St. Louis

The kids and I recently took a trip with my family to St. Louis.  My brother and sister-in-law live there and it was our first time to visit St. Louis! My parents were super nice and let us ride with them in their fancy van (meaning they have a dvd player).  It certainly made the 11-hour trip (including all the stops) much more tolerable!

Day One: We visited the Magic House.   The place was huge!  Whenever we go to the Children's Museum, we usually pack a lunch because you can play for the better part of a day.  You could spend a week in this place.  The trip was really for Jack and he loved it!  His favorite part was the Construction Zone.

Maddie's rocking the safety goggles!

Jack loved the safety gear.  He thought he was pretty cool working with a helmet and set of goggles.

Making an important phone call from the "President's Desk."

Pretending to be the President with Papa Gary & Maddie looking on.

Jack loved this part too!  He got to pretend to be a car mechanic!

Doing a quick tire change.

Finally at the end of the trip, the babies got to have some fun in the ball pit.  That was Maddie's favorite part!

Day Two:  We visited the Gateway Arch.  It was a much cooler day, thank goodness!  While my mom, sister, and brother-in-law took the ride to the top, the rest of us visited the Arch Museum.  The museum included the journal entries from the Lewis & Clark expedition from the time they left Saint Louis until the arrived at the Pacific Ocean.  They were quite interesting to read!

Papa & Jack hanging out in the museum.

Jack and Aunt Liz

Liz & Maddie

Jack, Maddie, and I by the Arch

Grandma Renee & Grandpa Gary with the grandkids

Aunt Liz with Maddie, Paige, and Jack

The day ended with a game at Busch Stadium.  The Cubs lost - Boo!

Day Three: The Saint Louis Zoo.  We got up early to beat the heat and even got into the kids' zone for free because we were there so early!  By the time it started to get hot, we watched the Sea Lion show and enjoyed popsicles.  We were a tired bunch by the end of the day.  Grandma and Grandpa bought each of the kids a stuffed animal of their favorite one from the zoo.  Maddie's was a meerkat.  She screeched when she saw them!  Jack's was a cheetah (even though I'm not sure we saw one of those).

We almost lost Jack to a hippo!

Petting the goats with Aunt Liz

Funny story about Jack and the goats.  As he is standing in the petting zoo, I look over at him just in time to see him deliberately stomp his foot in a big pile of goat poop.  After I get after him about it, he says, "Well, what was that?" Seriously, kid!

Tired, tired babies.  Notice their arm positions.  Pretty cute.

Jack with Aunt Liz & Uncle Matt in the Penguin House

Day Four:  Relaxation!  We stayed home (meaning Matt & Liz's) but still enjoyed some outside time in the kiddie pool.

 

 

One of the last highlights of the trip was getting ice cream from the ice cream truck!  Uncle Matt & Jack were patiently waiting for it to come down the street.  Such a simple thing, but he loved it.

We had such a fun time!  We were exhausted by the time we got home and everybody slept in the next day, but it was well worth it.