Ryan turned 2, Kyle played ball and we all rode a train to St. Louis. Oh, and there was soccer camp and lego camp for Kyle, summer preschool for Grant, Vacation Bible School for both and lots of trips to the pool. The railing in the hall way has been permanently covered with towels and swimsuits since Memorial Day and even when I wash them, I just put them right back in the same place. So more details on the events of June, starting with a big birthday for the big guy. We celebrated on the actual day with just us as we usually do. We went to lunch at McDonalds and Jason met us at Summit Waves at 5. There was also a trip to Aunt Ashile’s mixed in there and I had at one point planned on making a cake in the afternoon. That plan quickly turned into picking up an ice cream cake at Here’s Your Scoop, which was great and Ryan loved the baseball cake and blowing out his candles which happened about 5 times (“I do it again”). There were of course presents with wrapping paper decorated by his brothers, including a monkey like last year. His “family” party followed by a good 2 weeks. I think I claimed to be celebrating his “rebirthday” on the 23rd, but I probably just didn’t have my stuff together until then. It was a fun party, we took him to the party store and Kyle picked out all of the toddler themed plates and let him choose. Dinosaurs it was and it turned out to be really easy to decorate the cake with our existing vast collection of small plastic dinosaurs. Love it when things work out for the best like that. I had been thinking about trying to replicate this cookie monster cookie cake that my friend Julie did one year and I think we all know how that would have turned out.
The birthday celebrations were interspersed with many ball games for Kyle. I loved watching him play, but have to admit I hated lugging Grant and Ryan to the park. Soccer was fine because the games were shorter and there wasn’t much trouble to be found in the open field, but baseball games drag on and on and there are bleachers and concrete. I was lucky to have Andy when it got hot, but then I felt bad that he missed the games. What worked the best was dropping Kyle off early to warm up, then going to the park and not coming until there was about 45 minutes left in the game. It was a good compromise, but I did miss Kyle’s best hit of the season. I love how determined he looks in the running pic. He plays that way all of the time, he is never “off”. I have another pic that I must have taken in July that I love as well. It shows him running in after he made 2 force outs in the field and it is the closest thing to pure joy I have ever captured on film (or memory card I guess).
We did miss one game for a great St. Louis adventure, but it was well worth it. It started early on a Tuesday, catching the train out of LS. I was pretty nervous leading up to the trip, but we had a really good time. Ryan got pretty antsy, especially once he realized people were getting off when the train stopped (“I go outside!”). Kyle and I went to a Cardinals game that night while the rest of the crew enjoyed the hotel pool and Union Station. I think he had a good time, he never said he wanted to leave, but he really didn’t say much at all. We went super early for batting practice and I couldn’t get him to stand by the field (the picture is as close as he would get), such a rule follower, he wanted to set in our seats, 2 hours before the game. I was able to get him up to eat and we did one lap around the stadium. The next day we rode the metro link (and experience in itself with 4 kids and 2 strollers) to Forest Park and did the zoo and Science Center. The zoo was less then we expected, but we didn’t lose any kids and we successfully caught the bus to the Science Center where Kyle got to build a robot while the younger kids visited the Discovery Room. It was another hard sale to get Kyle to do the robot, because I said it was a contest, which it was and he was immediately afraid of not doing well, even saying “I wish Dad was here to do it because he would do good”. After I reminded him that I to was an engineer, he reluctantly agreed. I will post pics of that as well and of the City Museum, which we did on the last day and oh what a last day it was. It is hard to describe the City Museum except to say it is the complete opposite of a museum, there were tons of things to play and crawl on, including a big area on the roof. I am not particularly afraid of heights, but I have to admit I mad a conscious effort to look strait ahead while I was following the boys up the giant cage on top of the slide that was on top of the roof. K and G had absolutely no fear of anything and really had the time of their lives. It was worth the severely bruised tailbone I obtained sliding down a slide after them and the bruised elbow I took while helping Ryan out of a tunnel. Really, it has been a month and a half and my tailbone is still tender. Again, the pics I will post will probably do it more justice then my words. All for now, will try to post our July event summary before winter sets in (actually I need to do it soon, since my blogging fiscal year ends with the start of school, oh my, not that I have printed the book from last fiscal year).
