travel Channel's Man vs. Food. I love that show! The food always looks so good! And how is Adam not 500 hundred pounds after eating all that food? Crown Candy has a challenge of finishing 5 of their old fashion malts in 1/2 hour. We had 4 milk shakes at our table of seven and still left milkshake there.

Maybe it's because the kids had already devoured this tasty Sunday...

Or because there was probably a pound of bacon on my BLT! Fifteen years ago I would have been all over that much bacon, now I had to enlist my kids to help me eat it.

The restaurant has fun decor from the past! I should have taken more pictures, but I was a little cramped. It was not built to accommodate a group of our size unless it's not busy (which I don't know when that would be). The place is true to it's roots and I'm sure has never been enlarged, so it's not very big. Lots of fun, but tiny.

And if you haven't guessed from it's name, they also have lots of candy! They make there own chocolate candy, but since it was hot we stuck with the kind of candy that doesn't melt.

This is a fun place to eat! The food is good and I would have loved to have tried more desserts!



Johnson Shut-Ins

Casey had last Friday off work. We woke that morning with no plans and left less than an hour later for Johnson Shut-Ins.

Johnson's Shut-Ins is part of the Black River shut in by volcanic rock (in very unscientific terms). The river and rocks have created falls and pools to form a natural water park. About 2 hours South of Downtown St. Louis it makes for a fun daytrip or camping trip. It's a daytrip we had never made (Casey went to the Shut-Ins as a kid), but now I'm sure we'll do it again.

Johnson Shut-Ins is set back from the road and the parking lot. I hardly noticed we'd crossed over the river and if it wasn't for the sign and a big building, I might have thought we were in the wrong place. After we parked it was short walk to the Shut-Ins.

Here's the view as we approached the Shut-Ins.

And this is why the Shut-ins are a big deal!

Hailey loved sliding down all the waterfalls. Ethan loved the water and climbing the rocks. Brenton was our rock climbing boy. He decided the water was too deep (the same water that Ethan was playing in). I had to bribe him to play in the waterfalls.

There are also a couple larger pools where you can play in the water as well.

After playing in the shut-ins for a couple hours we went back to the parking area for a picnic.

We headed home after playing in the Shut-Ins, but there are several other nearby state parks with things to do. We thought about heading to Elephant Rock State Park, but Ethan was asleep as soon as we got in the car.

This trip was a blast! It's free (except for you gas to get there)! I would definitely do it again and recommend it to other people. However, there are a few things you'll want to know. You need water socks or other shoes to wear in the water (Casey knew this and so did most of the other people there, but it hadn't ever crossed my mind). They limit the number of people (or cars) in the park. You'll want to get there early, and a week day is probably better than a weekend. If your kids are small they will require your full attention at all times, but you'll still all have a lot of fun!

VP Parade and Fair St. Louis

Happy Independence Day Weekend! Thanks to Casey's work, we decided to celebrate at "America's Biggest Birthday Party!"

Fair St. Louis kicked off with the Veiled Prophet Parade. Casey got VIP passes for the parade from work. I don't know if I'll ever want to go to a parade any other way... free parking, reserved seating and free food.

Snow! No, it was really hot, but a fire truck float blasted everyone with confetti!

The kids collected lots of candy, beads and tooth brushes.

After the parade we walked over to the Arch and Fair St. Louis. Fair St. Louis offers free concerts, kid activities, air shows and fire works. We thought the kids would love the Air Show.

But they decided it was too hot to just sit there and watch planes, even if the planes were doing lots of tricks. It really was hot though, 97 degrees, but it felt like 106 degrees (and I'm not making up the felt like...it's an official part of our weather here). So they did a craft and played some games.

But what they most wanted to do was play in the water, courtesy of the St. Louis Fire Department.

It's been a great holiday weekend and it's only Saturday. The 4th is still to come. I'll post about our Friday adventure later. As for today, I'm so glad we did our first St. Louis Parade and tried out Fair St. Louis. It was definitely worth the visit.