Monday, August 24, 2009

Old MacDonald

So I took my nieces and my nephew to Suson Park last Saturday. It was a gorgeous day, 75 degrees, no humidity and breezy. Perfect time to visit the farm!

Aren't these the cutest little one year old feet ever?! Yes, I thought so.

The kids enjoyed visiting the cows and horses.

And I enjoyed their independence - above, my 4 year old niece proves to me that she can push her sister "ALL BY MYSELF".

It was a lovely day.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Paint Pots

I thought I would tresspass in my mom's art studio to take some photos of her messy/creative space (the only messy space in the house)...
she's been on quite the streak and has another 3 galleries interested in looking at her "stuff".

I think her main interest will always be oils, but I just really love the collages she's been creating lately. Aren't the colors great?

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Sister Trip 2009

Every year my sisters and I make a point of setting aside some time to get together as a group and hang out. Now, we see each other multiple times a week, but our "sister trips" are something special and usually involve leaving town. We were hoping to get to Memphis this year to spend a weekend, but scheduling just didn't work out. So we settled for a day-trip to Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois.

We met up this past Saturday morning and enjoyed some breakfast at St. Louis Bread Company (Panera Bread, to all you phillistines). I noticed that they have begun selling their own version of pain au chocolate and decided to give it a try. Not bad. If you can believe it though, Trader Joe's frozen cholocate croissants taste more like the ones I had in Paris.

We had planned on hiking some of the great trails at the park - as evidenced by our "hiking" gear. As in, we sprayed ourselves with OFF and then some of us wore sneakers. People, we are city girls. Anyways, it began to rain in earnest by the time we arrived at the park so we contented ourselves with taking ridiculous photos at the visitor's center.

Since it was raining/drizzling too much to take a long hike, we decided to drive through the park anyway. I am glad we did, since there were a number of pretty scenic lookouts.




And because it wouldn't be a sister trip without acting like 12 year olds, we decided to race eachother. Leanne and Caroline easily left Aili and I in the dust. I'd like to thing it has more to do with the maturity of age, you know, we're too dignified to run. Yeah right!



After our visit to Pere Marquette, we explored the town of Grafton Illinois. It was a cutie little town. On our way out we stopped by an adorable old-timey Candy Store.

We got some delicious fudge for the kiddoes and explored the rather interesting selection in the store (there were also moccasins and cowboy boots for sale).

It was a great sister day!