Cousins Day in St. Louis

One little highlight during our very long trip across America was spending a day in St. Louis. It was the first time I'd been to visit my sister Alyssa there, although she has been living there for several years (I'd give you the exact number of years, except that I'm not quite sure when they moved there from Seattle). It was very fun for us to see our little girls together, although I'm not sure if the little girls themselves really noticed or cared much about it. They are a bit young to get the difference of "cousin" versus "random kid you are going to play with today."

It was also a good opportunity to do a case study in the difficulties of getting a five-year-old and two one-year-olds to all pose together in a picture. Above are the best of the lot for you to enjoy - just think about how many horrid ones I had to sort through in order to find a few in which at least two children were looking vaguely in the direction of the camera simultaneously! Zarya was the worst of the lot - she ruined quite a few cute pictures of her cousins.

The location of the pictures is the botanical gardens in St. Louis. Get this - you can go to a beautiful, warm greenhouse (there are non-greenhouse parts, but we were interested in staying warm on a freezing cold March day, so stuck to the tropical areas) year-round for free. Yes, free. St. Louis is all about the free stuff - the zoo, the botanical gardens, everything in the city is totally free. Residents have to pay city tax, however, so it's not really free for them, but it's a great place to visit (kind of like Washingtonians who drive over the border to Oregon to do their shopping in a state where there is no sales tax, yet don't have to pay state tax since they don't live there).