Vacation Craze

The evening before we left Dan and I had seriously considered changing our vacation plans do to the HOT temps that were projected. BUT after looking around there really wasn't anywhere we could go in the time frame we had that would have escaped the heat. So St Louis here come The Osero's!

First time I drove The Beast....which is a lot easier to drive then the other one surprisingly :)
Ying and Yang playing with my phoneOld Route 66

Of course it wouldn't be a true Osero vacation without some turmoil......yes a flat tire on the car dolly just 10 miles from our camp ground. On Hwy 44 west just north of the 277 exit there we were on the left side of the Hwy with the right side of the tire blown. Of course I had to be driving when it happened, geez! Poor Dan had to deal with vehicles buzzing right my him.

Thankfully a patrol officer showed up to keep an eye of things....boy are some people just rude! There was a car that almost drove right in the back of the patrol car then hitting Dan and the officer.....HOLY CRAP that was close!!

I took this picture from our rearview camera screen

Dan's head peeking out from the car dolly just as the patrol officer got there.The tire...or what is left of it.Danny's van had minimal damage to it...some tire marks on the bumper and a dent with some tire marks on the door. The fender on the dolly was torn to pieces but it was still usable for the ride home.

We stayed in Jellystone Park with Yogi Bear which is right across the street from Six

Flags. It was a busy place! They had projects going on all the time for the kids to do.

Mom it's too hot....I can't breathe!! Not a lot of outdoor stuff for this Lil Man!!

The PoolCeramic Painting
Candy Bar Bingo
The loot from winner Candy Bar Bingo.....along with the glow Cotton candy sticks.

Say YOGI!Double Trouble!
Twice a day The Train went through the campgrounds and stopped at Yogi's cave to wake him up. Then the kids got to meet Yogi and have their pictures taken.
It was HOT every day! So we did alot of indoor activities, which meant we didn't get to the Zoo or Grant's Farm. That's ok....next time :)

109 degrees just about every day.

Tooling around in the van staying cool ~

In St Louis we had some authentic St Louis style pizza......didn't know there was one. We tried it and I can say we are not fans of it, but we tried it. We also went to Ted Drew's frozen custard ~ AMAZING!! But I guess we went to the small one in the "wrong" end of town, but tasty non the less.

We wen

t to The Magic House/Children's Museum.....what fun that was! Here a few fun picsThe bubble room
The train room
The beanstalk that went up 3 flights of stairs. The kids LOVED this one. Here they are at the top
Avrianna playing the piano that bubbled in the tubes. Danny loved to watch it :)

Which is easier to pull yourself up with 2, 4 or 6 pullies?Avrianna helping Danny with the peds

SMILE!

WOW ~ you really should do something with your hair!

The St Louis Arch ...... what an amazing structure.Avrianna, Whitney and myself went up to the top of the arch.

It is NOT handicap accessible so Danny couldn't go up. There are alot of stairs and the tram is very very very small.

Inside the tram ~

One of the Trams....to show everyone how small they are.The shadow of the arch in the Mississippi river.

After we got back down we all went to a documentary of how the Arch was built. AMAZING!

Guess who met us at the Science Center in St Louis.........................MATTMAN and his wonderful Momma, Heather!! I was so great seeing them again, too bad it wasn't for longer. We LOVE YOU GUYS!!

The Crew!! Avrianna, Mattman, Danny, and Whitney

Ugh......Don't eat me!!Tornado .... so cool
Lots of dinosaurs

A real mummy baby.........WOW

Great show!!Look how up we were :)What an inspiring exhibit. Not only did they have the Body Worlds exhibit but they focused on the brain too. So many bodies and parts there so I could show Dan what is all wrong or needed to fixed on Danny. AMAZING!!
A REAL Brain!!
I told Dan I should donate my MS brain to the Brain Worlds and also Danny's body. So people can see.................

Six Flags !!! It was way to hot for Danny to come out so Dan stayed behind with Lil Man and chilled out in the RV. So it was me and the girls for the day.

The girls first roller coaster ride! We went into the park and started right away...I figured get it over with, right?Two very nervous girls standing in line ~They weren't sure on the ride ..... but once it was over all I heard was AWESOME!! So more roller coasters were on the agenda for the day.Love that I was able to go with my Baby girl.....where has the time gone?

We had to go to the water park to cool down :) I did the red tube but the girls did the Green one too ~ YIKES!

Lazy river baby!!

Sun bathing beauties
Pick a tube any tube they went down itThey went on this ride with me the first time....but by the end of the day they decided to go solo. They didn't need my anymore.....both girls are now roller coaster riders :) Well the smaller ones. They weren't going on any that were HUGE or had any loop D loops yet. Next time :)

I could puke just looking at this picture....no spinning for this momma!!

We were told by some friends that if we got the chance to go to on the tour for Anheuser Bush Brewery. Boy am I glad we did. What a great tour and CLEAN....plus it's free :)

This is the stables.....BEAUTIFUL!! These horses live the life....and again very very CLEAN. You couldn't even tell you were in a stable.
Danny got pampered on the the trolley :)After the guided tour we stopped in their bar for some beverages (again free) with some pretzels.....Bud light Lime on tap ~ ohhhhh yeah!
Love the Clysdales n Dalmatians!

We went to the City Museum and Aquarium ~ I do NOT recommend it. Even though is had alot to look at and was very ecletic it was Filthy gross!!
The slide went from the 3rd floor to ground......her butts was dirty from going down. Whitney wanted nothing to do with getting dirty....can't say I blame her. YUCK!!
The "aquarium" was nothing more then a glorified pet store and again DIRTY!

Heading home :)
We just had to stop at The Cheesecake Factory in Milwaukee on our way home......YUM!
We got home late on Sunday evening....going through EAA in Oshkosh wasn't too bad :) But south bound lanes were closed to a multi car accident...I'm glad we were in the North bound lanes.

Avrianna and Whitney are in in a Girl Scout Camp this week. The program is called water seekers so they are going to many pools. Today I'm jealous as they went to the Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells. Good thing it has an indoor and outdoor water park because to it's raining. They will be sleeping over at the camp tonight, it should be a great time.

Danny is rebelling from being off vacation or he caught a germ at the City Museum in St Louis as....he is having respiratory issues, fever, seizures so I am taking him into see Dr Kasper this morning and time will tell if we stay home or have to go to hospital. Of course he starts being sassy yesterday when I had a whole day in Milwaukee for myself with seeing my MS Neurologist, infusion treatment, and then they decided to do another occipital nerve blockage on the right side of my brain....so I got texts n phone calls from Gail RN all day on how he was doing. I will keep you posted!

***UPDATE on Danny **** His xrays didn't look too hot the right lung is diminished or infilterated so more pulmonary toiletry (I love saying that). We increased his Mr Jiggles, breathing tx, added Tobi and an antibiotic. We needed to go in for a blood gas and CBC so if that is ok we stay home for now....if not....... well you know the drill.

Lightening Strike ~ YIKES!

ELECTRIFYING EXCITMENT!! I'm telling ya it's something with this house ... or is it me?

On Sunday July 10th 2011 at 11:35am lightening struck on electric box and severed a gas line starting a fire in our front yard. A sound I never want to hear again!! Scared the HELL out of me it was so LOUD...a sound I will NEVER forget!!

Here is a video I took once the electric box started to really roll with fire and spark.

Unknown at that time of the video....my "favorite tree" was already dead as the lightening went underground and blew up the roots in saw dust. So the burnt leaves n branches were nothing compared to the power of the bolt.

And it reeked havoc underground to all the wiring and piping to our home.

Dan and Avrianna were up North for the weekend to bait Dan's bear stand and to pick up Avrianna's cousin Whitney who is going to stay with us for the month. What chaos to come home to right? I'm sure Dan will catch a bunch of crap, for being gone when we have a fire in our front yard, from his fireman buddies ~ LOL

Here are some pictures .......The fireman were wonderful....stopping up at the house to make sure we were ok and seeing if we needed anythingThankfully they walked up to the house and I didn't walk out there.....my not thinking I was bare foot and it was wet out from the rain ..... they firemen said they could feel the electricity under there feet walking up to the house. It would have been all over for me!

Here's the hole it blew around in the ground.
After the electricity and gas were turned off the fire went out.....the firemen still had to cool everything off.The guys assessing the damage......if they only knew what all happened under ground :(
Before they took everything out I was able to get a picture.....they believe this was the point of impact on the back of the electrical box.The water pressure control panel that fried and the pressure tank took a hit too

The cover to the water pressure control panel that blew off the wall about 4 ft.
Part of the electric/gas/cable/phone guys that come to start the repair process. It has only gotten worse from when they were all here. It was so HOT n HUMID on Sunday these guys took a beating!!
All this dug up and they STILL have to go further to get to damaged pipes n wiringTemporary Gas line running above ground through our yardCones everywhere to show were the gas line is and there is just enough space/gap at the end of the driveway so we can get in and out.Black arcing in and out at all our breaker boxes

As of today we have had to replaced or I know that needs to be repaired :

* the water pressure pump and control panel ~ it will be a few days before we find out if it caused trouble down in the well. GREAT!

*they have to dig another trench through the front yard to replace the natural gas line.

*replace the modules in our irrigation system to find out if we need to go further to rewire the WHOLE yard ~ which means tearing up my WHOLE YARD!!

*electricians were here this morning and they found a few switches that were toasted and a transmitter that needed to be replaced.....now we sit in wait to see what else dies in the next few weeks. I was told with this hard of a hit things can just stop working ~ ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!

* the phone/internet/cable line has been replaced

*TOO BE CONTINUED ~ Sigh :(