St. Charles MO

The Space Between

Time for another installment in my “Space Between” series. This time, I’m looking at a cool alleyway on Main Street in historic St. Charles, MO. I love the bricks and timbers, and the view through towards the Missouri River!

Chickadee Thursday

As always, Chickadee had fun meeting the characters at Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, MO:

Her absolute favorite is Scrooge…she always does her best to look dour with him!

The 50th Anniversary of Christmas Traditions

What can I say about the 50th anniversary of our favorite Christmas tradition?

We have been looking forward to this day since last year’s event. We knew it would be special to be part of so significant a milestone, and we weren’t disappointed. We were there in time for the parade:

We always enjoy hearing the Lewis & Clark Fife & Drum Corps play:

And then the hunt for the legends of Christmas. Let’s face it, Jack Frost is always our number one priority…(we even brought along our binder of character cards from past years, and had him and some of our other favorite characters sign it).

And the Master of Revels is a close second (he was actually the first character we saw, and the first to sign our binder!).

We found a good number of the other characters…by my count, we saw 25 out of the 33 characters/groups:

I especially enjoyed meeting the Christkind while wearing a dirndl!

The Evergreens are a fun group, and it was especially great to hear them sing “White Christmas” since they look like stepped right out of Wallace and Davis’ act!

There was a special display (hosted by none other than Father Time!) in the Tourism Center looking back at the history of the event, and collecting memories for a time capsule to be opened in another 50 years.

It was a beautiful day to be in St. Charles…I will never tire of the historic charm of the city!

Our Christmas tradition:

I am so glad we starting attending this event around 20 years ago, and it’s pretty cool knowing we’ve been part of it for almost half of its run…here’s to making more memories for the future!

Chickadee Thursday

Chickadee had a great time at Legends and Lanterns, and got to see some of her favorite villains:

Lizzie Borden gave her some tips on using an axe…I’m not so sure how thrilled I am about that!

We’re already looking forward to going back for Christmas Traditions!

Legends and Lanterns 2024

It’s that time of year again, when we make lots of trips to St. Charles, MO!

This past weekend, we were on historic Main Street for Legends and Lanterns. It’s always nice to see the characters…like greeting old friends (or enemies, depending on your point of view!).

Since we’ve been reading The Wizard of Oz, we were especially excited to see the Wicked Witch of the East, and we were especially thrilled when she showed off her shoes…silver, like in the book!

And it’s always a treat to see Rizzo, the Big Bad Wolf, lurking just outside of Grandma’s Cookies:

There are frightful decorations everywhere you look.

And on the way home, we stopped at Sonic for a Witch’s Brew caramel apple boba slush float, which was truly tasty!

Next up in just a few(ish) weeks…Christmas Traditions!

Oktoberfest 2024

It’s time for a look back at all of the Oktoberfest fun we’ve enjoyed over the last month or so!

We started close to home toward the end of September, with Belleville Oktoberfest, which begins even before the big celebration in Munich. It’s not my favorite Oktoberfest, but it’s easy to attend, and I love any reason to wear a dirndl!

Next up was my favorite area Oktoberfest, in St. Charles, MO. This year’s event was interesting because it was super muddy, but still a lot of fun, with music, dancing, food, and shopping.

We went back to Zootoberfest at the St. Louis Zoo…they still have the best pretzels!

New to us this year was Soulard’s Oktoberfest in St. Louis. There was more good music with the added bonus of a stroll through the Soulard Market.

And finally, our family Oktoberfest, once all of the other area celebrations had wrapped up. We started with an Oktoberfest Eve meal of brats and sauerkraut, plus German tater tots inspired by the ones we tried in Soulard, and apple strudel made by Ladybug for dessert.

Of course I had to put together one more look featuring Rare Dirndl, and it was also a bit of a Disney Bound, as a nod to the Disney Princess with my favorite fashion sense, Rapunzel!

We made pretzels, and instead of fondue, I made Obatzda, a German cheese spread that’s great on the pretzels.

For dinner we had all of my German favorites…Schweineschnitzel, spaetzle, and rotkohl….all homemade, too!

Every good holiday deserves a special drink…I made an apple pie mocktail with apple cider, caramel syrup, cinnamon, and ginger beer. It tasted like fall in a glass, and I even learned how to make an apple fan for a garnish!

And for dessert, one of our family’s all-time favorites–Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte!

I’m kind of sad that Oktoberfest season is over already…it’s become something I really look forward to every year!

Oktoberfest 2024 in St. Charles

Yesterday we went to Oktoberfest in St. Charles, MO, for the second time. It has quickly become our favorite local Oktoberfest, so it’s kind of hard to believe 2023 was our first visit!

I go to Oktoberfest for three things…German music:

German dancing:

And German food…in this case pretzels!

I also love to just take the event in…and do a little window shopping. It’s a miracle I left without adding another dirndl to my closet!

Speaking of dirndls, this was the first Oktoberfest Ladybug got to wear her dirndl to…it was fun dressing up with somebody!

It was super muddy from the hurricane Helene remnants that hit our area all day yesterday, but an otherwise beautiful day…mostly cloudy, breezy, and not at all hot!

I’m really glad we found this event, because I think it’s pretty much as close as you can get to Munich without leaving the midwest!

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!