In Honor of Memorial Day: A Visit to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery

I had never been to a national cemetery until my husband's grandfather was buried in Jefferson Barracks. Even in its simplicity, I find it majestic and beautiful. For Memorial Day the scouts in the area put flags in front of all the graves. We always try to visit during the weekend to see the flags and to remind our children why we celebrate Memorial Day. Thank you to all the soldiers and their families who serve our country.

Our family likes to take drives, so we actually drive through the cemetery on a regular basis. I guess I should clarify, for my husband a drive means looking for deer. There are plenty of deer to be found in the cemetery in the evenings. Sunday, we saw lots of deer, including this buck. If you look carefully you can see he's got something behind him.

A few minutes later that something curled up next to a headstone. It was the smallest baby deer I've ever seen.

Forest Park and the Boathouse

Summer has officially started for us. And what a fun start is has been! Hailey finished up school this week, and Casey had Friday off to kick off the holiday weekend. The kids wanted to go to the Zoo. We did go to Forest Park (home to the Zoo), but got distracted by some site seeing.

And I'm so glad we did! We walked through part of the park, which we never do since we're usually so focused on our destination. Then we rented a paddle boat (Yay for checking an item off the bucket list) and ate at the Boathouse.

Forest Park was home to the 1904 World's Fair, which inspired the movie Meet Me in St. Louis (sorry, I have an obsession with old movies). The park houses a couple of museums, the Zoo, the Science Center, the Muny and much more. As much as I love visiting those places, some times I forget just how beautiful the park is, so it was nice to go exploring.

We explored our way to the Boathouse and rented a paddle boat. It cost us $15 for an hour, which I think is very reasonable. The kids loved it! So did I, even if it was exercise. 

Brenton loved seeing all the birds and insisted we stalk this crane.

Then we finished off our adventures with lunch at the Boathouse restaurant.

It was delicious (and reasonably priced, always a plus). The kids loved the Fish and Chips, which I thought was very appropriate for a boathouse adventure.

The Arch: Gateway to the West

There's nothing that says you're in St. Louis like the Arch! It's what we're known for, right? Though I know people who live here that have never been to the top, I'm proud to say I've been up there several times. Twice in 2011! Now this isn't a regular occurrence, it just happened that Hailey chose this as her incentive to improve in Math and then her Girl Scout troop decided to go a few months later. I feel like I can't have a blog about St. Louis without a trip to the Arch, so here are some pictures from our trip in February.

I wish I would have taken a picture of the egg-shaped elevator type thing you take to the top. They aren't very big, but they do have seats for five. Here's a picture of Ethan and I on our way to the top. It's moves just like an elevator, but it moves sideways as well as up and down.

Once you're at the top you can can see out over the city and river through rectangle windows.

You're 630 feet up in the air. If you look through the window just right, you can see underneath you. Kinda crazy!

Here are Hailey and Brenton waiting to board the tram back down.

The Arch also houses The Museum of Westward Expansion showcasing Lewis and Clark's Expedition. I didn't take any pictures this time, but it has some fun things for the kids to look at. When we went with Hailey's girl scout troop we went on a short ranger lead talk (available to everyone at certain times of the day). I actually learned more then than I  have all my other trips in the museum, so I highly recommend it.

I think everyone needs to have at least one trip to the top of the Arch!

Grant's Farm

Grant's Farm is one of our staple St. Louis adventures. We usually go with friends, family or playgroup a couple of  times a year. Last week we went there for playgroup. The kids love the tram ride and all the animals. I love that it's smaller than the zoo. I like the tram ride, the horses...okay, pretty much everything, just like the kids. However, I don't like when we go there with a million groups on field trips, which we did this time. The kids didn't notice though.

Here's the boys by the tram (exiting instead of entering, but that's a minor detail).

Grant's Farm was home to the Busch family, but also includes land formerly owned by Ulysses S. Grant. The Ulysses S. Grant Historical Site is right next to it. I realized during this visit that I've never been there nor thought of going there. It's now on the Bucket List. Here's a picture of a house Grant built taken from the tram ride.

The tram ride gives you a little history and winds through an area with various animals from all over the world. I could have reached out and touched the bison it was so close.

The main part of the farm includes animals, shows, goat feeding and more. My kids love feeding the goats! Even when the kids were younger and afraid of the goats, they insisted on feeding them. Personally, I'm still kind of afraid of the goats. They are aggressive! Hence, four goats are trying to eat from Ethan's bottle.

After watching an animal show and seeing more animals (I did take pictures, but how many pictures with the backs of children or people we don't know can we really look at?), we end up in the German-inspired farmstead with a courtyard, stable, carriage house and concession area.

Here we get to check out old wagons and buggies owned by the Busch family. Though this one looks like it is of a more oriental style, so who knows where it came from. The kid's cute though.

 

 Leaving the main venue on the tram (you even get to ride it twice).

 After returning to the parking lot, we always follow the horse shoe tracks to see the Budweiser Clysdales.

 

 Even if we choose to have our picture taken by the fake one.