Niki at the botanical gardens

On Sunday we went to the Missouri botanical gardens to see the Niki pop art exhibition of 40 playful, larger-than-life mosaic sculptures in a rainbow of colors and materials.




They were amazing and you could climb quite a few of the sculptures.



The gardens were beautiful too, here are some blue-eyed marys.


Hugh thought it was fantastic fun to run through all the flowers!!!



Check out this web-site for more info on Niki

http://www.mobot.org/events/niki/niki_bio.asp

Earthquake.

On Friday morning we had a big earthquake here (5.2). I was up feeding Taylor when the whole house started to shake. I was really scared as the houses here are very poorly built, so when I said everything was shaking I really mean it.

Bruce very calmly walked in to the room and said "we are having and earthquake" and then went back to sleep before the shaking had even finished. I guess it comes from his San Francisco upbringing to not be fazed by a shaking house.

That was the reason why we saw all the snakes yesterday as they don't like to be buried in their hibernation holes. After I saw the western ribbon snake, Bruce found a garter snake next to our back porch. Then a neighbour found a copper head in the back garden - these are highly poisonous so the neighbour killed it. Was a real shame as it was so pretty and would only bite you if you cornered it.

Snake!!

Hugh, Taylor and I just saw our first snake here. Its called a Western Ribbon snake - its not venomous, we saw it when we were walking around our subdivision this afternoon.

Taylor is smiling!

Taylor is now smiling and it certainly makes up for all the sleepless nights.

Here he is in action with some lovely noises!!