Bicycle

The things you do for your kids... :-)

actually, I think I would have done this anyway. Alexandra was disappointed that she wasn't quite tall enough to try this bicycle at a museum in Kansas City.

Topeka Zoo, Rainforest & Park

We spent a 2nd day in Topeka visiting the zoo, their rainforest exhibit (which is part of the zoo) and the "animal" themed park which is next to the zoo. We'd intended on eating lunch there, but it is a small zoo and their only small restaurant was closed! So, we ended up at McDonald's, which was just fine as we've been collecting the Madam Alexander Wizard of Oz figures.

a cute porcupine

As we entered the rainforest exhibit, we were greeted by some flamingos just walking around!

A fruit bat - they're so big!!! I had to ask one of the workers where I might find the bats...

...and this sloth! He's just hanging around in the exhibit. We'd actually walked past the hippos earlier in the day and when we came back, this big guy (or gal?) had actually gotten out of the water and was sunning himself! I sure wish we would have been around for that. I'd loved to have seen him walk that big ole body and then plop down. :-)


This photo has 5 Monarchs! They are beginning to migrate and I couldn't believe how many of them I saw as I drove down the highway.

After McDonald's, we headed across from the zoo to the park. I found this lovely "thing" - Alexandra pointed out that it was probably a gall. I believe she's right! I didn't see anything else on the whole tree. And, this was pretty big - a little bigger than a walnut.

With her baby cousin (4 1/2 month old), Baby H.

We were so happy to have found this elephant! I had been singing "We went to the animal fair" to Baby H all day long. In it, the song says "You should have seen the monk... it sat on the elephant's trunk... the elephant sneezed, and fell on his knees (like this one)... and that was the end of the monk." I guess it was a sad ending for the monk, but Baby H was just fine.

That evening, we went out with my sister-in-law to have some Greek food. Now, I'm not a very adventurous eater and I've never had Greek food. She ordered us some humus and flaming cheese for an appetizer, and even Alexandra loved them both! Alexandra ate American food for her meal, but I had grilled chicken & pork. I don't eat very much pork, but this was delicious! And, I tried some of my mother-in-law's lamb and "OH!!!" it was incredible. So, I'm sold on Greek food. :-)

We walked through the old town that evening and even stopped at a toy store and a book store and bought a little something at each. We just cracked up when we saw this (real) cat relaxing in a store window. Now, that's relaxing!!!

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

While in north Kansas, we visited both Topeka and Kansas City. One of our visits in Topeka was to Monroe School, a national historic landmark which is home to the Brown v. Board of Education museum. (This site has lots of information if you're studying this subject.) It is also a national park and Alex earned her 3rd Junior Ranger badge there. (The website says you will need to complete 3 of 4 activities, but we were surprised that she just had to read about 8 pages of information and there were NO activities to complete. They also said they'd ask her questions at the end, so we "studied" hard... BUT, they didn't ask her any questions. We all learned a lot though!)

Brown v. Board (1954) was actually not a single case, but a consolidation of 5 cases. In 1954, Brown v. Board ended legal segregation in public schools. This case overturned an earlier Supreme Court decision from 1896, Plessy v. Fergusen, which set the precedent for "separate but equal" facilities. (Follow the Plessy link... it's a fascinating story!) (This photo of Alexandra is showing 10 things which were separated as to "white" or "colored.")

The above photo is of a "data sheet" by Dr. Kenneth Clark. The "test" was given to many black children who showed results like Ethel Mae Brown's... that she thought the white doll was "nicer"; she'd rather play with the white doll; the white doll was a nice color; and the black doll looked bad.
Here's another photo from Dr. Kenneth Clark's research which showed "an 'unmistakeable preference' among both African American and white children for the white doll." Isn't that sad!

We bought one workbook that we are working through: "I Want to go to School! Brown v. Board of Education" by Carole Marsh, an American Milestones book. (There are also books on other topics - I'm not sure if this is a complete list.) It has 28 pages on each of the pages it has several paragraphs about some aspect of this case and then something to do like a crossword puzzle, mapwork, matching, etc. We're learning a lot with this book!

We have power!

Hi, everyone. Our power got restored on Saturday, which was a suprise as we'd heard on Friday that it'd be at least a week. But, Alex and I had planned on going to Kansas, so we are up here having fun. Today, we went to a museum that covers Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Alex even earned her 3rd Junior Ranger badge. Unfortunately, I haven't loaded software to download photos on our new computers, so I guess it'll have to wait. I can't wait to share all of our adventures with you!!!

Our Next Trip - any suggestions?

I received a great phone call this week. My sister-in-law is going to a convention in Wisconsin in October and she asked if we'd like to come along! So, we'll be going on another trip. Yeah!

We'll be flying to Kansas City and then driving up. We have several days to get to Wisconsin and several days to get home so we'll be making several stops. Right now our plans are to stop in Hannibal, MO and to spend some time in Wisconsin including Door County. We might stop by Chicago which we LOVED last fall, or we might just try some new spots.

All together, we'll probably be driving through portions of Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri. If you've got any great ideas for places to visit, particularly for Wisconsin (near Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, and Door County) and/or Iowa (we'll drive through Iowa City, Des Moines, Dubuque & Cedar Rapids), please let me know! Or, we could drive back through Illinois and hit cities like Peoria and Springfield. Thanks for your help!

Day 6: Last Day in St. Louis

Our last day in St. Louis started with the earthquake. After getting packing the car, we stopped at the World Bird Sanctuary since the museum Alexandra wanted to go to didn't open until noon.

We enjoyed looking at raptors, but it started raining so we decided to go eat lunch while we waited for the museum to open.

We showed up at The Magic House just after noon. This is a neat children's museum with lots of hands on activities. We had a lot of fun playing with the above nail wall. We were making prints of our hands, faces, etc. I love how the above photo shows Alexandra's ponytail!

In the adds for the museum, they show a boy touching this electricity ball and Alexandra was anxious to give it a try. I didn't think her hair would work since it is so long, but it looks neat! I even paid a few dollars for them to take a photo and make a magnet for the fridge.

Alexandra's 2 favorite rooms were the library (where she played librarian) and the bank (where you could open a safe and use an ATM). I loved how they library talked about the Dewey Decimal system and had little mouse models about the various numbers. This one shows that the 400's are for "language."

Our last planned stop for the day was Meramec Caverns, and then we planned on heading to Oklahoma to spend a few days with family. The walking tour was a little over an hour and was a beautiful place I remember going to as a child.

Then, our unscheduled stop a few hours later... the ER... and then my new home for the next week, a hospital room. This was definitely a vacation week... I mean 2 weeks... we'll always remember. And, we're so glad to be home. :-)

Day 5: Paddle Boats

We ended up day 5 of our St. Louis vacation at the Boathouse which is near the zoo. There is a restaurant there, but there was a 2 hour wait. So, we elected just to take a paddle boat out for an hour. It was a beautiful evening and we had a lot of fun.

Of course, I enjoyed getting close to the ducks. We saw some more wood ducks! They're so beautiful.

There was a larger area to boat in - we chose to go around a decent-sized island. On the island, we saw more ducks and red-winged blackbirds. As we headed back to shore, we were shocked at how strongly the winds were blowing against us and it was HARD work to get back to shore.

Alexandra started out in back, but then she gladly took a turn paddling. It's nice that she's tall enough to help!

That night, we went out to eat in the restaurant that is connected to our hotel. Afterwards, I just stepped outside and took some photos of the arch lit up. From our hotel room, you could see about 1/3rd of the arch and Alexandra enjoyed sitting in the window just looking at the arch.

I just forgot to post this photo the other day. We went to several neat restaurants, but this was our favorite. In about 6-8 tables, there were board games set into the table. We let Alexandra choose and she picked the Clue table. We ate, then played a full game, and then had dessert. It was a great 2 hours of food & fun.