St Louis Botanical Gardens

Before we left St Louis we took a trip over to the Botanical Gardens.  The gardens are right next door to my nephew Kyle and his wife Rachel.  Rachel was making an awesome lunch for us before we headed home so we ventured into the botanical gardens before we ate.  The weather was amazing, hot bright sunshine..... like 92 degrees with 90% humidity.  I was loving it but the kids..... not so much.  

They wanted to see the fish with the big mouths and of course they were all the way on the other side of the gardens.  We got a stroller for Max and Mally had to ride on top of the basket.  Elly had to walk and she was not a happy girl, she was hot, she was tired, she didn't like looking at the flowers, her legs hurt, her feet hurt, she was hot....   Anything you could find for her to do that would distract her from her discomfort..... there was a path around the stream that we didn't know where it went, she got to go back there without anyone else.  See her back there?

She came back out and back to being hot and tired.  So we keep heading for the fish with the big mouths.  We made it.... they are huge and they really do have big mouths.

The fish were on a sunny bridge with no shade and Elly was melting.  I seen a zig zag bridge across the pond so I told her that her and I could walk it.  She loved it and walked back and forth about 4 times.  I thought it was a bit creepy walking out in the yucky big mouth fishy waters but anything to make her smile.

We rested in the shade for quite some time to give the kids a break from the sun.  Coming from Wisconsin weather into 90+ degrees isn't easy on them.  After we ventured off again Elly asked if she could take a picture with my camera, I really didn't want her to because I don't use a strap on my camera so therefore I don't even attach it so she would be holding it free hand in a place with lots of water and concrete.  She got a sad face so of course Grandma says.... you can take a picture with my phone.  Well that was the end of her complaining she skipped through the rest of the gardens filling my phone with hundreds of photos.  I thing it actually made her pay attention to what was there vs not seeing anything and concentrating on just the heat.  

Here was a water break for the kids.  Mallory and Maxwell gave the animals a bath and scrubbed them with leaves they found... such imaginations they have.

Next we went into this building.....  but that's another post.... stay tuned it's worth the wait.