St. Louis, Missouri

Holy cow! Those gnats drove us right out to the Mississippi river, which used to be the western border of the US- did you know that? Until Thomas Jefferson (the third president, one of my favorites, and Greg's cousin) made the Louisiana purchase and bought the whole mid west from the French. For only 15 million, by the way!!

That happened in 1803 and opened up the "gateway to the west". St. Louis was a big fur trading town and because of its location on the river and contributions to all the various groups of people at the time, it was the perfect place to set up a monument. Anybody know what this is?

All right! I'll give you a little bit more.

It's the "Gateway Arch", it is a national monument for the Thomas Jefferson expansion project. We thought we'd just go check it out for fun, and there ended up a whole incredible museum underground about the west, Lewis and Clark, the Indians, the settlers, the land.... It was set up in a expanding circular time line so you could follow the changes to all the people throughout the century. We gave our youngest resident photographer the camera.

You could also take a tram ride up the arch, and look out little windows on the top. But this arch is even higher than the Washington Monument, so mommy convinced us that buying souveniers at the store would be even better.
Pretty cool!!! We spent the rest of the day enjoying the AC in our car and making it all the way to Kansas City, where we met up with a hotel, more swimming (the pool is so small mom!) and a flat tire. Woohaw!

Chic-fil-A trail

Have any of you guys ever eaten at Chic-fil-A? We had one in the mall where I grew up, and it was my absolute favorite place to eat. Ever since I moved to Oregon and Washington, I've had no Chic-fil-A. I almost forgot about it.

Then remember when we went to Williamsburg? I saw a sign on the freeway for one and we chased it down. But is was Sunday, and they honor the Lord by closing all their restaurants on Sunday. So we came upon an empty lot and I almost cried with disappointment.




Now, there is the background. Imagine today we are driving through Virginia, on these historical roads that apparently Washington marched his armies on (improved since then, of course.) We stop for a budget conscious meal at a rest stop. It is hot. And humid. And we are terrified of mosquitos. We are trying to enjoy ourselves but the longer we sit, the more gnats come and bonk us in the head.





Lissie and Nikki actually fared the best of all of us. The gnats didn't seem to bother them.

Nor the heat.


So we decide to move on... no camping for us... and when mommy is throwing away her lovely salad, she notices something in the garbage.


Chic-fil-A!!!



So forget about Washington, who cares about Lewis and Clark. We are on a major Chic-fil-A trail and I won't stop until we find one. I knew the garbage was a huge clue, there had to be one close!!




Enough of the drama, we did find one at the very next stop and it was.... heaven! They have southern fried nuggets and everything comes with cole slaw and I even went all the way and ordered SWEET TEA.

Finally, my moments in Virginia are complete. We are released to go. We were so satisfied we drove all the way through West Virginia and made our own rest stop in a tractor lot somewhere in Illinois.

Haven't seen a Chic-fil-A since. Just KFC's. (It's not the same....)

Bye bye Gally

Our time out here has been sooooooo incredible, we had to have ceremonious goodbyes throughout the whole campus. First, Mommy says goodbye to Fowler Hall where she spent all her time in class.

Next, the Bison right outside the gym... where we swam a lot and the boys did kids camp. Everything on campus was in reference to the bison. Mommy even got Bison earrings. We loved having the huge pool and diving board as a part of our home!!

We couldn't forget the Big G! Josiah noticed this G all around campus, on the computer screens, on the signs, on the stationary. When he found this big one on the floor in the student center, he insisted we walk by it every chance we could. We had to make a special trip to say goodbye!

Bye bye, famous Gally statue!!

And away we go!!

birds, birds and flying home!

Check out our baby bird friend at Gallaudet!!

There was a little family and we went out to visit them often, and got to see the mother bird feeding her three babies. Shayna and JJ went out on her own and came back with these pics. my little photographer!!

Later our friend Wendy taught Shayna how to make origami birds.

(she learns quick!)

My kids and birds have a lot in common.
And now we are packing up to fly home!!!

Will we make it back in one piece? Can we have as much fun on the way back as we did on the way out? Will our good ol sport van make it? Will we become western frontiersmen?

These questions and more... we'll find out soon. We leave tomorrow morning (saturday).

Bye bye Gally! WE LOVE YOU!!

Washington Nationals!

We really miss our Mariners so we decided to check out the local team a few times. Josiah really wanted to see the Astro's since his Tball team was the Astros. So, a few weeks ago we went and had a blast! JJ, Jim (the lone guy from C's program) and I went again just the other night. RFK (above) is really old and not my favorite stadium but the games were fun! It was so low key compared to the Mariners game.

We got there early so that we could see batting practice and were amazed at how few people there were. We walked right up to the fence and easily got an autograph from Brad Ausmus of the Astros. Jo was in hog heaven! We had brought our Astros hats so we got some attention from the Astros players! The boys had balls that they got in NY and the security gaurd noticed that sk did not have a ball so he gave her one of the batting practice balls.

This was our view from the $5 seats in centerfield. The players were actually smaller without the aid of the camera. Fortunatley we took advantage of the free seat upgrade program (nobody checked our tickets so we just moved to better seats).

On the way to our new seats we ran into "Screech" the Nationals mascot. He didn't care for S's Astro hat much. He held it to his nose and shook his head!

This was the view from our new seats. Brad Zimmerman of the Nationals hit his 15th HR of the season and JJ ended up with the ball. The ball actually flew into the bullpen (where the pitchers warm up for those of you non-baseball people) and the security gaurd threw the ball up to JJ. As you can see, he was pretty happy about it.

A few minutes later this nice boy who was hanging out and talking to us decided that Jo needed a ball since JJ and SK got balls. What a deal! We really thanked the boy. He had already gotten a different homerun ball so everybody was happy.

JJ wanted to see if we could get Zimmerman to sign his ball so we gave ourselves another curtesy upgrade at the end of the 8th inning and moved down behind the dugout. We got to see Screech again.

All in all. A very nice night for the Kaler's.

The other night JJ, Jim and I went to see Ken Griffey Jr. and the Reds play the Nationals. Griffey went o-5! The Nats won and we had a good time with Jim. Once again we bought $5 dollar tickets and took advantage of the upgrade program. Jim and I both remarked that in our home parks these upgrade wouldn't be possible because the games at Safeco and Boston are almost always packed so there is no place to move!

USS Barry

No kids camp this week so we were out and about again. Today we went to see the USS Barry. The ship is at the Navy Yard on the Anacostia river just south of the Capital Mall area in DC.




Good picture S!


Where are the Kaler Kids? Can you see them? It's a big ship and those are some small little chilluns!










We enjoyed the self guided tour. It was amazing to see first hand how soldiers would spend months on board the ship. We loved it. We were surprised at how tight the sleeping quarters were. Can you say Claustraphobic?



This is the boardroom where the officers ate and made decisions. It was interesting to learn that the officers had their own cook and food and paid for it from their own pockets.







I was hoping we'd get to see the bridge and almost didn't because the door was stuck. We walked away but I was pretty sure we were supposed to be able to go through there (thanks to the friendly tour signs) so we went back. We gave it the old "Heave Ho". Now there's some good navy talk for you. It opened and the kids had fun pretending to run the ship! Shayna is pointing out the icebergs.
After a hard day of directing the ship the kids took some time to get some grub in the galley!

Some facts about the USS Barry for those of you who are interested in such things. The USS Barry is a Destroyer and was put into use in 1952. It was actually the third ship to be commissioned as the USS Barry. It can do about 30 knots and was one of the first ships to be equipped with air conditioning. It was considered the Cadilac of the Navy Fleet! It was a very valuable asset during the cold war and the Cuban Missle Crisis. It was decommissioned around 1980.