St. Louis Weekend Trip

For the last weekend before school started here, we took a road trip to St. Louis. Grandpa Guittar would be in St. Louis for his 50th high school reunion and Grandma Mary would be staying at Aunt Shirley's house. Since they were "so close" to us and we'd never been to St. Louis, we decided to take the kids to St. Louis on a little vacation road trip. It was a wonderful weekend. Aunt Shirley offered us her amazing basement for the weekend which made it so much easier for us to travel with the kids.

[Note: We forgot our good camera so these pictures were taken with our crappy phones and thus, are not very clear.]

Touching the Arch

Ellie enjoyed this fan. She looked like she was in a photo shoot. 

These are the TINY pods that they call a "tram" that took us to the top of the arch. The most awkward "tram" I've ever ridden. For me, this was a ONCE in a lifetime experience. I don't need to do that again ever. Nick did well, he talked the entire time to distract himself.

We made it to the top, only to see that the windows are TINY.

It was hard for everyone to look at the view.

Mississippi River

This shot makes me want to throw up. :/

GP5 is 630 feet in the air!!!

On Saturday, we headed to the Science Center and the Zoo. What I love about St. Louis is that the museums/science center/zoo are all free to the public (not the Arch though). That coupled with Aunt Shirley's hospitality at her home made this a relatively inexpensive trip.

One of the highlights of our trip was being able to meet up with our cousins for the day on Saturday. William, Alek (6) and Mia (3), met us at the science center. The kids had met only once before when they were much younger and did not remember each other. They were shy at first but were laughing and looking out for one another by the end of the day. It was so very sweet to see them together. My heart really swelled because I want our kids to be close to family, their cousins, just like I was growing up. Who would've thought that we could have all met up in St. Louis!??!?  Such is life.

Thank you, William for your patience throughout the day. It is hard to get 5 kids to agree on where to be and what to do but we all survived. :)

 The boys were picked for the demonstrations.

 The kids built an arch together:

 The girls decided to sit in the glass on the floor of the bridge that goes over the HIGHWAY!  None of the adults would walk on the glass floor and they decided it was ok to just sit on the glass. Scary.

 Our kids would not let us leave the science center without doing the hamster wheel.

 At the zoo, we didn't have much luck with many of the animals but ironically, the one animal that was out in the heat was the polar bear. I kept thinking that he must have been so hot but he was out eating his giant ice cube.

 I love this picture of Ellie talking to Mia. I think Ellie was saying something was big (see hand positions).

 I don't think Ellie would have ever asked to be carried on my shoulders if she hadn't seen Mia on her daddy's shoulders. Monkey see, Monkey do.

We closed down the zoo and went to dinner afterwards. It was a long day but the kids enjoyed every moment. We hope Alek and Mia can visit us in Illinois sometime.

On Sunday, we went to the craziest museum we've ever been to, the City Museum in St. Louis. This place was awesome and scary at the same time. We were lucky that we had grandma in town who stayed back with Ellie because it would've been near impossible to handle all three kids in this place. It's a "museum" where you can climb on anything and everything. There are caves, tree houses, slinkys, tunnels, sculptures, slides, etc. It is a child's paradise and a parent's nightmare because you can lose your kid so easily but we managed to keep up with the boys. The pictures do not do this place justice. You have to experience it for yourself.
Where else can you climb down a "slinky"?!?!?

 Climbing the tunnels of the tree house

 Catching a break and figuring out which tunnel to go into next.

 This place has a 10-STORY SLIDE....that we did not ride because you have to be 48" to ride and neither of the boys are that tall yet (thank God!). We did do the 5 story slide and that was good enough for me. I got a little dizzy in it. The boys loved it.

 Inside the whale sculpture (I think)

 This "monster slide" was fun. It's only two stories high and does not curve.

 The bottom of the "monster slide"

 On a dare, Nick went down the slinky. To be honest, I didn't think he would fit. I kept thinking what would happen if someone gets stuck. Will they get the "jaws of life" out here?!?!?

 This section of the museum was filled with random arcade and nostalgic memorabilia.

 The boys were happy they were NOT over 48" tall because that meant they could ride this little train that went into TWO tunnels. Pure joy in Liam's face.

 Some of the cave sections were pretty dark and we had to use the flashlight on our phone to get through. Other parts were SO tight, I wouldn't go into them. Even though I saw bigger people come out of the little holes, I was too scared of getting stuck and/or not being able to see what was ahead or what I was putting my hands on while crawling, etc. that I didn't go into those sections.

We could have spent days at the City Museum and we will definitely go back to it on our next visit to St. Louis.

I didn't get any pictures of Aunt Shirley and us but we are very grateful for her hospitality and for getting us tickets to the City Museum. We thoroughly enjoyed this little road trip and the kids can't wait until we go back to St. Louis.