Shaw's Garden, Halloween prep, Obama rally
The Botanical Gardens in Saint Louis are amazing -- full of beauty and openness and whimsy, believe it or not. The Gardens have connected with some amazing artists over the past 10 years or so, and the result is nothing short of spectacular. This particular exhibit, Niki, resulted in very large mosaic-type sculptures that people were encouraged to climb and explore. The colors and textures were absolutely stunning, and our pictures do them no justice. Alas.
The Whomptons conquer a lion :)
Raina spent a lot of time climbing on the lion. The big circles you see in the mane are actually open holes, and she wasn't very stable climbing around. Eventually she reached the top, and then she just didn't want to come down again. (I didn't blame her.) We had her slide down the lion's nose (I think) to escape.
Raina's first attempt at climbing the lion -- she reached the first open hole and was thrilled to be there!
Raina spent most of her time checking out the sculptures, but the rose garden resulted in lots of sniffing -- maybe because all the flowers were right at her height?
Just a nice shot of the girls.
The day was gorgeous, so we decided to carve our pumpkin. Raina determined all physical attributes; as she said "I'm supervising!" Our carving was interrupted by a politician campaigning -- we had one political sign in our yard and the actual opponent came by to talk with us. We were unconvinced by his rhetoric, but he complimented the very large knife I was using. (I love that knife!)
Our happy pumpkin :) Unfortunately, we made the same mistake as last year: we carved the pumpkin way too early in the season. But he looks good here, and that's what counts!
Oh, 2008, the year of politics. Raina watched the morning news with her parents everyday, so she heard plenty about the presidential race. We all had our favorites .... Raina's was (and still is) Sarah Palin. When asked why, she responded, "she's pretty and I understand what she says!" Yep, that summed up the attraction all right. The other Whompton women were Obama fans, and Eric became one too after the Palin pick, so we all decided to go to the Obama rally downtown. The expected turn-out was 30-50,000 or so, but Saint Louis turned out in droves. Over 100,000 of us actually showed up. (We relocated to get away from people too many times to count.) But this is Raina's first official political rally, and she still talks about seeing Obama there.
Okay, admittedly, with so many people there, it was difficult to see anyone. She claims she saw Obama on the big screen, and I have to imagine that being on Eric's shoulders helped. She had a lot of fun on his shoulders, and then she needed to use the restroom. That called the end of our trip!
The Whomptons conquer a lion :)
Raina spent a lot of time climbing on the lion. The big circles you see in the mane are actually open holes, and she wasn't very stable climbing around. Eventually she reached the top, and then she just didn't want to come down again. (I didn't blame her.) We had her slide down the lion's nose (I think) to escape.
Raina's first attempt at climbing the lion -- she reached the first open hole and was thrilled to be there!
Raina spent most of her time checking out the sculptures, but the rose garden resulted in lots of sniffing -- maybe because all the flowers were right at her height?
Just a nice shot of the girls.
The day was gorgeous, so we decided to carve our pumpkin. Raina determined all physical attributes; as she said "I'm supervising!" Our carving was interrupted by a politician campaigning -- we had one political sign in our yard and the actual opponent came by to talk with us. We were unconvinced by his rhetoric, but he complimented the very large knife I was using. (I love that knife!)Our happy pumpkin :) Unfortunately, we made the same mistake as last year: we carved the pumpkin way too early in the season. But he looks good here, and that's what counts!
Oh, 2008, the year of politics. Raina watched the morning news with her parents everyday, so she heard plenty about the presidential race. We all had our favorites .... Raina's was (and still is) Sarah Palin. When asked why, she responded, "she's pretty and I understand what she says!" Yep, that summed up the attraction all right. The other Whompton women were Obama fans, and Eric became one too after the Palin pick, so we all decided to go to the Obama rally downtown. The expected turn-out was 30-50,000 or so, but Saint Louis turned out in droves. Over 100,000 of us actually showed up. (We relocated to get away from people too many times to count.) But this is Raina's first official political rally, and she still talks about seeing Obama there.
Okay, admittedly, with so many people there, it was difficult to see anyone. She claims she saw Obama on the big screen, and I have to imagine that being on Eric's shoulders helped. She had a lot of fun on his shoulders, and then she needed to use the restroom. That called the end of our trip! 
Comments