St Louis Trip

Toward the end of June, we took a little vacation to St Louis, Missouri. I have never been there myself and it had been a long time since Ricky had been. We have always heard that there are great and free things for kids to do, so we wanted to check it out ourselves. We were actually able to make it work where we could also go with some great friends. Savannah, of course, was in heaven because she got to with McKinley. We all packed and headed out of T.H. early on a Wednesday morning. We weren't sure how Austin would handle a 3 hour car ride, but to our surprise, he did a great job heading down, but riding back to T.H was a different story. Besides our fast and short trip to East St Louis (thanks to Ricky) our first stop was Grant's Farm. Here was Ricky and Savannah feeding some baby goats a bottle. It was quite funny. These baby goats were quite aggressive and acted like they never got fed. This was when they first entered the gated area. See Savannah standing, well just a second after I got this picture the goats spotted the bottle in her hand and plowed her over. Excuse me for laughing, but it was hilarious. Savannah, however, did not think it was quite so funny. Ricky to the rescue.

After that episode Savannah decided she would feed the goats from outside the fence.
We chose 3 of the hottest days of the summer to be in St Louis. It was scorching outside, but we had a great time. The next day we got up and headed off to the St Louis Zoo. Here we are at the beginning and able to get a family picture, plus 1. Thanks McKinley, maybe in a couple years this is what our family will look like with 3 kids. We will see.Savannah wanted to get her face painted and chose to get a butterfly. McKinley decided on a giraffe. These 2 kids are the cutest and when they are together they have an ultimate blast. I hope this continues as the get bigger.
If there is a carousel around, we are there. Here is Savannah and daddy riding and having a good time. Who knows what Savannah is looking at?

As we were leaving the zoo, McKinley wanted to ride the train so the Vernon's chose that route, while the Semmlers hoofed it on foot. We were unable to take the stroller on the train. Now our stroller is a sit n stand stroller and as we were leaving Savannah was riding on the stand part while Austin was in the sitting part. Savannah was so exhausted that she was falling asleep standing up. I literally had to take her and place her in the seating part and hold Austin. Here is the picture of her sacked out and she ended up taking a good hour nap. McKinley on the otherhand, was raring to go and could not understand why Savannah was sleeping.

After leaving the zoo, we decided to head towards the Arch. The Onstar navigation people had no idea what the St Louis Arch was so we ended up having to locate it all on our own. It took a little longer to get there but we finally made it and somewhat safely. I am not sure how many curbs we curbed while on this trip, but we made it.

Here we are at the top of the arch and looking out the windows. Savannah did well with the gettign up there and looking out, but after about 5 minutes she was ready to head back down. The Vernon's decided to stay grounded because they were unsure how McKinly would do with heading to the top. I was a little nervous at first but decided to go anyway. The elevators were a little small, but nothing too bad. We survived.
Here is our family photo while at the top of the arch. I am sure glad we chose to go up and see. We all enjoyed and you can see that Austin really enjoyed it. Austin did not see a thing, he slept the whole entire trip to the arch. Apparently the zoo was too much for him.

After the zoo, we ended up getting lost once again. We were going to go to some Incredible Pizza Place where they have a pizza buffet and glow in the dark bowling and putt putt, but when we finally arrived they were officially closing. We were so disappointed. We ended up heading across the street to TGI Fridays. This is where McKinley will tell you that he went poopy in the potty for the first time. We ate dinner and headed back to the hotel to recooperate and see what the next day brings.

Friday before heading home we stopped at The Magic House (Children's Musuem.) Austin absolutely loved it here, as you can see by his expression. There were tons of kids running around to watch, millions of colors, and lot and lots to do.

While Lynn and I waited in line and bought lunch, Cary and Ricky took the kids outside and they played in this little water canal. Here is a picture of Savannah being a little lady while McKinley is driving the boat. She looks a little scared?

We ate lunch and then we had also purchased a special dessert surprise. We bought cupcakes that you got to decorate yourself. McKinley had his cupcake decorated and devoured while Savannah daintily decorated her cupcake.
Finally after decorating her cupcake, she decided to taste it and was quite pleased with herself.

We headed indoors to partake in all the activities. Savannah kept going back to this little ice cream parlor. She loved to scoop the ice cream, put it on the cone, and then hand it out. Here she is making some ice cream for some little girl. It was adorable. She loved it so much that I just had to purchse the item (minus the stand) in the gift store. To this day she still passes out ice cream to her daddy and I. I have gotten my money's worth.

At some part in the day, we decided to wait in this line to touch a ball and it had static and made your hand stand straight out. When we got to the front, for some reason, Savannah got scared and would not partake in it. Therefore, mommy had to do it and here is the picture. Don't you think I look beautiful? We ended the trip with the Magic House. We would be returning to Terre Haute from here. We had a great trip and glad we got to share our fun with Lynn, Cary, and of course McKinley. Definitely a place to go with kids. We were tired, hot, and just plain exhausted. We were ready to go and be home, especially mommy and daddy after the lovely car ride home. Austin decided he did not want to sit in his carseat and he was not giving up. We pulled over once and he was fine, but when placed back in the car it started all over again. He cried for at least 1 hour. You name it, we tried it. Eventually something worked and he cried himself to sleep, but not for long. Finally we were home and able to rest and recooperate.