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St. Louis Zoo and Goodwill Outlet

May 9, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

Saturday’s forecast was pouring rain, but

God answered our prayers and after a short rain delay

Mike spent the day at the Cardinals game with his friend Russ

and James and I spent the day with my friend,

Ranae and her youngest, Caleb.

While waiting out the rain, we went to

Ranae’s favorite store: the Goodwill Outlet Store..

where they bring out carts and carts of stuff and sell it by the pound.

I bought 2 tops, a jacket, a skirt, a pair of shoes and shorts for just over $4.

After Chinese for lunch, the rain cleared up and

we had a beautiful day at the St. Louis Zoo.

Ranae, James and Caleb

It took me 6 tries to get this picture of this Okapi with his tongue out.
It actually stretches out even farther than this photo shows.

Giraffes

Caleb

They had coolest penguin exhibit.

Cool.. as in a nice break from the heat and

cool because they weren’t hidden behind foggy glass.

Loved the bears and the beautiful day

God gave us at the Zoo and ball game.

Love,

Jenny

St Louis History Museum and Science Center

May 9, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

The St. Louis History Museum is about

exactly that.. St. Louis History.

I thought that was kinda narcissistic to

have a museum that was only about your city..

until I realized how much history they had to tell.

The city was founded in 1764; making it almost 250 yrs. old.

The 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair had a huge impact

on the city and honestly the world, too.

Over 60 nations held exhibits there.

World’s fair exhibit room.

The Fair was held to celebrate the centennial of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.

The History Museum, Art Museum and
many other buildings were built for the Fair.

Native American Indians and Peoples from other

newly aquired U.S. territories were invited to join in the displays.

The museum had expanded a great deal since we had last visited.

Loved this pink kitchen. It reminded me of our house in San Antonio.

What is it about cars that is so appealing?

These chairs from the Cardinals old stadium could be
the very seats that we sat in last time we attended a game.

They are now a museum piece. Does that make us old?

Congrats to the Cardinals for winning the World Series last year.

Things made in St. Louis.

I didn’t get a photo of one of my favorite exhibits,

a lunch counter displaying the “sit ins” of civil rights movement.

I enjoyed the voice recordings they had of some of the participants

who told of their experience and why they felt compelled
to join the quiet protest. So interesting.. they were allowed
to shop in the store just not eat there.

Seeing this replica in the museum brought on a little déjà vu.

We’d just seen the real one in D.C. a couple of weeks earlier.

The Science Center was one of the kids’

favorite places to go when we lived there.

We used to spend hours at a time there.

Playing with all the exhibits.. including this tornado exhibit.

🙂

They had a bunch of new exhibits..

I thought it was funny to see my ipod photo in this display case.

This time we saw the whole Science Center in less than an hour. 🙁

Makes you miss having little kids.

Jenny

St. Louis Art and History Museums

May 9, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

Mike and I have different ideas of how vacations should be spent.

I like to plan a head; know what we are going to do;

maps and schedules in hand.

Mike likes to “be lazy and do nothing.”

I don’t know what that means.

I think it means that he wants to sit around

playing on his ipod or lap top or watching the

news in the hotel room until he is bored,

then ask me what I want to do.

Several times it’s turned into hours of driving

looking for a place to eat.. that isn’t there anymore.

We obviously didn’t starve this trip.

James got the Smokehouse Burger at Smokey Bones.

So this trip we tried to carefully balance maps, schedules,

being lazy and knowing where we were going to eat.

I did my homework so I’d know what

I wanted to do.. and not be lost thinking he’d planned it all.

I did some Google research on St. Louis attractions.

After living there for 4 years, you’d think we’d know,

but the kids were really little then and we didn’t have Google

(How’d we live with out Google? I’ll never know.),

so we mostly did whatever was free and kid friendly..

the Zoo, the Science Center..

In my search, I found the Fitz Bottling company

Where you can eat lunch and watch them bottle root beer.

The food was great. Root beer had corn in it.

We called a head to find out if they were bottling that day.

They were.. we expected a tour.. but got a window view.

All in all an enjoyable experience.

The St. Louis Art and History Museum are free..

thanks to St. Louis city taxes.

This statue of St. Louis was given to the city by France.

We had no idea who St. Louis was, so James looked him up for us.

He was a very passionate French king in the 1200’s who helped the Crusaders.

Several cities around the world are named for him.

Judith and Holofernes by Giorgio Vasari

We wondered why there hasn’t been a movie

made about Judith.. a very thrilling story.

The Account Keeper by Nicolaes Maes

I am falling in love with Dutch artist this year.

Can’t go wrong with birds and my favorite color.

Beautiful.

Some modern art.. I actually really liked…

inspired by the opening of the Berlin wall.

I liked this painting of the Crucifixion because it’s so active.

by Tiepolo

And of course this one by Millet

The Knitting Lesson

The art museum was much bigger than I remembered.

I think we only saw 3 rooms the one time we went before.

They are in the process of making it twice as big.

The basement rooms were lots of fun.

Love,

Jenny

St. Louis Trip

May 9, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

We recently discovered that it is only a 6 hr. drive to St. Louis.

What a nice surprise and I so hope to see more of my friends there.

We stopped for lunch in Kentucky at Kentucky Fried Chicken. 🙂

And made it to the last house we ever rented in Lebanon by late afternoon.

Mike thought it looked smaller and bluer.. it looked just the same to me..

except it has a nice white vinyl fence now and the apple trees are huge.

The towns around had grown up tremendously.

Last time we got gas in this area we paid 78 cents a gallon.

1998 – no kidding.

This house in O’Fallon was the very first house we ever bought.

1100 sq. ft. for $50,000 now worth over $100,000.

I was actually happily surprised at how both houses were holding up.

With rain in the forecast, we planned as many

outdoor activities our first day there.

We went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens for the first time.

Well worth the trip. Would like to go back again.

I got a ton of awesome pictures…

If you don’t want to see them all, skip to my next post.

Amaryllis

My alums with some gorgeous tulips.

Iris

Tons of Azaleas .. we liked the evergreen ones the best.

Did you know pinecones grow all in a row like this?

James by the Japanese Garden

I want one of these.

Bridge over the lake.

It was sunny and cool.. beautiful.

Lots of little birds hopping around.

On to the Art Museum.

Love,

Jenny

Coleman Funnies

April 27, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

My kids say the funniest things and..
I am always wanting to write them somewhere…

I bad about losing the ones I scribble down.
If I post them on FB, they may never speak to me again..
They never read my blog so.. I am starting a new post label.

Sunday morning I woke Judi up an hour before time
to leave for church to give her time to shower if she needed to.

She is not at all a morning person and was not too happy with me.

She wants me to wait to wake her until 15 min. before time to go.
She’s told me this before.. but I just didn’t get it. I love mornings.

To get her point across this time she said emphatically,
“I value sleep more than I value beauty.”
I think I got it.

Today we were talking about possibly going to
Fiesta Texas this summer and Judi asked,

“Is ‘fiesta’ a Mexican or American word?”

I laughed.

In her defense, she said, “Well, I’ve been studying

Spanish for so long now that I don’t know which is which.”

Spanish is her favorite subject.

I am so thankful for the good medicine of

laughter my family shares with me each day.

I hope you’ll take time to treasure those moments with your family, too.

Love,

Jenny

Making Meal Planning and Preparing Easy

April 23, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 3 Comments

Cooking has never come naturally to me.

So I’ve been working on making

cooking and shopping as easy as possible.

I’ve been finding recipes on line and

printing them on 4×6 cards for a while now.

I like using this protective photo magnet sleeve to hang

them on my oven vent while cooking… easy and accessible.

I list the ingredients on the left with what to do with each one on the right.

Once abbreviated, most recipes will fit on the front of a 4×6 card.

Longer recipes are usually too complicated for me.

I write notes right on the card while using it; making it easy

to adjust the recipe to our taste and reprint it on a new card.

This one called for too much red pepper.

I found this mini planter at Michaels to hold my 4×6 recipe collection.

If at least three of my four kids like a recipe,

I give it a star for each and it goes into my box.

If fewer than three want me to ever make it again,

it goes into the trash.. unless I really like it.

A few months ago I made this menu planner out of a

14.5″ x 24″ frame that I found on sale for $10 at Michaels..

I used scrapbook paper in my favorite colors to define each section.

There’s space for six 4×6 recipe cards in the top half.

Keeping these visible helps keep me inspired.

I’d seen many ideas on how to hang recipe cards;

on a string with clothes pins, in pockets, on cork board…

I like magnets and decided to attach

washers to the glass to attract the magnets.

Learn from my mistake and don’t use hot glue ..

Many burnt fingers later and.. it peels right off the glass.

Double stick tape does the trick.

I decided week day magnets would be a set-up for failure,

and made vegetable themed bottle cap magnets instead.

The bottom half of the frame holds a list of

easy meals that I made years ago to help me stay

out of the rut of making the same thing every week

And this shopping list..

I had hoped framing these would inspire the kids to

mark their wish lists on it.. so far they haven’t.

Occasionally they’ll call out, “Mom we’re out of ____”

And I’ll tell them to add it to the “list”.

Dry erase marker wipes right off the glass.

On “Shopping Day”, I print out a new shopping list,

and one or two new recipes from my “Recipes to Try” computer file.

Then I mark my list as I go through my recipes,

check my menu planner/list, fridge, and cupbords.

It’s working pretty well. We’ve tried a bunch more new recipes

since making the menu board. Even Judi has gotten on line

and helped me find new recipes to try.

Love,

Jenny

D.C. Birthday Trip: The National Zoo and Old Town

April 10, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

After breakfast at Chick-fil-a in Crystal City,

we road the metro to the National Zoo station.

We were so glad that these escalators were working..

after riding this one up 3 stories..there was another one story

escalator to ride before we reached street level.

Hilton on the hill.

Mega crossing at the zoo entrance.

We arrived early and went to see the pandas first thing.

This one was still sleeping and rolled over

and covered it’s ears when the loud kids showed up.

This one was out for it’s daily jog..

Down the hill and

back up and around again and again.. it’s behind

waggled back and forth like a duck. So cute.

We were also just in time to see the Gorillas

come out for their morning hide and seek game.

The zoo keepers hide their food and

they rush out to find it before the others do.

This one chased down a younger faster one that found the one he wanted.

The big one above found three balls full and ate every last drop..

ignoring the little one above that was asking, “What about me?”

Majestic

The sun felt good.

After lunch in China Town we went to

Old Town Alexandria.

Saw the Potomac River and

Christ Church, where George Washington

and Robert E. Lee worshipped.

And ate BBQ at King Street Blues

A nice ending to our D.C. trip.

Love,

Jenny

D.C. Birthday Trip: American Art and Portrait Gallery

April 10, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

I spent my afternoon at the American Art and Portrait Gallery.

I enjoyed it far more than I expected. I thought I might see the whole thing

in a little over an hour.. but spent hours and hours there and arrived

just in time to meet Mike at Fuddruckers for dinner down the street.

I actually came up out of the wrong end of the metro.

And was surprise to find myself here.

Happy to see our meeting place.

All the China Town signs are in English and Chinese.

It wasn’t far to the gallery.

The building started out as the U.S. Patent Office in 1836.

They’ve done a beautiful job renovating it.

It has this beautiful enclosed courtyard where you can eat

lunch, hang out and listen to a live band playing.

Can you see the wave in the glass ceiling?

This Cadillac weather vain was my favorite in the Folk Art exhibit.

I expected the museum to showcase American artist and their art..

which it did.. but with an emphasis on famous Americans.

A portrait of Pocahontas.

Benjamin Franklin

Loved this little painting

Thomas Edison

See the writing to the left of the painting?

Each painting of a famous American had a short biography next to it.

Ronald Reagon

Will Rogers

Love the bears.

Angel 1887 by Abbott Handerson Thayer from Boston.

Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler

by John Singer Sargent

Cafe’ at Biskra, Algeria

by Frederick Arthur Bridgman

born in Tuskegee, AL in 1847

I loved this painting.. the little boy is reading the

Bible to his mother, who has her hands folded in prayer.

Sunday Morning 1877

by Thomas Waterman Wood from VT.

I like his other paintings too.. Google him.

Loved the movement in this sculpture.

George W. Bush

Laura Bush – I thought if someone were to paint

a portrait of me.. I’d like to look like this.

Loved this photo of Orson Welles

by Harry Warnecke – The first photographer to use

color photographs.. He worked hard to convince

the New York Daily News that it was worth the

expense to publish a color photo once a week

in their Sunday News supplement.

Lucile Ball

photo also by Harry Warnecke

Katharine Hepburn

Love this pose, too.

Then on the 4th floor there was even more art to see..

in the Lunder Conservation Center.

These three floors make up the fourth floor.. instead of rooms

of art they contain shelves and cases and drawers of art..

with just enough room to walk between and view the collection.

It’s like the attic of the museum. So wish I could see the NGA’s attic..

Then on one end there is Conservation Center..

Where you can walk down and watch their conservationist at work.

They have a room for everything from the frames (above)

to paintings and sculptures. Each room has a touch screen video

player in front that explains how they do the restorations in that room

and shows examples of wonderful before and afters.

What a fun job.

Love,

Jenny

D.C. Birthday Trip: Botanical Gardens & American Indian Museum

April 9, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

Monday I had all to myself to go anywhere

the metro and my feet would take me.

After visiting the NGA a second time I went to the Botanical Gardens.

I started at the side gate. Enjoyed the azaleas.

Love the color contrast.

View from the front.

Tulips for Mom.

Inside there was a orchard exhibit.

This one’s named for Princess Diana

Love the purple.

And wow!

Next I went to the National American Indian Museum.

The building was beautiful.

They do the coolest things with beads.

It took a family 9000 hrs.to cover this VW Bug with beads.

The horse exhibit upstairs was my favorite.

A chief.

Horse dancing sticks.

A horse mask..

And on another floor this amazing sculpture.

It was made to celebrate the friendship between

the Oneida people and George Washington (the United States).

Jenny

D.C. Birthday Trip: Natural History Museum and Library of Congress

April 8, 2012 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

On Monday, my good friend, Lee Ann and her family met me at the

Natural Museum of History. 🙂 While Chuck took their precious girl to see

the butterflies, Lee Ann and I went up to see the precious stones.

I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Their collection was

impressive and I wished that Josh could have been there.

You could probably spend half a day just looking at their rocks.

The Hope Diamond was the star of the show.

It’s blue color surprised me.

A sapphire and diamond necklace by Harry Winston – wow!

A diamond tiara and necklace

that Napoleon had made for Marie Louise.

In this room, the stones were divided up by mineral; some left embedded

in the rock they were found in and some made into jewelry..

They showed how different impurities give the stones their color.

Did you know that rubies and sapphires are made up of the

same mineral they just have different impurities in them?

And if they didn’t have any impurities they’d be clear?

All these museums have web sites where

you can see much of their collections.

http://geogallery.si.edu/

After lunch, we walked back up Capital Hill to the Library of Congress.

I thought I’d get to roam among the books.. but discovered

that only professional researchers are allowed in that part

of the library.. The part we did see was so beautiful that it was

well worth the trip. The hall is a work of art itself.

They have Thomas Jefferson’s Library on display.

Thomas Jefferson sold his collection of over 6,000 books

to congress after the British burned their first collection.

Most of his collection also burned in a second fire..

but his detailed log of books didn’t. So the library is

working on collecting copies of his original books.