An Afternoon at Grant's Farm

          We are in Missouri!  With the help of my wonderful father, the girls, dogs, and I made the drive from South Carolina to Missouri and are now settled in for a summer with my parents.  Audrey and Claire love the extra attention from their grandparents, and I am truly thankful for the company.  In addition, I am amazed at how many things we have to do here in Missouri!  It is such a blessing to be able to choose from so many fun activities to do as a family this summer.

          Our first big adventure of the summer took us to Grant's Farm in St. Louis.  My grandparents took me there as a small child, but I really do not remember it.  My mom had a doctor's appointment in St. Louis, so we drove up, she went for her check up, and then we played at Grant's Farm.  The afternoon was filled with sunshine and laughter.  After riding a tram through the deer park (where we saw deer, elk, buffalo, and longhorn cattle), we arrived at an area filled with small animal exhibits.  Audrey rode the carousel (a reward for being such a good listener), and then we went to feed the goats.

          Feeding the goats had to be the funniest part of our day.  I took Claire out of her stroller and wore her in my bjorn.  My mom held the two bottles of milk for the goats and helped Audrey feed those rascals.  As you can imagine, the goats immediately surrounded us.  I thought Audrey might be overwhelmed or scared, but as soon as my mom and I started laughing at the goats' antics, Audrey laughed with us.  The goats were impatiently trying to get to the milk, and if they could not reach the bottles, they nibbled on whatever they could reach.  The goats started chewing on Audrey's dress, my mom's pants, my skirt, the baby bjorn straps, and one even took a taste of Claire's little toe!  (It probably looked like a bottle to the goat).  Audrey frantically tried to save her precious butterfly dress from the mouths of the goats, lifting it high above her head.  One goat moved right in and nibbled on her panties instead!  My skirt had goat teeth marks on it for the rest of the day.  I did capture some of this madness on video, so I'll try to post it in the next few days.

          After our adventure with the goats, we treated ourselves to a snow cone.  As we started walking around Grant's Farm again, we saw beautiful horses, eagles, camels, elephants, lemurs, turtles, capybaras, and parrots.  At the end of our stroll, we discovered a path covered by water misters.  Audrey happily danced her way through the mist.  It looked like so much fun that I joined her for a few passes.  Claire joined us one time, but she really wasn't convinced that the mist was fun!  As we ended our time at Grant's Farm, we visited the famous Anheuser Bush Clydesdale horses.  They are just massive animals!  All of us enjoyed our afternoon, and as we were driving back to my parents' house,  Audrey said her favorite part of the day was seeing all of those horses.