Union Station

2025-26 School Year–Week Three

This has been a busy week! We had a short day of school on Labor Day, and in honor of our book club also celebrated Back to Hogwarts with Butterbeer:

In religion we talked about the two natures of Christ. Chickadee reviewed adding and subtracting polynomials and multiplying monomials in algebra. She finished the first chapter in science. We continued to read The Wind in the Willows. In writing, she reviewed what makes something common knowledge and the rules about plagiarism. She read about David Livingstone as well as Garibaldi and the Young Italians in history. This week’s recipe from the American Girl Sweet & Savory Treats Cookbook was another dessert…Courtney’s Chocolate, Vanilla & Raspberry Swirl Cake (only we made it with strawberry extract instead of raspberry!).

We also took a field trip to the Central Library in St. Louis to take a self-guided tour of the historic building:

And we stopped at The Soda Fountain at Union Station to share a banana split!

I feel like we’re getting into a pretty good routine with the 2025-26 school year!

2021-22 School Year–The Final Field Trip

The 2021-22 School Year officially ended a week ago, but yesterday, we took our final trip of the year…we visited the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station, something I promised Chickadee we would do after she finished her science course about swimming creatures. Since Bunny is done with finals, she was able to come along, too, so we had a full girls’ day out!

There were lots of hands-on opportunities…we even got nibbled by “Doctor Fish” and high-fived by sting rays!

It wasn’t too crowded when we arrived, so we had lots of good views and were able to take our time:

We walked around outside for a bit after we were done:

And we even went inside the Union Station hotel to take a look at their beautiful lobby:

This was a fun field trip, and a great way to wrap-up our school year!

A Peek Inside the St. Louis Aquarium

At the end of the summer, Turkey and I finally got to visit the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station:

The most beautiful (in my opinion) part of the aquarium is right inside the entrance…a tank fronted with a clock face that is a replica of the original Union Station clock (which is over 125 years old!):

There are other nods to history in the aquarium, as well:

There are many different animals that call the St. Louis Aquarium home, but arguably the most famous are a trio of otters named Thatcher, Sawyer, and Finn, in honor of some of Mark Twain’s most recognizable characters:

Included among the other creatures are a blue lobster named Lord Stanley, which was a gift from a restaurant in Massachusetts following the St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup win in 2019, and other, more typical sea animals like jelly fish and sharks:

I’m very excited with what they’ve done with this property (there are other attractions like a mirror maze, a ropes course, miniature golf, and, of course, the St. Louis Wheel, plus some restaurants, including the delightfully retro Union Station Soda Fountain), and I hope it will continue to be a fun place for people of all ages to visit!