{this moment} – A weekly ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Inspired by SouleMama.
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After the trip back from St. Louis, we were all happy to be home, but we were only there for a short while. We arrived home Sunday late in the afternoon. We unpacked the car into the living room and I threw in all the laundry that evening. By Monday afternoon, we had repacked the car for one more trip – up to Pine Creek for the Dutton Marshall Reunion at Happy Acres. This reunion has been going on for years, every other year. Each time it’s hosted by family members descended from Minnie and Oscar Marshall – my great grand parents. This year was a special one because it was right here in PA, near where Minnie and Oscar spent their life together. Even though we were tired from the long trip, we decided to go anyway to see some family members we don’t see often and some we’d never met! We stayed at the Happy Acres Lodge (with accommodations for 21) with my Uncle Vin’s family. I think we should have called it “kid central”. With us, there were 10 adults and 10 children…fun chaotic times! The little cousins all had a blast playing together and the big ones had a lot of opportunities for catching up and visiting. It was well worth the trip. A few glimpses of the chaos that arises when 10 kiddos are living in one house… Breakfast…
Blocks…
Walks…
You fill up the whole bouncer…
all of the springy things…
all of the swings…
and the whole glider!
Lunchtime…
for 9 (baby Joanna was too little to sit up to the table).
Coloring with cousins…
And in the end, lots of happy memories to take home!
{this moment} – A weekly ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama.
Again, can’t settle on just one – it’s been a full week. On Thursday morning, we met Darrick and Katie at the Gateway Expansion Memorial in downtown St. Louis so we could go up in the Arch. The girls were excited (and maybe a little nervous?) to be going up so high to get a view of the city. While we waited for our time to go up, we explored the museum a bit. The girls were mostly fascinated by the various animals…
When it was our turn, we got in line and eventually climbed into the teeny, tiny elevator pod that took us up to the top. There have been several occasions in the past few years when the elevators have gotten stuck, so all the grown-ups had that in their minds…thankfully it was an uneventful trip up and back down!
When we got to the top, the girls went straight for a window to look out. First the Illinois side…
Megan stitched this panoramic photo of the river together using one of the cool features of her camera.
Then the Missouri side…
On the way out, we only had a chance to take a few photos of the arch close up, then Megan fell and scraped her knees, toe and knuckles up. We ended up hobbling her WAY back to the car to clean up…last time I take them anywhere without a first aid kit in my purse!
On the way out of town for lunch at Steak n Shake (where I finally got my chocolate malt!), we took a few more photos from the car.
We celebrated Scott’s birthday while we were on our trip. He turned 35 – he keeps pointing out that he’s half-way to 70! As we get older and older, we keep marveling at the fact that we’ve been together for more of our lives than not. Rather than a cake, he requested a cherry pie. Isn’t it pretty? Rumor has it that it was pretty tasty, too!
We had burgers from Sonic for lunch…although I was a tad bit disappointed that there were no longer chocolate malts on their menu. What’s up with that?
The afternoon of his birthday, we headed out for the next leg of our trip – St. Louis! |
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