St.Louis Surprise

Elizabeth woke up early Saturday morning and crawled into bed with us and asked her usual questions:  Can I watch TV? What are we doing today?  Today we were able to surprise her with, "How about we go on an adventure?!"  Brandon and I had planned a quick family get away to one of our favorite cities, St.Louis.  Her reaction was priceless and later she said, "I did not know that you were  going to say that!"  We loaded up and hit the road by 8:30, only 30 minutes past our targeted departure time!

Due to the extreme heat we decided not to go to a Cardinal game, even though they were in town.  Instead we spent Saturday at the Magic House Children's Museum.  What an awesome place.  It was crowded but the kids weren't shy and still did all of the activities.  The bubble room and the Goodnight Moon exhibit were my favorites.  Elizabeth liked the play hospital with the newborn nursery the best.  Grant felt right at home in the Lewis and Clark tent as he decided that would be a good place to poop!  Brandon embraced it all and he even passed the colorblindness test, but I am not sure how! They really have a little bit of everything from electronic stuff, role/pretend play, arts, legos care races, the list goes on and on.  It appeals to a large age group so there is something for everyone and I'm sure it won't be our last trip. When we left our car said the outside temp was 117!!!

On the horse drawn wagon! I tried to explain this was the people got around before cars.  I don't think they believed me! Elizabeth said, "Mom I know, we do it at Xmas time on the square!"

We headed to the hotel and Grant caught a quick nap and we call cooled down in the AC.  We ate dinner at a local pizza place and headed back to swim at the hotel.  Elizabeth has really become quite the swimmer.  She was jumping in and then decided she could swim all the way across the pool!  It was so thrilling to watch her blow her bubbles, keep her head in the water and move her arms!  It like it has finally all clicked!  Grant didn't want to be left out and decided he likes to float on his back - while Mama holds on to him :)

Hotel sleeping is always a challenge and we have decided it is best to have a king size bed because one or both kids usually end up in our bed.  We brought Elizabeth's sleeping bag and she thought it was great fun to sleep in that on top of the pull out couch.  She even commented the next day on how comfortable the bed was!  We had a crib brought in for Grant and he slept in it for about an hour and then migrated to our bed, which as long as he was sleeping was fine.  He woke up at 3:45 am and took almost two hours to coax back to slumber.

We thought the hotel had a free breakfast in the morning.  However, when I called to ask we were informed it was $9.99 per adult and kids 12 and under were free.  Brandon said, "we'll send the kids down for their free breakfast!"  Haha!  We went to McDonalds and everyone was happy.  A storm had come through that night so the temps were a little cooler.  It's amazing how cool 90 feels compared to 100+!  We headed to Grant's Farm.  The train (really a tram) ride through Deer Park was especially good.  Bob and Sarah did a fantastic job and really took their time showing us the animals along the way.  I asked Brandon if he thought the ride seemed longer, he said it just seemed longer because it was hotter!  We got milk bottles to feed the goats, but really the kids can only feed them from outside the gate.  The goats see a bottle and they get too aggressive and jump up on the kids.  In the future we will just let the kids walk in without any milk to play with the goats and then they can feed them from the outside.  Elizabeth likes to try to give every goat just a few drops of milk.  I finally asked if she had the never-ending milk bottle.  Well come to find out her bottle was malfunctioning and no milk was coming out at all!  We walked around and saw the animals, did the carousel and got a sno-cone.  We had a good time, but it was hot and we were ready to head home.  We forgot a phone charger at the hotel so we went back for that.  We thought we were on our way out of town but we made a spontaneous stop at Union Station.  I was hoping some part of the train tracks were still visible, but it really is all just shopping.  Oh well, we saw a train along the interstate as we were leaving and the kids were happy!  We did catch a fudge making performance at the famous Fundgery.  I remember watching that as a little girl!  A quick weekend get away, but it was nice to do something different and just make memories!

On the carousel at Grant's Farm

The goat was trying to nibble Grant's shorts!