the adventures are back! after taking a week off due to extreme heat, we had a great night of adventuring at the bonar homestead. here’s a little preview.

adventure: spend the afternoon exploring the city museum of st. louis

who: shanna and chelsea

shanna’s experience: i’ve been wanting to visit the city museum for months. i constantly visit the website to read about the insane installations they have: a shoelace factory, a series of indoor caverns and caves, two airplanes suspended in the air and connected by a series of wraught-iron tunnels, a 10-story twisty slide, a ferris wheel on the roof… i’ve always wondered what it would be like to have ladders and slides instead of staircases, and now i know. it would be awesome. most things in life don’t happen unless you make time for them, and the city museum was one of those. i’m glad it was a part of adventure blog, or i might never have gotten to visit. my favorite moment was after chelsea and i had exhausted all of the adventures on the roof, and were about to head back down the elevator, when we saw a sign that read, “ten story slide.” we just kind of looked at each other and had a collective, “well, duh!” moment. of course there would be a ten-story slide as a way to get back downstairs… why hadn’t we expected that?

chelsea’s experience: the city museum is maybe my favorite museum of any that i’ve ever visited. i actually think the name “museum” is a misnomer, because, come on, this is barely a museum. it’s pretty much just the biggest, most creative playground ever. i think my favorite part of the experience was just the flow of the museum; one thing went to another in a fluid way that made me feel the same way i feel when i’m dreaming and then i wake up but i’m actually still dreaming. for example, we were up on the roof of the museum and found this 10-story slides to go down. the slide led you into this crazy indoor maze of caves. at one point, shanna noticed a little girl in this hole down in the side of a wall, and we thought she was stuck. she said, “i’m not stuck, but do you wanna follow me?” and of course we did. so we went down into the hole and followed her through this tiny tunnel that took us out in the middle of a bench where all of these people were sitting. i think my favorite part of the whole experience was coming out of that tunnel, because of the looks on everyone’s faces when we came out of the place where they were sitting. the city museum is definitely conducive to second and third and fourth visits, because i left feeling like i hadn’t seen everything. i want to go back and find more hidden tunnels. i also want to go back and live in one of the loft apartments in the same building. who wants to donate to my $200,000 loft apartment fund?

guest adventurer chelsea dipaolo: chelsea has been shanna’s little sister for twenty-two years, and over that time she’s cultivated quite the adventurous personality. after stints in rome, korea, and costa rica, just to name a few, she’s decided to spend the next year traveling to 11 countries in 12 months, lending a hand to ministries around the world. before she leaves next month, she graciously agreed to practice being adventurous for the adventure blog.

adventure: take a camera and a boom box down to crown center on a sunday afternoon and see if we can have some fun dancing with the families who are hanging out there.

who: nathan, bryce, joey and shan

when: sunday, june 7

nathan’s experience:  I didn’t know what to think when I was first told about the idea of going the park to get people to dance. Everybody has their own shy streak and aren’t always comfortable with letting go. But I do love the idea of shedding your inhibitions and going for something anyways. I think too often as culture we over think things. The idea of capturing people of all ages at that moment in time where they let their guard down and share can be really interesting. I loved that we had the opportunity to approach people of all ages and that some where willing to share with us. I really enjoyed all the people that we met and interacted with us whether they danced for us or not hopefully we at least brought a smile to their face.

bryce’s experience: [coming soon]

joey’s experience: [coming soon]

shanna’s experience: i love to dance, and i’m not embarrassed about dancing publicly. it’s just my personality. i realize not everyone feels this way, however, which was why i was eager to do this adventure.  would we have to beg and plead with people to be in our video? would people flock to us or try to avoid us? it ended up being a mix of both. some people needed just a little encouragement, and then they were out in front of the camera, and coming back for more. others wanted nothing to do with us and some were even skeptical that we were filming for some kind of show that would make fun of them (on youtube? i wasn’t sure what they were afraid of.). in the end, my favorite people were the ones who immediately took to the idea, like the two women who did some modern dance. when asked to dance they jumped up immediately and gave it their best, most spontaneous shot. it was a combination of complete confidence and abandon. i want to live my life like that.