Swimming at Susan's

This was the first time William swam in a big pool.

Hanging out with Jake and Stan

Becky and Brian et al. are the bikers in the family so one day William, Jake, Stan and yours truly took a bike ride around the neighborhood.

Tea and Cousins

We always see lots of friends and family when we’re in St. Louis. One afternoon we joined some Providence ladies for tea. We dined at a quaint little tea house in Fenton. I had so much fun. William, however, was not as pleased with the venue. I think there were just too many feminine vibs for any male, even one that was only eighteen months old.

That evening we went to Uncle John and Aunt Sarah's for dinner. William had lots of fun with all the munchins that reside there.

The Twins

My sister Becky had identical twin boys on June 18. We spent lots of time with them when we were in St. Louis. It was kind of crazy with her four and my one. We didn’t get as much talking and visiting done as we would have liked and no shopping trips. Michael and Martin are doing great and it was fun holding and feeding them.

Ted Drews

After Grants farm we went to Ted Drew's. It's the best frozen custard place there is. Still owned by the family who founded it, the Drews of course. They have two locations. They sell custard and Christmas trees. At Christmas time they put heaters under their order windows so that you can order frozen custard in sub zero temperatures and not freeze. The great thing about getting custard then is that you can eat it nice and slow and it will stay good and hard.

This was William's first ice cream cone. He loved it!!

Grant's Farm

Our second St. Louis day was taken up with visiting Grant’s Farm and Ted Drews. For those of you not from St. Louis Grant’s Farm is named after its previous owner, Ulysses S. Grant. It is now owned by the Anheuser Bush family. They have a wildlife area where animals from all over the world roam. There is a tram that takes visitors all through the area so you can see the different animals. The tram ride ends at a park where there are parrots, monkeys, turtles, elephants, eagles and several animals to see. They have a baby goat yard where guests can feed baby goats bottles. That’s where William and I are in the first several pictures.

That's me walking into the yard, Russ videoing it and Dad's the one taking the pictures.

William did great. I thought he would scream and want to get out of there but we actually were able to fee the whole bottle to the greedy goats and after that William even managed to walk a few steps on his own before they started nibbling at him. It's so fun to do things with your kids that your parents did with you when you were little.

Gran'ts farm has a German theme so you end at the German beer garden where they serve complimentary samples of their brew. We tasted the Imbev beer, not very good, and had a pretzel.

Russ had never seen Clydesdales in person before. This is a momma and her foal. They really are huge animals.

Okay, for those of you who care to comment, which of these two pictures do you think I should pick as the facebook picture and the blog profile picture?

Mother in Law's House

We got to St. Louis right around dinner time and decided to go to The Mother in Law’s House, a restaurant in historic St. Charles. For those of you in St. Louis who haven’t been, GO. We love it. It’s a quaint little restaurant with lots of class and really wonderful food. The mother in law is still there making all her guests feel right at home. One of the delicacies for which she is famous are blueberry muffins. I doubt very much if anyone has ever had a muffin like the Mother in Law’s. She makes them herself from scratch every day. At some point towards the beginning of your meal she comes with her little basket of muffins and gives you one and only one. If you are brave enough to ask for another she just smiles and gently denies your request. Come to think of it, the muffins kind of remind me of Turkish Delight. Once you’ve tasted them you just want another so badly. But no one ever gets another. No one, that is, except William. Yes, William got two blueberry muffins from the Mother in Law herself. Think of that.

That's number two!!

My three most favorite sweets in the whole world.