Ice, snow, and leaves

January, and warm enough to go to the zoo. At least with heavy jackets. They even had the carousel open! As usual, not too much interest in the animals themselves, but lots of interest in the train and the carousel. And even more interest in racing through the leaves playing "chase" with dad.

This year we were around for the second annual "ice festival" on the Loop. Very, very cold, but rather fun. Lots of carved ice sculptures from a bunch of different people, an ice slide (!), a tattoo hunt (we got most of them, even the one from the cigar shop) and lots of games like bean bag tosses.

They were giving out little stuffed dolphins as "prizes" for the games, and when you donated a couple dollars (most of the games were charity things). Isabella collected the whole set, and then some. In this case she won a get-one-free coupon for St. Louis Bread co, mostly for just smiling. There was also mini golf (on ice and not on ice) which was another big hit.

The slide was pretty cold, and getting a bit soggy at the bottom, but Isabella (and Ian) went up and down it several times. They sat on a piece of (getting soggier) cardboard. We eventually had to stop before everyone got too cold.

We stopped for lunch at the noodle shop (mac & cheese, deluxe style!) and ran into our next door neighbors from down the street.

That was pretty much it for snow and ice for the winter. No really good sledding days, but not all that cold, either.