Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

Finally finishing up our trip blog! We left early Sunday morning and headed to St. Louis.  On our way, we had a t ire blow-out.   The blowout caused damage to back fiberglass, then the t ire guy messed up the side of the RV by placing the jack in the wrong place.  The blessing over that was that a storm was brewing in the distance, so we had a nice, cool breeze while waiting for the tire service. We arrived in St. Louis a bit later than we first planned, but still had time to park, then get a taxi to the Arch.  We were happy we had thought to call ahead and make reservations.  The lines for tickets were long and the 7:00 time we had secured was sold out. Ken and I woke early the next morning and decided to head on over about a half-hour to the Wal-Mart by Six Flags.  For the first time, we let the kids stay asleep in their beds while we drove.  I went grocery shopping while Ken and the kids rested.  Then we were at Six Flags for the opening....

Obviously, the remainder of the week was FULL and I ran out of time to blog. Here's the photo album from these days. July 5th was Ken's birthdayt!  We got him a cake and card and gave him the gift of not spending any more money than that.  He loved it!  Our friend Chris joined us for dinner and cake to help us celebrate.  :)  The kids and I visited NAD for a while during the day, then Ken and Hannah went back to watch the College Bowl that evening. Cool artistic horse. Carol and Merv Garretson with the boys. A key lime cake after dinner to celebrate Ken's birthday! Friday morning, we decided to go across the street to Atlantis Waterpark .  It was a great way to spend the 105-degree day.  Travis wasn't a huge fan of the waterpark.  He does not enjoy the blinding sunlight nor getting his face wet, so after a couple of hours, we went back to the RV, picked up Ken from work, let him and the little boys nap while the rest of us...

The kids are loving the playground here at the KOA campsite.  They played for a while this morning, then we went across the bridge to a splash park.  Wet is the only way to survive outdoors right now. The boys at the splash pad On our way back to the RV, we swung by the skate park to check things out.  The photos online look amazing, but reality was quite different.  The skate park is evidently in a bad part of town.  Trash was everywhere.  Graffiti covering most places.  (Not the pretty graffiti, either.)  The place was completely abandoned, which I thought was strange for a holiday.  Our skate park would be packed.  Then we noticed two police cars in front of the park and realized they must have just cleared out the place.  We're not sure if we'll go back and skate or not!  It was pretty creepy. Aunt Janice, Chris, Hal and the boy Brownies. In the early afternoon, Ken got back from work and we headed over to ...

We had a nice, slow morning.  Ken took the van to work, so the kids and stayed "home."  Because of some rain storms last night, the morning was relatively cool.  TJ, Kenzie, Tian, Travis and I went over to the playground, just a hundred steps away, to slide, teeter-totter, swing, and merry-go-round.  I love the playground here.  It's clean, well-kept, and all old-fashioned metal play equipment like I grew up with.  The slide is high, fast and fun! The kids enjoyed their Lunchables (a rare treat for them).  When Ken got home around noon, Kenzie, TJ and I decided to try out the KOA showers.  They were clean, nice and safe.  They are single showers, each with a locked door.   When you go in, you can latch the door locked from the inside.  It felt good to shower and not have to worry about running out of warm water. After hanging out and relaxing for a while, we packed into the van and drove to Slugger Stadium.  We got to see S...

Today was SO much fun! We went to visit the Mattingly family, who were in our travel group when we adopted Tian in Zhengzhou.  It was a treat to visit, play and do laundry!  :) I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Silly kids! (Instagram) TJ had a great day hanging out with the guys. Sweet Allie

Up with the sun this morning, I packed up as much as I could while everyone was still sleeping.  I wanted Ken to get as much rest as possible so he would feel better!  It worked! We left the park around 8:00 am, took a few pictures and made our way up to Louisville.  The KOA park is nice, shady, and clean.  There is a great playground, clean bathrooms and showers, and it's an easy drive to all the places we're going.  We also just found out that Ken's aunt lives just around the corner! Ken went to work at 1:00, so the kids and I set up at the RV park, then went out to explore and do some grocery shopping.  We had a great meal at Shake N Steak (kids meals free!), then stumbled on a HUGE Bass Pro Shop!  We killed an hour or so there, then decided to go on home so the boys could nap.  The grocery shopping would have to wait. Click here to see the photos . For dinner, we met the Z family at the Old Spaghetti Warehouse.  It was fun to see ...