Kai’s First Baseball Game

Kai wanted to try baseball this year. He’s doing great considering he hasn’t played since Tball when he was 4. Yesterday was his first game. He played mostly first base, and a little bit of shortstop and centerfield. He batted 4th in the lineup and got on base every time. He had three singles, a double, and a triple! Go, Kai!

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All District Art Show

Sage had two pieces of art selected for the All District Art Show. We are so proud!









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Sage’s First Violin Concert

On Monday, we enjoyed Sage’s first violin concert. He has been learning violin at school as part of the Strings program. They all did well!

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Decades Day

The boys wanted to dress like Michael Jackson for Decades Day at school.



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Spring Break 2018

Even though our spring break included adding a sump pump to our basement (eating up our travel budget) and rain nearly every single day (so much rain) we still managed to squeeze in some fun. The boys even checked another state off their list with a quick trip to Iowa.

On our road trip, we stopped halfway in Hannibal to see Mark Twain’s boyhood home and learn about the author and his adventures.













After a quick history lesson, we continued on to our destination, Burlington, Iowa. It’s the home town of a friend who gave a few recommendations on places to go. So, we went and enjoyed our stay. The boys really enjoyed Fun City which is a mega plex with go carts, laser tag, indoor ropes courses, an indoor water park, bowling, arcade games, and a place called Ballocity. Sage and Kai spent a total of about 7 hours playing in Ballocity having “Capture the Flag” wars, climbing through tunnels and sliding down slides. Needless to say, Fun City lived up to its name.

The second day, we did a quick tour of all the Burlington parks and playgrounds and snuck in a couple hikes before the rain started again.



Starr Cave Park


Tricky hike with lots of obstacles!


The world’s curviest street, Snake Alley.


We think it was called Mosquito Park because it was so small it was the size of a mosquito. Beautiful views of the Mississippi though!


The boys’ favorite - simply because of the name. Silly boys!





Geode State Park had their favorite playground.





But, not their favorite hike. Neither of them look amused. 😬

Once the rain started again, we went back to the hotel for some hot tub and pool time before heading back to Fun City for the night.








Finally, on Friday, that great ball of light in the sky known as the sun reappeared. Hallelujah! We spent Friday back in St. Louis at some of our favorite playgrounds.







This spring break was definitely the wettest with rain every day except for Friday. But, hey, thanks to our new sump pump, at least our basement was dry. 😫

Basketball Season

The basketball season is over, but the boys learned so much. This was the first year they played full court on the full height goals. They had new rules too. They did well and improved every week. Their team won most of their games and had some tough losses. Here are some favorites pics:












Kai ordering ribs from The Shaved Duck - his favorite post game lunch spot.


Sage with Papa - one of the boys’ biggest fans.

Epic Egg Hunt

The last several days, we’ve been in an epic egg hunt. A local trampoline park, The Flying Spider, put on a scavenger hunt for an egg worth $10,000 in cash and prizes. Each day, they released a new clue. We narrowed it down to Queeny Park on Saturday night and rushed out of the house to search in the dark. We returned Sunday morning and hiked the entire 4.4 mile Hawk Trail searching for the egg the whole way. We drove all the home to South City and another clue posted about the playground. So, we drove all the way back to the playground to search again. We searched 10+ hours over 4 days.

The boys even convinced us to let them skip school this morning to hunt for the egg with PaPa and Grandma. Sadly, someone beat them to it and found the egg around lunch time. Although we are disappointed we didn’t find the egg, we’re just as sad that the hunt is over. We had so much fun. We hope there’s another hunt soon. Here’s a pic with a decoy egg the boys found.






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Sage’s Spirit of Excellence Ceremony

Last night we celebrated Sage as he walked across the stage to receive the Spirit of Excellence award. It’s an award that celebrates the academic success of African American students in Parkway. He was one of over 570 students honored at an incredible celebration. There were praise dancers, drummers, and step teams in between the students walking across the stage. It was an awesome night!

















































Here’s Sage with friends from his class: Yusuf, Jordan, Zaynah, Payton, and Haley

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