Laumeier Sculpture Park

2024-25 School Year–Week Nine

This was a short week for us. We had regular school days on Monday and Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, we went to Laumeier Sculpture Park to admire the art, enjoy the beautiful fall weather, and give Ladybug a chance to use her camera…we had a great time!

We took Thursday and Friday off for a bit of a fall break, and to get ready for our annual Markel Family Oktoberfest. We also too a break from our Wizard of Oz cookbook so Ladybug could make a pair of desserts from The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Online Cookbook…coffee biscuits and apple strudel.

We’ll be back to our regular schedule next week!

2021-22 School Year–Week Twenty-Five

After a much needed spring break, we got back to work last week…but first, last Monday, a field trip to Laumeier Sculpture Park!

Now on to the school work. Ladybug learned how to use AAS and ASA to prove triangles congruent in geometry. She learned how the ELCA is different, even though they are also Lutherans, in her study of denominations. In biology she started studying the structure of plants. We began Act III of Henry V. In history, she read about the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.

Chickadee started adding decimals in math. We read the story of Queen Esther in religion. She reviewed sentence diagramming in grammar. We read some of the stories in The Blue Fairy Book that weren’t covered in the literature guide. In science, she started learning about cephalopods, beginning with cuttlefish and giant squid.

We’ll have another short break around Easter, but the end of the school year is already rapidly approaching!

Double Digits at Last!

Today is Chickadee’s 10th birthday! For the first time in over 19 years, we have no children in single digits, age-wise, which is weird, but Chickadee is very excited to hit double digits!

Chickadee decided on a two-day birthday celebration like Turkey had, so we started yesterday morning with homemade cinnamon rolls:

And then we went to Laumeier Sculpture Park to enjoy the beautiful weather:

We were up bright (or not) and early to open presents before her siblings went to school:

Since the weather today was pretty gross, we spent the day watching movies, including Frozen and Encanto. And I made potato-parsnip soup for dinner…I was kind of surprised that she requested this particular meal, but I appreciate that she always keeps me guessing!

I visited her Animal Crossing: New Horizons island…she has a whole birthday room in her house!

For dessert, she picked another new recipe from the My Little Pony Baking Book…piñata cupcakes, which I filled with m&ms and sprinkles. It was a really fun recipe (except for when the butter I was melting exploded and made a huge mess, which I didn’t even know was possible!), and they looked really cool!

It’s kind of unbelievable to me that Chickadee is so big…I’m feeling a little old this week!

A Morning at the Sculpture Park

Chickadee wanted to go to the St. Louis Zoo on her birthday (which is tomorrow), but it’s supposed to rain, so we decided to go today. So how, you may ask, did we end up at Laumeier Sculpture Park instead?

The zoo is still requiring (free) reservations for admittance, and much to my surprise, when I went to request our tickets last night, they were already sold out. So Chickadee decided we should go to the Missouri Botanical Garden instead. But when I went to reserve those tickets through the member portal, I discovered that they’re closed on Mondays. So Ladybug suggested Laumeier Sculpture Park, a place we haven’t visited since pre-COVID, and it was a great idea!

We saw a lot of familiar art:

And we took a path we’d never been down before, and saw some really cool things (and did a lot of climbing…those steps were just as steep as they look!):

It was a beautiful day to be out and about!

Up next…our second March birthday!

Neon Signs at Laumeier

Did you know that Laumeier Sculpture Park doesn’t showcase only sculptures? I actually didn’t realize that before our recent visit to see a non-sculpture exhibition on display in the Aronson Fine Arts Center: “David Hutson, Memory & Desire: A Personal Exploration of Neon Art, Past and Present.” As the name suggests, this exhibition focuses on the work of David Hutson, and includes restorations of local neon signs, as well as original neon work by Mr. Hutson. While the original work is fantastic, my interest was in the vintage neon signs, and I was definitely not disappointed!

This exhibit will be on display at Laumeier through January 13, and I highly recommend it…it’s a fantastic glimpse into the past!