Month: February 2015

Busch Stadium Tour II

So, um, seven months ago (!!!), Ryan and I took the children on a Busch Stadium tour. I briefly mentioned it here, but never got around to sharing pictures. Since I posted about the tour the first time we went, shared a fantastic dugout picture from last summer, and because so much time has passed, I won’t recap everything…I’ll just hit the highlights. I will say, we had the two best possible tour guides  I could have imagined (Fred and Jay)…they not only both had an incredible amount of baseball knowledge, but they had awesome personal stories as well!

I did get a better peak at the Cardinals Club this time, the exclusive restaurant at which green seat ticket holders get to eat:

You tend to notice new or different things (or just see them from a different perspective), each time you take the tour (or visit the ballpark at all, really):

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I never tire of the view from the field!

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It may be a bit colder now than the day we visited Busch Stadium, but tours are offered all year long, and it might be just the right thing to help you get ready for Spring Training, and feel a little Cardinals spirit, even in the bleak midwinter that is February!

Quote

Quote of the Day

With one move, he could deny the city of Milwaukee, home of Pabst and Schlitz, a professional baseball team, wrest the Cardinals’ broadcasting rights away from the Griesedieck Brothers, and turn Sportsman’s Park, where the Cardinals played, into a giant outdoor tavern–thirty thousand Budweiser drinkers held captive for two or three hours at a time in the sweltering St. Louis heat. William Knoedelseder on “Gussie” Busch in Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America’s Kings of Beer

Tasty Tuesday–Beast Craft BBQ

I’ll be totally honest…a few months ago, when we saw the new sign for Beast Craft BBQ, I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t sure what “craft BBQ” was, but I knew it sounded hipster-y and pretentious, which is totally not us, so I figured we’d never darken their doorstep.

Shortly after Beast opened, however, we were checking out their menu online, and two things caught my attention. First of all, burnt ends. A popular menu item just across Missouri in Kansas City, burnt ends are surprisingly hard to find around here, which is very disappointing, because once you’ve had them, you know just how delicious they are! That alone probably would have convinced me that we needed to at least try the place, but then there was the icing on the cake…brussels sprouts fried with pork belly. Now, I (strangely) love brussels sprouts anyway, but his combination really intrigued me.

So, we broke down and tried it. I got the burnt ends and tortillas with a double side of brussels sprouts. And it was all amazing! When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong…nothing hipster-y or pretentious about the food at all! I seriously have no need to ever try anything else from Beast, although I’m sure Ryan will eventually. And even though we can’t afford to eat there often, I check the menu every day anyway (it changes daily), just to see if there are burnt ends available!

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Aside from the delicious food, I’m also impressed with Beast’s commitment to fresh, local food. They don’t use freezers or microwaves, so they have what’s available from their suppliers until it runs out. They even offer local beverages, from coffee and tea (Kaldi’s) to beer and soft drinks (Excel Bottling), and suggest pairings to go with their menu items.

If you’re looking to try a delicious new BBQ place, I highly recommend giving Beast a try…just make sure you check the menu and go early in the day if there’s a particular menu item you want…there’s nothing worse than planning on getting a plate of burnt ends, only to find that they’re sold out!

The Riggio Building

The Riggio Building, located on the corner of Shaw and Marconi on The Hill, is another cool old building with terra-cotta details. It was built in 1925 for the Riggio brothers realty business as well as “The Bank.” Joseph and Ignazio Riggio, like most residents of The Hill, were Italian immigrants, although unlike their neighbors who had primarily come from northern Italy, the Riggio brothers were Sicilians. Despite normal contentious relations between the two Italian ethnic groups, the Riggios were a respected and important part of the community.

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The Riggio Building has also housed a jewelry store, clothing company, and the well-known J. Viviano and Sons Italian Grocery (which is now located next door),as well as upstairs apartments. Today the first floor is home to both the roasting and retail operations for Shaw’s Coffee.

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This building has always been a central location on The Hill, from the time its 500 safe deposit boxes were effectively the main bank for the area’s residents (despite a lack of an official charter), to today, where it is a popular gathering spot for a cup of coffee and conversation. Hopefully it will continue to be an integral part of life on The Hill for years to come!

2014-15 School Year–Week Nineteen

Last week was another fun and crazy week of school!

There was nothing much new in math this week for any of the children, so math lessons were all finished fairly quickly each day. I kind of enjoy a review week every now and again…it’s a lot less pressure on everybody. Also, when we finish math promptly, the rest of the day seems to go more efficiently, as well, which is always nice!

We started our Black History Month study this week. We’re using Heart and Soul: The Story of American and African-Americans as our main text…we read the first two chapters and discussed them. We also learned about slavery and the Underground Railroad a little more in-depth. We continued our medieval history lessons with the Wars of the Roses, which I enjoyed immensely…I love any excuse to study British history!

I decided that this would be a good week to start our new literature study, which is Anne of Green Gables, a book I’m not certain I’ve ever read in its entirety. Turkey was very reluctant to begin this book, but by the end of the first chapter, he was making speculations about what was going to happen along with his sisters!

We finished our lesson about conifers this week in science. We were able to recall some of the trees we saw on our most recent trip to the Botanical Garden when we learned about cycads, which was nice. Since we only have a few chapters left in our text, I’m planning on going back to some of the early chapters once the trees and other plants in our area begin blooming, so we can observe firsthand some of the things we learned about.

I also finally came up with a plan for this year’s summer school last week. I was starting to get a little nervous, because I usually have a least a theme by now, and nothing was coming to me. Then I remembered that we still haven’t studied the history of our state, even though I’ve been meaning to do it for a few years. I think that will be the perfect study this summer, and I’m starting to get really excited about it. I’m already planning a day-long field trip to the state capital!

Hoping for another fun week this week, as we add in a few crafts for Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras, in addition to our regular lessons.

Back to Normal

In case you missed it, on New Year’s Day, I did this to my hair:

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Bright colors like that don’t last long, however, so not too much time passed before I went with an all-over violet:

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But, as is the case with all good things, that too came to an end, and more quickly than I expected, so now it’s back to normal, more or less:

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If you’re keeping track, that’s three major dye jobs, and a serious hair-bleaching in about a month’s time, which is not ideal. I loved the dip-dye pink and purple, although after discovering how hard the bleaching process was on my hair, I don’t know that I’ll ever try something so extreme again, and if I do, it will be over my natural (kind of) color, not over bleached hair! I loved the violet, too, but it was definitely not worth the effort once I found out how quickly it washed out. I’m glad I did it all once, though, and even gladder that I have photographic evidence of it!

Chickadee Thursday

Chickadee decided that she’d help Ladybug with her math today:

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And if you think this looks familiar, it’s because it is. I took a similar picture almost exactly a year ago (and oddly enough, Turkey is wearing the same shirt in both photos)!

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I guess it’s true that the more things change, the more they stay the same!