Spring Break 2014!

For my spring break this year, Elizabeth and I decided we would take a girl (and Clark) trip to St. Louis to help out my mom.  My Mom and Dad are remodeling their bedroom and bathroom this summer.  However, due to some furniture stealing (by us :0 ) and just general life craziness, some serious organization and cleaning needed to happen to get their room ready for remodeling.  Elizabeth is the master cleaner and organizer in our family, so we decided she would go and help my mom organize a couple rooms and I would go to babysit Clark.  It wasn't exactly the most relaxing spring break ever, but we sure had a lot of fun! 

Saturday

We left Dayton around 10-ish in pouring rain. Not so fun.  Luckily the rain didn't last the whole drive and we made it there in one piece! Clark was such a happy boy the whole drive! He is an awesome traveler! 

We stopped for some lunch at Subway/McDonalds.  Still being happy! 

St. Louis!! I love this city! 

We were greeted by fun birthday decorations in honor of Elizabeth's 31st birthday the day before. 

That night there was the General Women's meeting that included all girls 8 and up, which meant Julia got to come! It was a fun party of girls! 

This pose was Julia's idea :) 

Sunday

 We had a birthday breakfast for Elizabeth's birthday with the famous birthday muffins! Then we went to church and had the Sanders over for a birthday dinner/ goodbye Eliza party. 

PopE asked Clark for a hug and he ran over and planted a big kiss on him! I think PopE was a little surprised! 

Not pictured: my fun visit with my dear friend Clarissa Thomas! I love her to pieces! So fun to catch up with her! 

Monday

Our schedule for most of the week went something like this; wake up way to early, eat breakfast, do a puzzle, get ready, do something fun, come home to eat lunch and take a nap, then play at home for the afternoon until dinner and bed time. Then the big kids would watch a movie and go to bed too late and wish we had gone to bed with Clark. 

 Monday was supposed to be the nicest day of the week weather wise, so we decided to hit up the zoo. Clark was SO excited! He loves the zoo! Mostly he just loved the slide at the zoo.  He LOVES slides. We did a lot of sliding this week.  The zoo in St. Louis is free, and the children's zoo is free the first hour the zoo is open, which is Clark's favorite part due to the slide. 

One of the slides. He probably went down at least 15 times. 

The cool ramp to get up to the slides. 

Chatting it up with a goat. 

He was so excited to see the elephants, and they are kind of far away so it took a lot of walking to get there. By the time we finally saw them he didn't seem too excited. Sad. There was a cute little baby elephant though, so I was happy :) 

We packed a lunch so we could enjoy a little more time at the zoo. 

My funny seester :) 

We watched the movie called the Ultimate Life (the sequel to the Ultimate Gift). It was so horrible cheesy and dumb.  Don't watch it.  We were very sad because we love the first movie! 

Tuesday

 Tuesday was my Mom's day to work at the temple, so Elizabeth and I decided to go to the Butterfly house while she was gone. And it was free when we went. Double win. Elizabeth had never gone before and I had only been once before. It's a pretty magical place! They have a TON of butterflies!!!  Clark was more interested in the slides outside the Butterfly House....After that we went and saw my Dad at his office before we went home for lunch and nap time.  I went and did a session with my Mom which was really fun. I love the temple!

Catching a glimpse of the slides. 

You can't really tell in the pictures, but there really were butterflies everywhere! 

So sad to leave the slides...

This goose made a nest and laid her eggs on the roof on my Dad's office building.  I'm curious to see if the babies make it off the roof....

We watched the movie called The Man Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain. It was pretty cute. Definitely just a one time watch for me though...

Wednesday

Wednesday was rainy and yucky, so Lisa and I took the kids to the science center.  We wanted to go to the Discovery Zone, but it was sold out to school group so we just kind of wandered around. I didn't get very good pictures because we were busy having fun, so use your imagination :) When we went to leave though it was pouring. I wasn't sure how long it was going to last, so I just decided to chance it and run out to the car in the rain.  10 minutes later, the rain lessened significantly so we should have waited but it was a fun little shower. Heehee

Watching the rain from the front porch

Being silly

We spent a lot of time on the stairs. He loved walking up and down and throwing the ball up and down the stairs. Good times as a two year old. 

For dinner we went to Sweet Tomatoes! I love that place and this month's feature was lemon dishes, which I really liked! 

It's tough being two. 

Thursday

Thursday morning we woke up to a tornado siren and went to bed with tornado sirens. Nothing like spring in tornado alley...Luckily we didn't get any damage from the storms, but we got to spend some quality time in the basement. We kind of laid low since the weather was yucky.  My dear friend from high school, Lauren, came and visited me.  It was fun to catch up.  She's as lovely and wonderful as ever! 

My Mom has a history of putting things in the microwave for a lot longer than they are supposed to be in for. My Mom tried to set the time and then put something in for 30 seconds.  Well the time didn't set so she ended up putting the food in for 91 minutes. Hahaha. Good thing we were there to catch it! She's trying to catch the house on fire and avoid remodeling ;) 

Elizabeth and I went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen so I could get my fix of pear gorgonzola pizza! YUM! 

Then Mom and I ran over to a friend's house to get some things she ordered for my paper cutting machine.  While we were there, the tornado siren went off again and we had to race the tornado home! It was kind of intense. But not really.  It was like 25 minutes away, but we could see the storm coming.  I felt like a storm chaser. Definitely not my dream occupation! 

The last storm brought a flurry of hail! Luckily nothing was damaged though. 

We wanted to watch an upbeat movie since the weather was kind of bringing us down, so we watched the Perfect Game.  It was SO cute!! I loved it! You should definitely check it out sometime! (It's on Netflix!)

 Friday

By the next morning, the weather was fine and I went on a walk with my Mom and Dad.  Clark and I played at home in the morning and I went to lunch with my BYU roommate Lindsey Benham! She happened to be in town at the same time as me for a conference downtown! We went to a yummy Thai restaurant and caught up on our lives. It was fun to see her! We ran some last minute errands and then everyone else went to the temple while I gave Clark a tubby and put him to bed. We stayed up way to late talking and looking at pictures because we didn't want this fun week to end! I love my parents SOO much and I love any time I get to be with them! 

My magnet creations- these are seriously the best toys! I love playing with them! 

 We went to Baskin Robbins to celebrate Elizabeth's 31st birthday with 31 flavors! 

Clark was using two spoons it was so good!

 I love this picture of my Mom, my Grandma Wadley, and my aunt Carma. There are some more gems, but for my Mom's sake I will not post them on the internet.  You're welcome Mom. 

Let's just take a moment and appreciate Elizabeth for a second.  I don't really have any pictures of what she got done, but she organized Michael's room (mostly), cleared out Mom's closet (no small task), cleaned out Mom's sitting room, and cleaned out the fridge.  She is awesome and should get an award. I wish I had her mad skills! Way to rock Elizabeth! 

Saturday 

We woke up and went over to Greg and Lisa's for a birthday breakfast for William! He turned 3! I can't believe it! All my nieces and nephews are getting so big!! And they just keep getting cuter and cuter! Then Elizabeth and I hit the road again. Elizabeth is such a good sport because she has made this trip 3 times in the past month.  Bless her. :) Driving out went by pretty fast, but driving home took longer because a. we made a wrong turn and had to take a detour and b. I was excited to see my hubby after a week!! We listened to conference while driving, but couldn't hear it very well in the car. I am looking forward to going back and reading all the talks! I love General Conference!!! 

Rock just running some laps around the neighborhood. 

On our way! 

For a couple minutes I kept hearing Clark say "Fishies! Toesies!" And I looked back and saw him shoving gold fish in between his toes! Hahaha. I thought it was really funny! 

We finally made it back to Dayton and I got to see my hubby again! He got me some lovely flowers since he missed me so much! :) I sure love him! It'll probably be a while before I leave him for that long again! 

So that was my week! I am definitely not ready to go back to school tomorrow, but I loved being able to spend time with my family and friends! Now, how many days until summer vacation??? ;)