Cave State Take 3 - Meramec Caverns

Missouri may officially be the Show-Me State, but unofficially it's the Cave State. Although slightly edged out by Tennessee, we have the second most caves of any US state. Over 6000. We've toured a show cave each of the last two summers (they're perfect on those horrible Midwest summer days). This summer's cave.....

Meramec Caverns is a privately owned and operated cave less than an hour from our house.

Besides being used by Native Americans and as a saltpeter mine during the Civil war, the cave is famous for being the hideout of Jesse James and his gang. Our tour guide told us about how Jesse and his boys would lead their pursuers to the cave, but could successfully evade capture by getting into the back sections of the cave where the entrances were blocked by water. The sheriff and deputies would ride their horses inside, find a bunch of horses near what they thought was a dead-end...but no men or loot. Later the gang could sneak out a waterfall exit on the other side once the coast was clear.

Sweatshirts on...we're going in!

Here's why I hate the privately run caves. This picture doesn't even do justice to the cheese-factor here of fake Jesse. It was really, really lame. There were also a lot of colored lights instead of just white (a major pet-peeve of mine).

Our guide

Off topic - How long do Charlotte's legs look here??

Meramec has a huge room of these grape-bunch-like formations (called the Wine Room). Apparently some of the best in the world. The room at one time was completely submerged underwater, since that's the only way these are formed.

Also in the Wine Room is the world's rarest cave formation. I know. It's impressive. :)

Nicholas could care less about rare formations. But he does love doing "silly pictures". It's tough to get a good smile out of him these days!

The largest drapery formation in the world. It goes several levels above and below what's visible here. Amazing. Yet somewhat ruined when they sat us down in front of it to play God Bless America with a colored light show projected onto it. Is it not beautiful enough on its own??

What was Charlotte's favorite part? The bathroom visit. Why?

The bat sighting. We saw no activity in the actual cave, only attached to a ceiling tile outside the ladies room. Go figure.

We had a fun (and cool!) caving adventure. New this year at Meramec (I told you it was commercialized), they've put up a zipline across the river. The kids longingly watched people do it. Someday, guys... On the way home (it's a really pretty drive) Nicholas pointed at the trees and said - "Look! It looks like tons of giant broccoli!". And it did.

Stay tuned for more King family cave adventures!

Tagalong to Grant's Farm

I love this picture because "New Baby" (boy do we have creative names for babies in our house) is 1) wearing a onesie that Nicholas wore in his first few weeks of life and 2) seems quite interested in touring Grant's Farm!

Saturday Morning at the Zoo

It all started out so well. We were out the door before 8 (that has to be a first for a Saturday morning) and off to breakfast. We were at the zoo by 9am when it opened. From 9-10am, even the Children's Zoo and the carousel are free, so we hit those things first.

Charlotte's only requirement of the visit was a stop at the goat yard.

Nicholas observed from up high.

Nicholas just wanted to take a train ride around the zoo.

A quick drink before we headed off to buy tickets for the Sea Lion show.

Then it happened. Charlotte ran in front of Tom as he was carrying Nicholas. Tom tripped over her, but recovered. Charlotte went down hard. There aren't pictures, but trust me, there was blood all over her face. Her lip was split open about a centimeter and was really swollen. Lots and lots of screaming, as you can imagine.

Off to visit the Children's Hospital station, conveniently located about 100 yards from the fall

The nurses who helped us were so nice. I learned that they don't even stitch lips and it would heal in about 3 days. Luckily once they cleaned up all the blood, there weren't any other injuries.

No longer in the mood for sea lions, we headed home.

But the story doesn't end there. When she was going down for nap I finally got a good look inside her mouth. Although the nurses checked for loose teeth at the zoo, they missed one. Her right front tooth is a little wobbly. I panicked, envisioning several years of a toothless grin before her adult teeth come in. I called our pediatrician and found out 1) there's nothing I can do about it and 2) there's a 90% chance it will reattach. We should know in the next few weeks. So stay tuned!

Battle of the Wills

I'm a stubborn, stubborn person. I'm being paid back for this by being given a stubborn, stubborn daughter. As this is the second episode just this week, I thought I'd document it for posterity:

Charlotte woke up from her nap and we came downstairs. Although the weather was yucky, the kids wanted to play in the garage (sounds sad, but they have fun riding bikes, doing chalk, kicking the soccer ball around etc). Nicholas was out the door in two seconds, and all Charlotte needed was to put on her shoes. I told her I would help her if she would go get them by the back door. Whining ensued. Then the screaming started. And lasted for over 20 minutes. "But I want YOU to get them". Keep in mind that we were in the kitchen, about 6 feet from her shoes. But we both dug our heels in and we were in a stand off. At one point, she was standing over her shoes, leaning over them crying "But I can't REACH them!" I was laughing so hard at that point because it was just such a hilarious image. She's leaning over, her fingers two inches from her shoes: "But I can't REACH them!" She did finally give in, we got shoes on and went out. But it does concern me that we're in these battles at 2. How am I going to be dealing with this at 15??? Yikes!

The First of Many

Pedicures, that is.

Charlotte was in hot pink-toenail heaven.

Bye Bye, (Mrs.) Love

Nicholas' summer break from music class started today. This year he moved up to the 'Young Child' level, which was a bit more structured and included weekly homework. They focused on learning to read music (learning one note at a time...he's up to 5 notes: c,d,a,f,g), and playing the glockenspiel. Next year (his last year in this program) they will continue working on reading music, and learning to play the 2-string dulcimer and the recorder. We love our music program, especially our dear teacher, Mrs. Love. She's practically family as we've seen her once or twice a week for almost 4 years!

Bring on the Bubbles

Finally we had some nice weather so we could break out the bubbles.