The Reason You Should Never Sit By A Cubsssssss Fan!

Our local library was hosting a free show that I knew Logan would like.  I also knew I would NOT like it.  Serengeti Steve was bringing his reptiles for A Reptile Man show.  Sounds awesome, right?  Wrong.  Not when you have a severe snake phobia. 

My snake phobia is ridiculous.  My heart races every time Logan plays in our yard and you can bet you won't find me wandering around our yard in the spring, summer, or fall!  My dad once asked me if I could stand in a room with a snake.  I told him "No Way!"

The show started off pleasant enough.  Logan, Jeff, and I were sitting in the front row of seats (several feet away from the foreboding boxes in the front of the room with about 40 children on carpet squares in front of us).  I felt relatively safe and my heart was only beating a little fast.  Steve started off by sharing a story about his time on "America's Got Talent"  He apparently got cut from the show because his act was too dangerous for the Danger category.  Ha!

Steve starts talking about rats and I'm thinking that I'll be ok.  Rats don't bother me.  The box opens up and this is the "rat" he pulls out!

A rat snake does not equal rat in my world

My heart is starting to beat a little faster.  This snake is nasty and squirmy and scary as all get out (at least to me!).

As you can tell, I was shaking by now.  My pictures are a bit blurry at this point.

The rat snake was staying far away from me so I was handling this as well as possible.  Apparently, I can be in a room with a snake.  I'm feeling very proud of myself.

Then it all started to go wrong.  I hear good ole' Steve talking about how the snake loves everyone except Cubs fans.  I'm good with that.  Good call, rat snake!  Then my brain starts to fog as I look to my right.  I see blue, I see red, I see a "C".  Oh crap!  The only Cubs fan in a Cubs shirt is sitting right next to me.  I look up at Steve.  He's heading her (and my!) way.  The panic sets in, I start sweating and I quickly look for an exit strategy.  Next thing I know, I have scooped Logan up and moved to the far edge of his seat to leave one (and a half) chair spaces between me and the Cubs fan.  Logan is enthralled with the snake, Jeff is laughing, I am holding back tears!  Steve puts the snake in the girl's hands.  I'm not even joking when I say that snake was less than 2 feet away!  It was horrible.  Then Steve hits the lady behind me in the face with the snake.  I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but I am pretty sure I was using Logan as a human shield at this point!  I mean, come on, surely the crazy man won't let the snake get near a toddler's hands.  I must have been right because he moved on.  Thank God! 

Darn Cubs Fan!  I should have known better than to sit next to her!

 Since I managed to not cry or pee in my pants, we enjoyed the rest of the show.

A baby alligator

 The Reptile Man had a tarantula, a scorpion, a lizard, the baby alligator, and for his finale....

Albino Python

The python was 11 feet long!

I have never been so glad to have a show over!  Logan had a great time, but was very disappointed that he didn't get to hold the animals (especially the tarantula-he really liked that spider!)
For any of you reptile fans, feel free to learn more about Serengeti Steve here.  He even does birthday parties if you are into that thing. 
Logan will never have Serengeti Steve over to our house...NEVER!
I did learn one valuable thing that evening.  I will never ever EVER sit by a Cubs fan again!

Older and Hotter!

And I am not talking about my good looks!
Last week was my birthday week! At this point, I can almost say I look half of my age! I'm now 32 years old and I still get carded for R rated movies sometimes!! I had a busy birthday week planned.  We had some 4th of  July fun at my parent's house.  On my actual birthday, we got to sleep in.  Then Jeff and I headed back home and I was super excited to stop at Imo's Pizza for lunch.  I LOVE Imo's and we can't get it anywhere near our house, so I usually try to hit it up when we are back in Missouri.  If you haven't tried Imo's, you should.  It is delicious! 
After our yummy lunch, we headed back to our house and lazed around for a bit (something we hardly ever get to do!).  We ended up just doing Chili's for my birthday dinner, but it was really good and I had their Oreo Molten Lava Cake.  OMG-Yum!
The next day, we were headed to STL once again for another 100 degree baseball game!  Crazy, right?!?  We were unable to attend the game earlier in the season when they gave away the World Series replica rings, so when they announced another promo date for these rings, we immediately bought tickets.  We decided to go all out and buy tickets at one of the all inclusive areas where our food and drink was included in the ticket price.  This was a first for us.
We also splurged and got a hotel downtown for the night so we wouldn't have to drive home after the game.  Let me tell you, that was the way to do it!  It was so nice to be back at our hotel room after the game and not have to drive home that night. 
The game was so hot again!  I'm pretty sure I could have wrung the sweat out of my clothes!  The cards unfortunately lost the game, but we are now the proud owners of the St. Louis Cardinals World Series replica ring.  This ring is a really nice replica!

Maybe I'll just replace my wedding ring...I'm sure Jeff won't mind!  haha!

The yummy food!

Our view of the field

The food was really good.  I ate myself so full I couldn't even lie on my stomach to sleep that night!  Haha!  I probably would have eaten even more if it hadn't been so dad gum hot!
It was fun, but I sure was glad to see Logan on Saturday.  I missed that little guy, but he had tons of fun at my Mom and Dad's while we were away!

Fourth of July Fun!

My birthday is the 5th of July, so growing up I always thought the fireworks were for my birthday.  I was probably 10 before I realized that they really weren't for just my birthday.  Oh well!  I LOVE fireworks and was very disappointed this year when the drought here meant no fireworks for most of the cities around here. 
Jeff and I were going to a Cardinals game on the 4th, so I was hoping we could catch the Fair St. Louis fireworks, but Logan was not going to be able to see any fireworks since my parent's town had cancelled the fireworks.
We drove to my parents house on Tuesday with plans to go to the game from there on Wednesday.  We had a great evening with John, Laura, Lillie, and Jacklyn!  Lillie and Logan played so well together and I snuggled with little Jacklyn as much as I could!

Lillie enjoying the bounce house

I'm pretty sure they were up to no good here!

We also celebrated my birthday with a little cake a few days early!  Logan was very excited. 

He started singing "Happy Birthday" to me before everyone else was ready...

Then blew out the candles when he was done singing!  It was so funny!!

We re lit the candles and I got a shot this time at blowing the candles out too!

That night, Logan got sick and threw up all over the place!  Poor little guy.  He (and myself) hardly got any sleep that night!  In the morning, Logan was not his normal self, but he took a little nap and a little Tylenol.  After a second helping of blueberries, Logan announced his "belly hurt no more, toe hurt no more*.  All better.  I play!!" and threw his hands over his head signalling victory over illness!  It was the cutest thing!  He really was better too.  He has been fine ever since.  I have no idea what made him sick on Tuesday night (maybe too much cake...)
*Logan, for some reason, always tells us his big toe hurts when his belly is hurting.  It's a bit odd, but always consistent.
Jeff and I decided Logan was doing well enough that we would go to the game, but come back to my parents house instead of our original plans to go back to our house after the game.  This meant a Metrolink ride from the west side. 
The game was great.  The Cards won.  We were able to catch most of the Fair St. Louis fireworks.  Logan was doing fine per my Mom's reports.  All was well in the world. 
Until we got to the Metrolink station.  Holy line of all lines!  I knew it would be busy, but this was insane! It was so freakin' hot (it was still 94 degrees at 10 pm!) and people were passing out in the line!  We finally got on the packed train, but had to hop off at another station to catch the other line and had to wait for-ev-er to get back onto the train!  It took a nearly 2 hours to get from the ball park to our car (it normally takes about 35 minutes!)
We did finally make it back to my parent's house and crawled into bed.  My mom got up with Logan in the morning, so Jeff and I were able to sleep in for once! 
Hooray!
Once again, these photos are courtesy of my Dad.  He takes such good photos, I tend to leave my camera at home if I know he will be around.

Birds in Motor City- Part 3

Ok, for all of you who were anxiously anticipating this last installment of our trip, sorry it took so long.  We've been super busy!  But here it is.  If you haven't read about the beginning of our trip in Detroit, you can view Part 1 or Part 2. 
On our last full day in Detroit, we had no plans.  We did not rent a car so we were concerned about cabbing it with Logan.  For those of you who travel a lot, what the heck do you do?  I mean, children have to be in car seats, but when you take a cab somewhere, what do you do with the car seat?  We had someone at the ball game suggest going to The Henry Ford Museum, so I called up the museum and asked if we could store our car seat somewhere.  They said yes, so we were on for our trip to The Henry Ford!
Now, let me tell you.  The brochure looked like it was a nice museum, but HOLY COW! this place is so amazing!  We only had about 5 or 6 hours to spend there and it wasn't nearly enough.  This place is every little boy's dream!  Trains, planes, automobiles and so much more.  We were really glad we went.  If you are ever in the Detroit area, you need to go visit this museum!  I'm warning you in advance.  There are a lot of photos in this blog post. 
I was sold on the Museum the moment we walked in the door!

That's right!  The Weinermobile!  How could our vacation get any better?!?!?

I barely got Logan out of this little house.  He was having a good time playing in it!

There were a ton of old tractors and automobiles

Logan driving the tractor

 One really cool thing at the museum was a section that went through time showing different things from various eras.  It was really neat (especially the 1980's section!)

Logan and I trying to perfect our "Lillie booty dance" at the jukebox

Logan passing a note the the teacher

Logan and I starring in Duran Duran's "Rio" video!

Who remembers computers that looked like this?

This museum had planes (yes-that is plural) throughout.  There were about 10 full sized planes in this place.

It was neat to look at all the planes and how they progressed as time went on

Logan inside a plane

An old automobile

They had a station to make your own paper airplanes.  I attempted to make one, but failed.  Jeff stepped in to help out...

Logan and Jeff working hard on the paper airplane

Logan tests out the paper airplane

 As if full sized planes and a weinermobile weren't enough, the museum had trains and trains and more trains!

This kind of gives you an idea of how many trains there were.  They were lined up all the way through the museum!

Trains from all eras

An even better idea of how many trains were there!

This train set was probably the highlight of Logan's visit.  It was massive and had about 5 different trains going on the track.  The museum worker told me it took 2 weeks to set this up with a team of about 10 people!

Jeff had to see Lincoln's chair

 As if there wasn't enough in the museum, there is also The Henry Ford Village.  This place is an outdoor space with historical buildings and such.  You could ride a steam engine and also a Model T car!  We opted for the steam engine.  It was so hot, we didn't stay very long outdoors.  I definitely want to go back to explore the Village on a cooler day.

The steam engine we got to ride in!

Logan passed out about 10 minutes into the train ride!

Filling the engine with water

 We ended up having so much fun at The Henry Ford and now we want to plan a trip to Dearborn (the museum is a bit outside of Detroit) to just do the Museum, the Village, and also take the Ford plant tour.

Logan really enjoyed our hotel fridge and kept putting his toys in the fridge.  I'm really not sure why he thought his toys should go in there, but it made him really happy!

See the Weinermobile in the fridge?

Logan also stole my camera that night and was taking pictures of his shoe insisting that it was a bunny...?!?!?

 Our flight home was uneventful.  Detroit has a nice airport, so we wandered around while we waited for our flight.  I bought some new shoes that Logan picked out for me.  He insisted on wearing them through the airport.  It was a sight to see...

Man-he is such a cutie!

I have to say, Detroit exceeded my expectations.

Birds in Motor City-Part 2

If you missed Part 1, click here.  Oh and if you wonder what the heck we were doing watching the St. Louis Cardinals in Detroit, click here. 
Anyhow, after an afternoon dip in the hotel pool followed by a nap for the L-man, we were off to the game!

Our Family Photo at Comerica Park

We always try to get the Mickey photos for Logan.  He did not want to stand in front for a photo op though!

So one thing I have noticed after travelling to ten stadiums to watch the St. Louis Cardinals play is that Cardinal fans are like no others!  We have yet to be at another stadium that Cards fans were not in full force.  Our seat neighbors at this game even commented on the crazy amount of Cardinal fans at Comerica Park that night!  Here is an example of what I am talking about.

The Cardinals dugout before the game.  See all the Cardinal fans standing there?

The Tigers dugout before the game (these two pics were taken seconds apart!).  You can almost count the Tigers fans standing there on two hands!!

 So as beautiful as the stadium was on the outside with all the awesome Tiger statues, the inside was just ok.  Nice, but nothing fabulous.  It did have some cool features though.

They just added this new massively huge scoreboard this season.  This baby is 88 feet by 144 feet!!

The Chevrolet fountain.  Instead of fireworks for homeruns and such like most stadiums do, they had water fountains that shot up out of the greenery when a homerun was hit.  It was pretty neat-o!

 A little tidbit of information we learned while there was that the stadium is basically owned by the owner of Little Caesar's pizza.  That means you could get pizza at the ball park!  This was a score for Logan!

Logan and his "didda"

 They did have a few neat kid friendly rides. 

The Tiger Carousel!

"Which Tiger do you want to ride?"

Logan did not want to ride a Tiger, he preferred the bench?!?!

The Baseball Ferris Wheel.  Cool, huh?

Can you tell it was SOOOO hot?  I promise we were giving him plenty of fluids!!

A view of some more Tigers from the Ferris Wheel.

 On our way back from the Ferris Wheel, Logan spotted the Tigers mascot.  Now, Logan loves mascots.  He is not biased to just Fred Bird.  He chased this poor Tiger around the stadium for about 15 minutes.  I'm pretty sure the Tiger thought Logan was stalking him! 

Giving the Tiger a "5"

Logan and his token "cheese" face.  The Tiger girls (you know, the scantilly clad girls that follow the mascot around) were lovin' his little face!

 Logan is at the age where baseball games are only so enjoyable for me.  I usually spend the game wandering around stadiums with him because he doesn't want to watch the game.  I had an awesome idea this time and it worked!!  I was able to sit and watch almost 6 full innings!!  My trick?...

The iPad!  Yep-I am not ashamed to admit I gave Logan the iPad to play with when he got restless!

Logan and I cheesing for the camera!

Logan took this awesome (snicker...snicker...) photo of Jeff and I

 Sadly, the Cards lost the game.  But, Jeff and I did get to see Verlander pitch and OMG...wow...he was throwing 100 mph pitches in the 6th or 7th inning!!  Pretty sure, he played a huge role in the Cards loss...We did have a great time at the game though.  We love the Cards win or lose!

Nighttime shot of the scoreboard

The players in action.  We had awesome seats.  Notice how we are behind the safety net.  We always do this to avoid having to worry about fly balls hitting us on the head.  No kidding, though, at this game, there were 3 foul balls that came back and landed VERY close to use.   One was just a few rows down and a few seats over!  You better believe I was hovering over Logan praying the ball didn't knock me upside the head!!  Haha!

We still had one full day left in Detroit after the game.  I was nervous because we had no idea what the heck to do.  It ended up being a great day though, but you'll have to wait until Part 3 to find out what jewel of a place we found in Detroit!!