Trip to St. Louis

Everyone taking their summer vacations did not help with our desire to take a trip of our own.  Michael has been wanting to go on vacation for awhile now, but I said there is no way I am going anywhere with a baby that is not sleeping through the night.  Well, now that miss Maddie is sleeping at night, we decided to give this vacation thing a try.  We have taken a couple of road trips up to Wisconsin with Nate, but we have always left at night.  This being our first trip with the both of them, on the road and in a hotel room, we decided to go somewhere moderately close to home so that if disaster strikes, we can get home within a few hours.  What better place than St. Louis? It's a five hour drive and has a ton of activities for kids.  Perfect.

So we set out last Wednesday on our first family vacation (first with Mads).  The drive there went really well.  I loaded the car with toys and books.  Jaime lent us the boys' computers.  We had the DVD player (which I thought would be on the whole time and didn't end up using until close to the end of the drive).  We were set.  I also wrapped up some cheap toys I had gotten so every now and then I could pull out a gift for Nate to open up.  He enjoyed that, although once he realized there were gifts in the car he wanted to open them all at once.

The first day was designated just for travel.  No other plans or schedules so we could take our time.  Not knowing how the car ride was going to go or how many stops we were going to have to make, this flexibility was essential.  Although we only ended up making one stop for lunch and then went to the Walmart there so the kids could run around the toy section and play and stretch their legs. We got into St. Louis (we actually stayed on the IL side) that afternoon, checked into the hotel, got a pizza, and chilled the rest of the night.

For our first day we went to the St. Louis Zoo.  Awesome place and it's free!  We had taken the kids to the zoo last fall and what a difference 9 months can make.  Nate was much more interested in the animals this time.  He really enjoyed himself.  I don't know that he really liked one animal more than another, but didn't want to get too close to them, even if they were on the other side of the glass. Maddie didn't care where we were, just enjoyed running in the opposite direction of where we were going.  She thought that was hilarious.  Us, not so much.  It was really hot and the kids were tuckered out by lunch time so we headed out without seeing the whole zoo.  Of course they both instantly pass out the minute we get in the car (this is how naps happen during the trip) so we just grab some lunch and head back to the room.  After lunch and since the naps were done, we had some time to kill.  We decided to take them to the park.  We went to Tilles Park in one of the suburbs that was really neat.  The playground equipment was awesome and there was a fountain/sprinkler system to play in.  Nate really enjoyed running through that.  One of the fountains caught Maddie by surprise.  She did not like that at all!

Day two started out at Grant's Farm (free-only had to pay for parking!).  It's a really neat place.  We got a trolley ride through the whole park to see all the animals and then they dropped us off at the zoo area to view the animals.  Nate enjoyed feeding the geese but the highlight was feeding a goat a baby bottle of milk! He thought it was just the best thing ever! We tried to feed the llamas but they wouldn't leave the shade to get their treats. We finished the day at the St. Louis Science Center (again, free!).  This place is awesome!  There were so many stations and exhibits and everything was made in such a fun and engaging way, it didn't feel like learning at all!  Nate had fun exploring and liked all the hands-on activities.  His favorite was the dinosaur room-he kept roaring at the big dinosaur while digging for his fossils.  He also liked the bird room, probably because of all the magnifying glasses. 

The drive home was just as smooth.  The kids, so wore out, slept almost the entire first half of the drive; Maddie was out almost as soon as the trip started and was out until almost lunch time.  So we only stopped for lunch and then headed straight home.  I think the trip was a success! I don't think they would have lasted much longer than just a couple of days though and so it was probably timed out right.  It's good to know the option is there to get away for a couple of days and that they can handle the car ride and hotel room just fine.