Gosh. The year 2014 sure was a jam packed year of super fun events and activities. Seriously, my parents and I did so many different cool things just in the span of one year. And, I know that there were probably even things that we did that went undocumented. Trying now to think about what those might have been. Anyway, what you'll see here are the major highlights from 2014, sans a couple of events that I'll blog about in separate posts.
January 2013: Going to the Boathouse restaurant in Forest Park has always been one of my favorite things to do. You can expect to wait awhile for a table in the summer but there's hardly a full table near you in the winter. As you can see from the photo, it was pretty cold this January day but the view was still as beautiful as far as the eye can see. Maybe more so than on a summer day, in my opinion.
May 2014: Circus Flora, a traditional one-ring circus based in St. Louis, does a show each summer for a few weeks in the late May/early June timeframe. Until this year, we've gone every summer as long as I can remember. So sad that we missed it this year. They also teach circus arts classes at the City Museum. That summer, I took a session or two of their courses with my friend from SMOS, Caeli. As you can see in the photos below, I learned how to perform some basic circus skills - acrobatics/gymnastics/tumbling and the ol' classic balancing the peacock feather.
I have a funny side story relating to one of our summer visits to Circus Flora. In 2011, my family went for our yearly outing. My parents bought me a really tasty blue raspberry slushy (see photo below). My Mom snapped a photo of me looking pretty happy while I sipped on that slushy. Later that same year, one of Outback Steakhouse's restaurants in another state got into trouble for serving children an alcoholic slushy drink (by mistake mind you). When the story broke, this magazine decided to use my photo! lol!
My Mom's photo
My Mom's borrowed photo for the article.
June 2014: I've had an obsession with the Wizard of Oz as long as I can remember. I've watched the film and listened to the soundtrack a million times. I'm still into it and have recently been learning a lot about Judy Garland. Even went to see End of the Rainbow at the Grandel Theatre just a few weeks ago. Back in 2014 I was worried that it might be awhile before Wicked would return to St. Louis so my parents drove me to Tulsa, Oklahoma to see a performance of it there. It was so much fun. Fortunately, a couple of years later, I was able to see it again in St. Louis. In the photo, we're just waiting for the performance to begin.
July 2014: We used to go to Cahokia Mounds a few times a year although we haven't been in recently. During one of our last visits we were looking at one of the maps in the Visitor Center and discovered the location of a place called Villa Kathrine. lol. Like me, Willa Katherine. I don't remember now if this place had a specific significance in relation to Cahokia Mounds but in doing a quick Google search now I was able to find out a little information about a house named Villa Kathrine in Quincy, Illinois. It's a historic Moroccan-style home that is, allegedly, haunted. Scary.
July 2014: Isn't it the little things? Like this cardboard box, right? Before I could even read, my Babcia gave us a few boxes of children's books that belonged to my Dad and his brothers and sisters. My parents regularly read many of these books to me including my Dad's favorite books, Andrew Henry's Meadow and Christina Katerina and the Box. Like Christina Katerina, I found cardboard boxes to be loads of fun and I was constantly trying to wear them or live in them.
August 2014: During the summer of 2014 people all across the US were going crazy for the ALS bucket challenge. The challenge was simple enough: (1) fill a bucket full of water or ice (2) find someone to pour it over your head (3) have someone else film the whole thing (4) post it to social media to bring awareness about ALS (5) challenge someone to take the ALS bucket challenge. No one actually challenged me but I really wanted to do it so I talked my Dad into helping me. I'm preparing for the bucket of ice to be poured on my head as you can see in the photo. SO COLD!
August 2014: Later that month, still in August, I started 4th grade at SMOS! This is the first year that my Mom started taking the annual in-front-of-the-wall-first-day-of-school-photo series. Here's one of the photos from that morning.
September 2014: September was a busy, busy month! Read below the photos for all the details!
First, over Labor Day weekend, we went to the Japanese Festival. Here I am enjoying some of the Japanese-style push-up popsicles that they sell each year for a buck. Delicious!
My Mom and I also went to the Deutsch Country Days in Marthasville, MO where they have a working 18th Century German farm. In the photo I was drinking home brewed root beer (non-alcoholic, of course)! Last I heard, they were no longer doing the demonstration weekend which is too bad because it was great folksy fun.
Our SMOS Girl Scout Troop went on a field trip to the KMOX radio studio in downtown St. Louis. We had fun learning about how radio shows are created and produced and we even got to record ourselves saying our names and some info about our favorite things. The mother of one of my friends and fellow Girl Scout, Caeli, is the co-host of a morning radio show so you know that we got the VIP treatment!
Finally, we went to one of our favorite craft fairs, Strange Folk Craft Festival. It's huge and held over 2 or 3 days. It's moved around quite a bit over the years but, in 2014, it was still in its original location in O'Fallon Park in O'Fallon, Illinois.
October 2014: October was also another busy month for me! When I was younger, I used to enjoy being really super busy, always on the go. I still like a good, fun outing but I also equally like staying at home and watching Netflix or YouTube. You know, teen things.
We went to brunch with Grandma Debbie at Cafe Madeleine. The food at Cafe Madeleine is delicious but I also love going to Cafe Madeleine because it is located in the Piper Palm House in Tower Grove Park. That's where my parents got married and it's so pretty.
Before I started walking home from school (well, getting a ride home), my Mom used to pick me up from Mrs Clark's room. At least once a week we'd stop at Ice's Plain and Fancy, an ice cream shop on the way home. My Mom's favorite flavor is S'Mores, which is shown in the photo. It actually comes smoking. And, the smoke smells like a campfire. It's crazy! I like mostly all of the flavors so long as they don't have fruit on or in them!
Random photo of Mom and me from dinner at McGurk's in Soulard.
Time for the annual Fashion Camp Fashion Show again. Ava did the camp with me again and our SMOS friend, Maggie, signed up as well.
Funny faces at Urban Chestnut's Oktoberfest just mere minutes before I had some major meltdown over something that has long since been forgotten. The photos still exist, unfortunately.
November 2014: November marks the beginning of the holiday season which means that you are much more than likely to run into a grade school choir performance somewhere while you're out running errands. Besides performing at the SMOS holy day and saint feast masses and events, our school choir has annual holiday performances at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the National Shrine of the Lady of the Snows, and the St Louis Zoo. This year, we also had a special performance at a Borders Bookstore where we both sang and played our recorders. I was trying to post a short video of us playing our recorders but Blogger is having problems with the format of the file. I'm gonna keep working on that.....
We also went to the St Louis Arch and I had fun going to the top. And then striking a pose.
December 2014: My birthday month! Apparently, my Mom took no birthday photos this year except these from the "I am 10" photos series. This is the one that I liked the best.
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