Once Upon a Valentine

Once Upon a Valentine 2026

Yesterday we went to St. Charles, MO, for our favorite winter event for the loved and loveless, Once Upon a Valentine. I really love this micro-festival…it’s much quieter than the sister events Legends & Lanterns and Christmas Traditions, but it still manages to retain their fun and historic charm!

It’s so nice to have an excuse to visit Historic Main Street at an otherwise dreary time of year!

2024-25 School Year–Week Twenty

Fun things first…we attended Once Upon a Valentine in St. Charles, MO again this year, and the girls took pictures with their favorite literary character (again) at the event!

On to the school work. Ladybug and I were sick pretty much all week, so it’s kind of a muddle, but we did accomplish most of our planned learning. She only has one chapter left in A Tale of Two Cities (it’s really too bad she couldn’t wrap it up before the weekend!). She continued reading Wuthering Heights and Travel as a Political Act (as well as a 1,200 page book she picked up at the library!). She worked on paragraph hooks in writing. In religion, we read about Philip Melancthon, Martin Chemnitz, and Frederick the Wise.

Chickadee learned about different types of lines and the parts of a circle, as well as how to identify complementary and supplementary angles, in pre-algebra. In science she started reading about the five-kingdom classification system, beginning with Monera and Protista. She read about the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark in history. We are down to the last few chapters of The Trojan War. She worked on writing a historical essay about the space race for writing.

Hopefully we’re all feeling well next week…I don’t want anyone else to catch whatever we had!

Once Upon a Valentine

Over the weekend, we went to “Once Upon a Valentine,” the newest micro-festival in St. Charles, MO, for the second year. We had a great time collecting valentines and finding the new characters, including the Dating Game Show Host and the “Harlequin Hunk”:

Plus all of our favorites from last year who we were hoping to see again:

I really love this excuse to head west to beautiful and historic St. Charles and do something fun in this otherwise bland time of year!

2023-24 School Year–Week Twenty-One

First, a look at something fun we did over the weekend that wasn’t specifically school-related, but did involve history and literature…the first-ever Once Upon a Valentine event in St. Charles, MO! Ladybug and Chickadee were excited to run into a favorite character from Legends and Lanterns, the Queen of Hearts:

Ladybug rewrote logarithms to exponential and base form and found the characteristic and mantissa in pre-calculus. She learned about the period of motion for a pendulum in physics. In religion she read about John Chrysostom. She finished reading The Divine Comedy and started Macbeth. In US history, she read about the era of Reconstruction. She read about Edward I and the First Scottish War of Independence in world history. She finally finished the chapter on micronutrients in health.

Chickadee learned how to find the area of a circle in math. She finished the Old Testament in religion. In science she started learning about the five senses. She’s almost done with The Hobbit. In history, she learned about the War of the Roses and the Princes in the Tower. She learned about conditional sentences and the subjunctive in grammar.

We’re over halfway done with February now, which is fine by me!

Chickadee Thursday

Over the weekend, we went to the inaugural “Once Upon a Valentine” event on Historic Main Street in St. Charles, MO, and Chickadee had so much fun meeting the characters!

She protested with Anne of Cleves

And got some wooing tips from Femme Fatale and Casanova:

She had her mugshot taken with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Gangsters:

And tried her hand at archery with Cupid:

She also enjoyed meeting The Conversation Hearts, a singing group with fabulous costumes:

This was a fantastic event, and we all had a great time!

Once Upon a Valentine

This is a very exciting weekend, because it’s the inaugural weekend of the “Once Upon a Valentine” micro event on Historic Main Street in St. Charles, MO. I absolutely love these character events (Christmas Traditions is one of my most-anticipated activities of the year, and Legends and Lanterns has become a family favorite, too), so we were there when it kicked off yesterday at noon. If you’re interested, it’s running from 12-3 today, too!

Here’s a brief rundown of how the event is set up. Like Legends and Lanterns, the characters have specific locations, so you know exactly who you’re looking for and where. There were 10 different stops, and in keeping with the theme of “Stories for the Loved & Loveless,” they were split into pro-Valentine’s Day and anti-Valentine’s Day stations…can you guess who of the following belongs to each group?

We saw my favorite characters of the event first thing…the Six Wives of Henry VIII. The actresses all know their characters really well, and the costumes are outstanding. I even got to join in their protest! Sadly, we missed out on their piñata party…yes they have a heart piñata to demolish at 1 and 2!

There were two familiar faces from Legends and Lanterns…the Queen of Hearts, who also has an outstanding costume, not to mention a candy “kiss”ing booth:

And Miss Havisham, who is still lamenting her ruined wedding, but does offer you the opportunity to burn your frustrations with art therapy.

We also met Casanova and Femme Fatale, who have wooing tips to share, plus valentine making:

I was amused by the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Gangsters…nothing suspicious going on there. You can even get your mugshot taken!

I’m pretty sure you can’t have a Valentine’s Day event without those star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, but you might not expect them to have a Plinko-style game featuring rewritten Shakespearian love sonnets!

The French Tango Trio are a classic love triangle, with the whimsical addition of dueling with baguettes:

And Cupid, another Valentine’s Day staple, even shares his arrows so you can see how true your aim is!

There are two singing groups…The Lonely Hearts Club:

And The Conversation Hearts:

Historic Main Street is decorated nicely for the event…I especially like the decorated hearts that are themed to the characters…Romeo and Juliet’s is my favorite!

And the International Heart Photo Op is really pretty!

The character events always have something to collect…this time, the goal is to collect valentines with vintage photos of St. Charles on the front and Valentine’s Day history facts on the back (did you know that the future president Theodore Roosevelt’s wife and mother died hours apart on Valentine’s Day 1884?!?). The photos are really cool, and we learned a lot from reading the facts (and in keeping with tradition, managed to collect only 10 out of the 11 cards available!)!

I was really happy that we ran into Ryan Cooper, the genius behind all of these events. He is a true gift to the city of St. Charles and the greater St. Louis area!

I hope this is an event that sticks around…I really enjoyed having an excuse to visit St. Charles at this time of year, and as always, we had a really good time! And even I have some ideas for other characters they could add in the future, so there’s definitely room for the event to become even bigger!