St. Louis Blues

The Top Five–Sports Memories

After thinking about my favorite baseball memories, I realized how many good sports memories I have, too, and Super Bowl weekend seems like the perfect time to share them, because they begin with…

  • The Super Bowl Shuffle–The Chicago Bears were the champions of Super Bowl XX in 1986, but what I really remember is the Shufflin’ Crew, The Fridge, Da Coach, and my dad buying me a championship t-shirt from a roadside stand on his way home from work. This is one of my earliest sports memories, and it has very little to do with the game itself…I don’t even like football! But this is the first city championship I remember, and the enthusiasm of the fans and the chemistry of the team lives in my memory.
  • The 1993-peat–This might be my number one sports memory ever. The Chicago Bulls had already won two NBA championships in my lifetime, and recently, too…in 1991 and 1992. But it’s all about the numbers, and the 3-peat was just meant to be, with the electrifying 3-point shot by John Paxson in the last second of game six concluding the fairy tale season.
  • Eight Gold Medals in Beijing–The first of my favorite sports memories as an adult was Michael Phelps’ improbable eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. I watched every race, hung on Rowdy Gaines’ every word, and when the eighth medal was on the line, I watched live, late at night, the only one awake in the house, and almost woke up the neighborhood with my screaming and jumping up and down as he won the race.
  • 11 in ’11–Following up on my love of the 1993-peat is the St. Louis Cardinals’ 11th World Series trophy in 2011…isn’t it fun when the numbers line up? This was the victory that almost wasn’t, or that shouldn’t have been, as the Cards didn’t even secure the wild card game spot in the playoffs until the final day of the season. But as the perfect team progressed through each series, I believed more and more that they could win the whole thing. In the end, game seven was a formality, because everything that needed to be said happened in Game Six, one of the best games in the history of any sport.
  • Play “Gloria”–Getting to see the St. Louis Blues win their first Stanley Cup was a rare treat. The city rallied around the team and their biggest fan, Laila Anderson, with a theme song of “Gloria.” This memory is extra special, because like the 3-peat, it happened within a few days of my birthday. We really went all-out for this win…the Fab Five and I even went downtown for the victory parade and rally, and a few months later, I got to kiss the Stanley Cup!

Do you have special sports memories?

2019-20 School Year–Week Ten

We’re definitely over a quarter of the way through the school year now…how is that even possible?!?

Turkey’s and Bunny’s study of the Augsburg Confession this week focused on the Sacraments…I was very impressed that it very clearly stated that absolution is the third Sacrament, something I’ve taught at home from the very beginning, but an idea with which some Lutherans are uncomfortable. They continued to work on proving trigonometric identities in pre-calculus. In physics, they finished the chapter on parabolic motion and range. They started a chapter on the senses in health. We had some very good conversations based on the cantos they read in “The Paradiso.”

Ladybug reviewed ratios in math. She practiced finding the mechanical advantage for the various simple machines she learned about in science last week. In writing she read “The Open Window” so she could analyze the plot line. She learned about Charles I and the English Civil Wars, Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum, and Charles II the 1660 Restoration in history.

Chickadee practiced regrouping tens in math. She finished the Old Testament portion of her read-alouds from The Beginner’s Bible. She also finished the first of three Explode the Code books for second grade. We read more stories from Tales from Beatrix Potter, some of which I had never heard of before! She finished her study of Venus in science by learning about its phases.

Since we worked so hard this week, I decided that today should be a field trip day, so we headed to Forest Park, where the fall color is reaching its peak:

The true destination for our field trip was the St. Louis Art Museum, where we toured the new “Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt” exhibit, which is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

One of the best parts of the special exhibits at the St. Louis Art Museum is the Explore Lab, which adds a hands-on component to the event:

Here’s a glimpse at some of the children’s artwork:

After we finished at the art museum (and walked around Forest Park a bit more), we stopped by the Missouri History Museum to see what is admittedly a very small, but very meaningful exhibit about the St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup Championship:

This was a very fun and relaxing way to end a busy week!

The Stanley Cup

I have to admit, I was surprised by my own reaction to seeing (and touching) the Stanley Cup. I was excited about it, and thought it would be fun, but as we got closer to the front of the line, my heart started racing and my knees started shaking! And even though I can be something of a germaphobe, I actually kissed the Stanley Cup!!! It was an incredible experience and something I’ll remember forever!

Chickadee Thursday

At some point soon, I intend to get back to my regular schedule, but for now, here’s a picture from last Saturday’s rally at the Gateway Arch celebrating the St. Louis Blues first-ever Stanley Cup championship!

Update: We went to the Butterfly House this morning, so here’s a picture that’s actually from today!

A St. Louis Celebration

I, the Queen of the Wild Hair, decided that even though Ryan is currently in London for work, the Fab Five and I should go downtown today, for the rally celebrating the St. Louis Blues first Stanley Cup championship. So we got on the train. And even though our stop is pretty early in the line, we had to stand. And as the train got closer to the city, more and more Blues fans got on, until it reached maximum capacity, something I had never previously experienced. But everyone was in a good mood, and it was a fun ride!

We headed for Kiener Plaza, and then the Arch grounds, when we arrived, so we could hang out with several hundred thousand of our closest friends. We didn’t plan on seeing the parade, and we couldn’t stay for the whole rally, but we wanted to be there, and see at least part of it. And we definitely weren’t disappointed!

Some of my favorite moments included stumbling across a musician playing “Gloria,” hearing the Charles Glenn Group perform many different numbers (including Don’t Stop Believin’, with a St. Louis twist that I’m sure would annoy Detroit Redwings fans), and hearing a barge tow on the Mississippi River get the “Let’s Go Blues” chant going (as did pretty much every car stuck in gridlock downtown). And I’m almost certain that at this point, the city of St. Louis is out of beer, because if the Blues players didn’t drink it all, their fans did, but it was an affable crowd, and no one was belligerent or rude…everyone was in a festive mood, and having a great time! I definitely hope we get to do this again sometime, but I doubt anything will come close to matching the energy of that first championship!

Just Desserts–A Tea Party Celebrating the Winter Olympics and the St. Louis Blues

I’ve been wanting to have a St. Louis Blues-themed tea party for a long time. I thought that would coincide nicely with the Winter Olympics, so I planned a Blue Note and winter tea party for last night. I originally had planned on it being bigger and fancier…one of the dinner “afternoon teas” we like so much. But there just wasn’t enough time, so I went with a desserts only tea party, and while it may not have been as grand as we’ve become accustomed to, it was still fun, and I even had the gold and silver table linens to complete the Olympic look!

Green tea seemed like an appropriate choice for the PyeongChang Olympics. Even though we’ve sampled many kinds of tea over the years, the children had never tried green tea before, and they really liked it!

I made three desserts in variations…sugar cookies, Rice Krispies treats, and Jell-O jigglers. I had fun using my snowflake and music note cookie cutters, and adding in blue wherever I could!

We’re sad that the Olympics are almost over, but I still have one special meal left to make, so stay tuned!