Happy 40th Anniversary Mr. & Mrs. Vance

This year in October Patrick's parents, Mary and David, will celebrate their 40th anniversary! In celebration, Patrick's brothers organized a weekend get-a-way for their parents and the brothers and their families. They settled on St. Louis mostly because it's close and their oldest brother, Greg, and his family live there. They planned it so early because in October Patrick's dad will be harvesting his fields. Our plan was to leave for St. Louis Friday evening so we would be there for the whole weekend; however there has been so much rain here this year that David hasn't been able to get all of his crops planted - some of his fields have had ponds in them and then it's been too muddy to plant. He thought he would be able to finish planting Friday and Saturday since it had been sunny all week and things were dried out. (Am I fooling you into thinking I know a lot about farming?) So we revised the plan and all of the brothers headed to St. Louis Saturday morning (Mike, the brother in London wasn't able to make it) and the guests of honor (Mary and David) joined us there on Sunday.

Our first stop on Saturday was Grant's Farm. It's a beautiful, free, zoo-like park owned by Anheuser-Busch. We went there for the first time last summer when Patrick and I brought Henry to St. Louis for the weekend.

The first stop is a train station where you climb on a train and have a guided tour through the park. There are lots of free-roaming animals - deer, geese, caribou, buffalo. I think it's fun and Henry loved it. I think he was in a constant excited-face mode-he didn't stop shaking! Here's Patrick and William on the train:When the train ends it's journey, you arrive at a zoo-like park. There are camels, elephants, monkeys, some exotic birds, llamas, and a huge petting zoo. You can purchase bottles of milk to feed the goats for $1. As you walk into the petting zoo through a turn style the goats grab for the bottles and aggressively start sucking. Henry was terrified at first and he dropped the bottle and ran. Then his older cousin, Haydn, helped him and then he really liked feeding them. They were super aggressive goats though, nipping at clothes and legs.Henry with his cousins Haydn and Hannah in the petting zoo. It was a hot day and this misting area at Grant's Farm was a big attraction. Henry ran through it a few times.Meanwhile William stayed cool by lounging in his stroller (playing with his feet of course).
William's face in this picture cracks me up. Saturday evening we went to Greg and Cathy's house where we all stayed and had a cookout. The kids had so much fun on their big trampoline in the backyard and watching a movie in their theatre room in the basement. On Sunday morning after David and Mary arrived we went to the St. Louis Zoo. It's a really nice zoo and also free. Here are all of the cousins (minus Clayton, 15, he started a job as a golf caddy Sunday morning). Left to right: Caleb, Henry, Hannah, Haydn, William and Isaac.
Henry and Grandpa David, better known around our house as Grandpa Tractor.

The kids were so sweet at the zoo. Here they are walking all holding hands.

Here's Henry and his cousins riding the train at Grant's Farm.