Meet Me In St. Louis!

I spent a really fun and happy weekend in St. Louis! Between my first attempt at a 5k, visits with friends and family, good food, ten-story slides, elephants, beautiful weather and lots of laughs and smiles, it was a perfect weekend!

Photos, etc!!(I tried to re-size most of them, but I might have missed one or two. Beware if you decide to click on one that it might be gigantic):

St. Louis Color Run! I hope it returns someday!

I started the race with these ladies, they were very fun! They kept things happy when people were getting restless at the back of the pack of runners. Good people!

The first wave of runners after running through their first color (pink). My dad was taking pictures around the course and got some really good ones.

Orange color! The last color of the course. It's hard to not cheer and laugh when getting color thrown on you, but then you tend to get a snoot/mouth full of color dust. It's all part of the fun!

Completed my first 5k as part of "The Happiest 5k On The Planet!"

It was kind of chilly on Saturday morning, but if I do it again, I won't wear such dark colors so I can tell that I'm getting colorized. It was hard to tell sometimes if any color was sticking. But, my arms were color-icious and I had 'color lines' instead of tan lines. All very fun!

So, that was my first 5k experience. It was a blast! I can't say that I'm a converted runner now, but I would definitely do the Color Run again in a heartbeat. It was so much fun and everyone was cheerful and smiling and laughing. I ended up being almost in the very back of the 15,000+ crowd of runners that showed up for the event. I didn't mean to get in the very back, but it just ended up that way. I never trained for this run or anything because it's not competitive and it's just for fun, but I didn't want to miss the party at the end and people were already done with their 5k before I had even begun! It was kind of a longish wait in the 'start chute' for those of us bringing up the rear. I ended up jogging about half of the 5k! I was really impressed by that, since I don't run at all and didn't train for this or anything. It was purely trying to not miss the fun color party at the end that kept me jogging through parts that I would normally have just walked if I had been able to begin the race with the earlier groups. It was fun! Everyone was in a good mood once we got started and everyone was really happy to have the dust thrown on them. If I ever do another Color Run, I'm much better prepared now for the process of the 'dust-throwing'. I'll be better ready for the lanes and stuff that I need to be in and not just run through it because you need the volunteers to really douse you with the dust to get really colorful. I ended up much less colorful than I thought I would due to learning this kind of late in the game. Still, the entire thing was fun and I'm so glad that I did it! I recommend it for everyone! There were lots of kids, infants, and even a couple of dogs that went through the race! The volunteers were trying to not get the dust right in the face of those three categories of participants, which was nice. The dust is just made up of some non-toxic dye and corn starch, but it does kind of get up your nose and in your lungs and you do kind of cough color dust for a bit. I might share a few more pictures once I get some from my dad. I think he got a really good shot of the after-race party when people threw a lot of their color dust packets all at once. But for now, these are what I've got to share! 

The entire weekend in St. Louis was a blast! The race was just the beginning. 

We went to the City Museum and wandered around for a while. If you've never been there, you should check it out! It's a lot of fun and really amazing all the stuff there is to see/do. I was busy climbing things and sliding down ten-story slides and didn't get many pictures, but here are just a couple:

The second floor looking down toward the entrance of the City Museum. 

Quasimodo-type architecture details that were salvaged from a building in St. Louis. I love it!

There were visits with family and friends and really good food to be had this weekend, as well. It was really nice! Then, this morning, we went to the zoo pretty early in the day and many of the animals were very active and happy. I saw bouncing/twirling hippos, super-lively sea lions, and (what I went to see) the elephants (including two baby elephants)!:

Two baby elephants playing in their pool. One of them is Kenzi, who was born last Fall. I didn't know there were TWO babies, but it was really fun to watch them playing and jumping in the water. It was like a tidal wave when both babies would flop into the pool and swim around. They were having a great morning!

Raja, the male Asian elephant at the Zoo. I remember when Raja was born and going to see him when he was a baby. Now he's the father of the babies that were flopping into the water. He was really bored and just pacing around. I don't know if they allow him near the babies or not. He was separated from them this morning.