Colleen and Aubrey take STL: World Aquarium

Hello again!
This weekend my roommate Colleen and I went to St. Louis! It was soooo much fun and I am so glad we got to take the trip! Earlier in the year we made kind of a "bucket list" of things we wanted to do before our year of service is over and going to St. Louis was very high on the list! We finally got to check it off! 

Since this post has a million pictures (I'll apologize in advance for the otter overload)
I am going to split our St. Louis adventures up into a couple different posts. Enjoy!

We took off Thursday night after service around 3:30. We were headed to Eureka which is about a half hour from downtown St. Louis. We ended up camping at the KOA campground which was very nice! The campground was very close to the Six Flags. We arrived around 6 and we were hungry so we went off in search of some food! We ended up at a sports bar/grill. I got a burger and Colleen got a GIANT pretzel!

Then, we headed back to the campground to get set up for the night. 

Our tiny tent!

We knew it was supposed to be rainy that night, so I was a little nervous about camping but Colleen was super excited!Luckily we had tarps to put over the tent so we stayed pretty dry! We did get a pretty big storm with lots of lightning, (yikes) but we survived to tell the tale! It's always an adventure, right? 

The next morning, we headed off towards the big city! The first stop, the World Aquarium! I can't even tell you how excited I was for this! After a few wrong turns, we found the aquarium. They are in the process of moving the aquarium from the City Museum to a new location so there wasn't really a sign or anything saying WORLD AQUARIUM HERE! So we just peeked in the windows and saw fish and knew we found the right place.But, they were supposed to be open at 9 and the lights were off and no one was there, so I got a little bit nervous about our tour. But, we were plenty early so we walked around the city for a little bit. We ended up going to the visitors center and asked them about the aquarium and they told us they were moving so they aren't open to the public, only for tours. So that made me feel a lot better! We continued to wonder around until it was time for our tour. We found the City Museum (more about that later) that we would be going to the next day and got some Starbucks!

 Then, we headed back to the Aquarium for our tour! Prepare for picture overload here! Our tour was AMAZING! Well worth the money! We were supposed to be with another family for the tour but they went to the wrong place, so it was just Colleen and I and our guide. We got to feed and hold lots of amazing things! Lots of reptiles and fish at the first location. We fed fish, turtles crocodiles, alligators. We even held a tarantula- twice, I kinda can't believe I actually did it but I'm glad I did! We also held snakes, starfish, and a blue-tongued skink!

The aquarium

Yes, I held that!

And fed this beast

Blue-tongued skink!

Snakes!

Feeding the crocodile

Feeding the turtle

Feeding the alligator

He was so cute!

After feeding and holding the animals, it was time to head to our second location... with the OTTERS! Right as we were getting ready to leave, the family who was supposed to be with us showed up saying they were sent to the wrong location, they were not pleased. But we were done there, so our guide took us to the next location and told them to meet us there. They never showed up so it was just us again!
We started off seeing a couple birds, who were very loud and loved attention. 

Next, we fed some turtles some mealworms. This was so fun!

Next, we fed a giant bullfrog some worms as well! I have to say the frog was one of my favorites! He was really cute and it was funny to see how fast he could stick his tongue out and get the worms!

My Prince ;)

Next, we held an even bigger tarantula! And watched the guide feed some crickets to a centipede- YUCK! We also got to hold a chameleon!

3 horned chameleon

Next, was the sloth! I used to love sloths and wanted one for a pet back in the day- lol- so I was pretty excited! This sloth was very picky. It ate about 2 apple slices then it was done. But it was still really cool just to be so close!

And, finally..... the OTTER! The highlight of my whole trip! IT WAS AMAZING! I am now more obsessed with otters! The otters name was Tim and he was absolutely adorable and I wanted to take him home with us. He would hold your hand and basically be adorable. I can now check hold hands with an otter off of my bucket list!

Not going to lie, probably one of the best days of my life!!!!! And after that, our tour was over! I could have stayed and hung out with Tim all day, but we couldn't :( Our guide was so awesome and we had such a great time!

Our guide

After our tour, we headed to our AirBNB to check it out and get settled in for the night. Then, we took off for the "Loop." The "Loop" is by Washington University and it has a lot of restaurants and shops and is home to the St. Louis Walk of Fame and Chuck Berry statue. I was really excited to check it out but I have to say I was pretty disappointed by it. But we still had fun. We walked up and down the street probably 6 times checking things out and trying to decide what we wanted to do.Then we tried to decide where to eat. By the time we picked somewhere, it was about 9 o clock and I was very hangry and we were denied entrance to a lot of places because we weren't 21. So, the Loop was not my favorite place.

We had to get a soda at the famous Fitz

Chuck Berry statue

And that's it for Friday! More to come about thes rest of the trip!
Thanks for reading!
Aubrey :)

Last Day of School

Wednesday was FINALLY the last day of school! I’m not going to lie, I had been counting down to this day pretty much since we got back from Christmas break. I don’t think that I thought about how hard this day was going to be for me. I didn’t think about the fact that I probably wouldn’t see my 20 preschooler’s faces every day- or maybe ever again-, receive their countless hugs, pictures, and requests to tie shoes every day. That really hit me the last week of school, I hadn’t realized how attached I had become to these kids.  It was just really strange to think about not seeing them again. I had spent the last 170+ school days learning all of their little quirks- their favorite color, what sets them off, and what makes them squeal with joy. I miss them already!

My goofy class!

 I also knew I would miss the other para pro I had worked with all year in our room Mrs. Porter. She is AMAZING! I really don’t know if I would have survived this year without her and our secret chocolate stash!

The lovely Mrs. Porter :)

I thought for sure I was going to cry the last day, and I almost did a couple of times, but I held it together. I didn’t want the kids last memory of me to be me crying because I would miss them because they didn’t really understand that  I wouldn’t be coming back.

School is out for summer! I survived the school year! June 1^st starts summer school. I will be in a classroom with kids going into 1^st grade. A couple of the students from my class will be at summer school so it will be nice to be able to see them at recess.

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This week after school was out we had to help revamp the Mustang Closet which is a place for students to get clothes from if they need them. We had to take all of the clothes out of a room, box them up, paint the room, unbox, sort, and tag the clothes so they could be distributed to the different schools. It made for a couple of very long days! But now it’s done and I have a 3 day weekend to relax!

 

Painting the Mustang Closet with Colleen

Next Thursday, my roommate Colleen and I will be heading to St. Louis! I AM SO EXCITED! It will be nice to get out of Eldon for a couple days and explore St. Louis. And I haven’t even told you the most exciting part yet…… Friday we are going to FEED OTTERS at the aquarium!!! I am obsessed with otters they are so cute. So not feeding otters was out of the question. 

Just look at that face!!

So be sure to keep your eyes peeled for another post sometime after memorial day!

We are also going to Chicago for 5 days in June! Lots of exciting things coming up! And only 42 days until I come back home to the mitten! :D

Aubrey :)