St. Louis

On Sunday, Harper and I drove to St. Louis.

We stopped at Big Joel’s Safari Park.

Harper wanted me to feed the animals first.

She quickly decided it looked like fun.

We love how this park has large plastic spoons to feed

the animals with.  It makes it much less scary and messy!

Harper fed lots of goats

and a mini donkey

and some sheep too!

There were lots of snakes too.

Check out the python in the cage!

It was a hot day, so we cooled 

off with frozen pink lemonade.

Later that night, we ate dinner at 54th Street.

swam in the world’s smallest hotel pool

and enjoyed complimentary warm cookies at the hotel!

The next day, we checked out Myseum.  

Harper loved this interactive video wall.

She played in the seaweed swamp

and the bounce house too!

There was so much to see and do!

She giggled about her long forehead

learned about shadows

and was clocked going 8 mph down the slide!

She built several mazes on the magnetic ball wall

and learned about dinosaurs too!

We had a great time playing and learning at Myseum!

Oceans of Fun

We spent Saturday at Oceans of Fun!

Harper’s friend, Ella, met us there.

The girls giggled in the lazy river

and at lunch

and in the wave pool.

They floated

and posed in the giant chair.

It was a perfect day at Oceans of Fun!

Forever Family Day 2021

Today we celebrated 9 years since Harper joined our family.

We continued our traditions of adopting a bear at Build a Bear

then eating Chinese food

(she ate it all!)

and adding a charm to her bracelet!

Harper I’m so proud of the sweet and kind girl that you are.  You fill my life with happiness!

Aruba 2021

We planned to celebrate Ashley’s 30th birthday in Aruba, but COVID derailed those plans.

  A year later, we finally made it to Aruba!

It was an early morning flight, 

but we were excited to begin our latest adventure.

The view from our hotel room was gorgeous!

We stayed at the Hilton on Palm Beach.  The beach was perfect and the ocean water had so many shades of blue!

Harper loved swimming in the calm water.

We had an oceanfront palapa to relax in!

We spent lots of time in the hotel pools.

We went parasailing!

Our view from above was amazing! 

We even saw a turtle in the water below.

We found several great restaurants

and posed for lots of pictures!

I’ve been wanting to try stand up paddle boarding for a few years, and I finally got the chance!

We went to Eagle Beach and had a picnic!

We made sand castles

and saw the most beautiful sunset!

We loved seeing the birds in the trees 

and there were lots of iguanas too!

We spent a lot of our time in the ocean!






One night, we watched a movie by the pool.

We made so many great memories!

We can’t wait to see where our next adventure takes us!