Missouri Botanical Gardens

This morning the weather was yucky but we wanted to get out of the house. We had decided yesterday that we were going to skip church and do something as a family.
  At about 10 we still hadn't decided what we were going to do but I went up to shower and get ready. We finally decided that we wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens. As we left the house Alyssa kept asking, "Are we going to church?" "You went the wrong way for church". It was cute to see that she really did know our routine.
  On the drive down there both kids fell asleep so we drove around and decided to have lunch on The Hill. We were surprised to find that may of the places were closed. We finally found one, had a great Italian lunch and also discovered Alyssa had an ear infection.
  We then went to the Gardens. We told Alyssa we were going to see flowers and so the whole drive there that she was awake she pointed out every flower she saw. Chris and I knew she wasn't fully understanding what we were talking about so it was cute.
   We got to the Botanical Gardens and paid to get in, we then walked a little and came upon the children's part of the garden so we paid another $5 and went in. The kids had a BLAST. They have slides, caves, things to climb on, sand, music and so much. Alyssa and Colin ran from one thing to another with huge smiles on their faces. They both enjoyed the slides tremendously. Though we are going to have to teach Colin how to go down them because he went SO slow every time. We aren't sure if his shoes kept catching or what but on every slide he went down at a snails pace.
   After spending close to an hour in there, we went back out into the gardens to walk around a little more. We didn't walk too much more since my knee was bothering me but we did enjoy some flowers and a maze.
   The maze was made of short shrubs and a brick path. Alyssa found her way through no problem, but Colin had some issue with it. At every turn you could see his little brain thinking and at one point he came to a dead end and he couldn't figure out how to get out of it. The thought of walking away from us to get out made him pout and start to tear up. Luckily with a little coaxing he was able to get out and was very proud of himself.
   When we got in the car Alyssa said she didn't want to leave. We promised her that we would go back again sometime and see more flowers.
    I love family days like today. It is so much fun to see the kids interact with each other somewhere else than home and it is fun to have a day of family time. I look forward to the weekends for may reasons but probably the biggest one is being able to spend time as a family of 4.