Missouri: Part 1&2!

The Lil Miss and I have been lucky enough to go visit Nate twice since he has been at Fort Leonard Wood.  We did lots of fun things on both trips, so the easiest way to tell about our trips is with all the fun pictures! So here we go!

We'll start with Trip #1, we flew out the last week of August and were able to stay for almost three weeks!  The first week Baylie was really sick!  She got a bad stomach virus and was throwing up for 5 days, it was awful!  That was my first time being a Momma to a really sick babe, it broke my heart and I felt so helpless!  But she got better and then we were able to have lots of fun!

Baylie has LOVED the plane rides!  She is so curious

 For Labor Day weekend we went to a bunch of different places!  It was GREAT!  We started out by going to Springfield.  There is the largest Bass Pro Shop there so we spent a few hours walking around, it was massive!  It seriously made our Cabela's seem teeny tiny!

The bear greeting you at the door!

They had tons of cool water fountains and pools with fish and such.

This is the world record brown bear!  It was ten feet tall and was killed with a single arrow from 20 yards away!

 They have the coolest gun museum!  I'm pretty sure they have every gun ever created. Ever.  (K maybe not, but there were HUNDREDS!)  They had guns that President Roosevelt used on his Africa Safari and other guns from his collection, they had a whole section for Bows and all kinds of other cool things.

This was a really cool display of all the guns used by the US military since the Revolutionary war!  The coolest part is that none of them are replicas, they are the real deal!

 The next day we went to the Lake of the Ozarks!  It is a huge lake and it's kind of like Lake Powell out there so we had to give it a try!  We went to HaHa Tonka State Park (HaHa Tonka means laughing waters, kind of fitting considering all the fun people have there!)  We went on some little hikes since we didn't have a boat :(

Beautiful view!

 There are some really amazing castle ruins in the State Park.  It's a really cool story, but I won't bore you with it!  If you want to learn more, you can read about it here!

Some of the ruins

We quickly discovered that a lake really isn't much fun without a boat.. we are spoiled!  But we went for a swim anyway, the water was pretty dirty and there wasn't much of a beach so we didn't last too long but it was a nice break from the horrible heat!

We went for a quick dip in the lake!

St. Louis Temple!

Cutest carriage rides ever!  I wanted to ride so bad.

This was a really funny street performer down on the Mississippi River

 We went up to St. Louis after Lake of the Ozarks and it was a blast!  Nate being in Missouri has been a great opportunity for us to see places we wouldn't normally go to.  I don't think we would ever just decide to go to Missouri for a vacation so it has been fun to see the sights!

We loved the Gateway Arch!

 Back in the day, St. Louis was known as the "Gateway to the West", there is a really cool museum under the arch that talks all about Westward Expansion, I'm not usually into museums, but this one had really cool history stuff!

There was a crazy bike group there at the same time as us

On Labor Day we went to the amazing St. Louis Zoo!  It is huge and free and we had a blast!

The bear was Baylie's favorite!  He was so cute and kept standing up on his back legs!  She loved it.  

The monkeys were so funny!

We also went to Grant's Farm.  It was originally the home of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, but then it was bought by the Anheuser Busch family and turned into the Budweiser farm!  They have the Budweiser Clydesdales there and then you take a little tram ride through the farm to get to a little village.  They have really cool animals on the farm, including albino elk which were freaky!  The little village is like a German village and it is so cute!  We felt a little out of place since they give away free beer so everyone else was walking around drinking but we still had a great time!

Baylie really took off crawling while we were there and then quickly started climbing.  She loved to climb up on my suitcase!

We also got to be there for my birthday!  I was so glad I got to spend my birthday with my little family!  Nate got done with training early so we were able to spend a lot of time together.  We went bowling and then out to dinner and it was a great day!

Whew okay so that's the end of trip 1!  Are ya sick of us yet??  Well hang on, trip #2 is much shorter!

We spent the first few days just hanging around Fort Leonard Wood. Life on a military base is SO different!  But it is good to see how Nate lives for now and I enjoyed it for the time we were there. However, I am super happy we aren't active duty, I wouldn't want to live there long term! We went on lots of walks and went to the museums about the Engineers, Military Police, and Chemical. We took Baylie to a park and discovered that she is terrified of going down the slide and she also hates to swing (which breaks my heart because swinging is my favorite!).  Nate got a day off for Columbus Day so we went up to Kansas City to see the sites there and it was a blast!

The pictures are out of order from how we really did things but that's okay!  We went to the beautiful World War 1 Memorial and Museum.  On our way there Nate and I talked about how we really didn't know very much about this war so it was cool to learn a little more.

This is a really old elevator that takes you to the top!

The best view of Kansas City!  BEAUTIFUL!

See the limo?  There were 5 wedding parties taking pictures!

Around Kansas City there are a few church history sites so we went to some of those and it was really awesome.  We went to the Community of Christ temple (formerly RLDS), it was weird to see their "temple" and be able to tour it.  They also have a museum in it where they have some things from church history.  They had a display of each copy of the Book of Mormon from the original publication up until now (obviously their current editions are different from ours), but it was really cool to see how old they were.  We toured the LDS Visitor Center and and saw the site that was dedicated for a temple before they were run out of town.  Then we went to Liberty and saw Liberty Jail.  This was an incredibly touching experience.  It is a replica because the original crumbled but it is built within feet of the original structure and uses some of the same rocks.

The walls are 4 feet thick!

 The missionaries there were awesome!  I don't have a picture of the front but my favorite part was when the missionary talked about when Joseph Smith was brought to the jail.  Just before walking into the jail, where he would be held captive for 4 months for unjust causes, he said to the jailers "Good afternoon, gentlemen".  The missionary talked about how this showed so much about Joseph's character.  He was always kind to everyone, no matter the situation.  He could have been angry and yelling for being taken from his family in the middle of winter, but he greeted them kindly and humbly did as he was told.  This is also where my favorite scripture was given to Joseph Smith  D&C 121: 7-8.  His friends were with him, and supported him through this most difficult time, even though the circumstances were extremely difficult. It never ceases to amaze me the sacrifices that Joseph Smith made for the gospel to go forward!

We took Baylie to the aquarium and she LOVED it!  Let's be honest, I did too!  Lil Miss was entranced by all the fish and sea creatures.  She even touched a star fish!  I thought she would freak out, but she didn't and tried to pull it off the rock.

Lil Miss touchin' a star fish

Across from the aquarium was a really cool shopping center with some fun specialty shops. There was a cute Crayola store with all things colorful!  This wheel has every color of crayola crayon!

 We also went to Union Station, which was breathtaking!  It was huge and old and beautiful!

 Okay this was funny.. the parking at Union Station.  You just slipped your dollars into the slots, it was so old.  The lady helping kept saying they needed to join the 21st Century.. we totally agree!

The view from the bottom of the World War 1 Memorial!

We went and walked around this "Living History Museum", it wasn't really a museum, it was a little town set up like it would have been in the 19th century.  The buildings are actual buildings that were built between 1807 and 1885 and then moved to this area.  It reminded me of This Is The Place Park.  There were stories about each building and how the town could have been.

This was considered a mansion back then, it was beautiful!

We also went to Arrowhead Stadium!  I really wanted to go to a Chiefs game but it was on Sunday so we passed!

We also went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.  It was interesting to learn about the separate league that African Americans played in before they were allowed to play with white players.  I think that is such an interesting time in history to learn about so it was cool to see how it related to leisure activities.  The museum is located at 18th and Vine, which was a happenin' place back in the day!  There was a movie about all that happened there for African Americans, it was basically there little oasis where they went to let loose and have fun!

We had a couple of really great trips!  We saw some great things, but the best part was being able to just spend time together!  It has been really hard living so far away from each other for these past couple months.  We are almost halfway there and it can't come soon enough!  Luckily we have amazing support from our families.  I am living with my parents and they have been a blessing beyond imagination.  They help me with Lil Miss SO much and seem to always know when I'm having a rough day.  I don't know what I would do without them.

Nate is doing well in his training and just keeps plugging along!  He goes a little crazy sometimes because he is so bored but he is a trooper!  We get to talk everyday and we Skype a lot too.  Baylie loves talking to her daddy.  The other night we were talking to him on my parents iPad and she kept crawling over and kissing his face on the screen.  She loves her daddy!  I keep worrying that she might forget him, but every time she sees him or hears his voice on the phone she gets giddy with excitement!  She is such a sweetie.

Well that was a really long post...  Sorry!