St. Louis Mini Vacation

We took our first little overnight trip as a family of four this week. We went to Saint Louis with loose plans & go-with-the flow attitudes. The trip down went pretty smoothly - Charlotte & Natalie played, chatted, & dozed off. We stopped twice along the way - once for a restroom & wiggle break... 

 

And again for lunch. Charlotte wasn't a huge fan of the food at Penn Station, but she loved the cottonwood seeds floating around outside! 

We spent the afternoon at The Magic House - a huuuuuge children's museum. We spent about 4 hours there and probably only saw one-third or one-fourth of the whole place. Charlotte's favorite spots were a huge outdoor sandbox & a Sid the Science Kid exhibit. Natalie's favorite part was the water table that had baby seats! 

 

Our hotel was about a 5 minute drive from The Magic House. Both kids were out cold before we even got to the check-in counter.

After a yummy dinner at Denny's :o) we put on swimsuits and prepared for tons of fun at the hotel pool. After hyping it all day, Charlotte decided within a couple of minutes that the pool was not her favorite. We stuck it out for maybe 20 minutes or so, since Natalie was having so much fun in the water. She was squealing and laughing as we swooped her through the water & bobbed her up and down. She'll be our little fishy :o) 

 Luckily, the hotel had an indoor playground! Charlotte and Natalie both LOVED climbing and playing on all of the equipment. We probably ended up playing on the playground about 6 times all together. 

We made reservations for a 10:20 ride up to the top of the Gateway Arch the next morning. Of course we got held up by some road construction and entered the building at about 10:30. The lovely people at the Arch put us on the next available tour, starting at 11:30, so we had some time to check out the Westward Expansion museum in the base of the Arch. Natalie liked getting down & burning some energy, since she'd been held most of the morning until then. 

At 11:30, we thought we were finally on our way to the top of the Arch. Nope. More waiting. At least 30 minutes more. And when it's lunchtime and two little ones have already been waiting for over 90 minutes, it started to look like things might get hairy. Charlotte's feet hurt, she didn't want to walk, didn't even want to stand in line, began to whimper about wanting to go home, that she was hungry, etc. etc. etc. Natalie was squirmy, not wanting to be held anymore. But somehow, FINALLY, it was time to get into the tram to get to the top. It all turned out OK & Charlotte really liked looking out of the little windows down into the "Mississippi Water" and all the boats below. 

Waiting to get into the tram

Finally on our way up to the top!

The plan after the Arch was to have the kids nap in the car while we drove over to the St Louis Zoo, finding a place to eat lunch nearby. The kids fell asleep in the car right away (whew!), but we hit a snag when the zoo was packed. We pulled into the property before finding a lunch place, and it took us almost an hour to get back off of zoo property. With Charlotte having refused to walk most of the time we were at the Arch, we figured that day would not be the best day to fight the massive crowd with a little one not in the best mood. So we made the decision to skip the zoo, and stay another night instead. We ended up eating lunch at Einstein Bagels & then getting frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf, then checked back into the hotel, swam some more, played on the playground again, ordered pizza, and the girls just played played played in the hotel until it was time for bed. It was so cute watching them explore something new. At one point, while we were eating dinner, Charlotte said in a very sad voice, "I'm gonna miss Donny and Marie." I think she thought we were going to live in that hotel from then on & we just left the cats at home! :o) 

The ride home this morning was a little longer than planned - Charlotte asked to stop to use the bathroom 3 or 4 times. The kids still did very, very well entertaining themselves & each other. Taking a "vacation" with two little kids is a lot more work than it is with just two adults, but we all had fun. I think we're all happy to be back in our own beds tonight, too. :o)