Our trip to St. Louis

It was a great, but long trip. We left Mansfield around 6 am on the 5th of July, the plan was to stop half way and stay the night in Tulsa. Well when we got to Tulsa it was only about 11 in the afternoon, so we decided to keep on going to St. Louis. We got in around 630 Saturday night. The kids did great on the way up, monkey only cried twice and princess was pretty quiet the whole ride up. We stayed with my grandparents Saturday through Thursday, and didn't really have a schedule, we just did what we wanted to the first half of the week.

Sunday we went to downtown St. Louis and saw the Cardinals stadium and went to see the arch and the flooding of the Mississippi river. That afternoon we had a bar-b-que at my grandparents with my cousin and her family. princess and Joe played in the sprinkler for the afternoon, and then we ate dinner and went to visit Carter. Carter is my cousins son, who is five months old, and still in the nicu. He is a twin, and his brother Bryce came home after a short stay at the nicu. Carter has some stomach problems and has had many surgeries and a lot had to be done before he can come home. He will come home on a feeding tube and will remain there I think for the first year. He looked great and is doing so good! He will be coming home today actually! I know everyone is ready to get him home.

Monday we went out to my Aunt Tina & Uncle Tony's house and enjoyed the afternoon/evening there while the kids all played together. princess enjoyed being able to play with all the boys for the afternoon. Tuesday we went to the St. Louis zoo. That was fun, it is free to get in, and I think between ice cream and gifts for the kids we only spent 50 bucks. Not too bad for a whole days worth of fun! They had a nice dinosaur section. We have some video of it. monkey didn't really care too much for the zoo, he stayed awake the whole time and was not fussy, just no reaction pretty much. princess loved the butterfly house as we thought she would. All in all it was a fun day.

Wednesday we went out to the Butterfly house, it has about 1500 to 2000 butterflies that was a neat place! They were just flying all around you and were beautiful butterflies. monkey and abigail enjoyed that, monkey we found loves waterfalls, he sat a listened to each on in the butterfly house and at the zoo. Maybe because he has a rainforest toy in his bed which has a waterfall?!? Who knows. Wednesday evening was the best of the whole trip because we picked speed racer up! We met at Applebees for dinner and enjoyed a nice dinner/chat with David and Becky and their new son Jacob. It was nice to see and meet speed racer's baby brother. He and monkey did well together at dinner, they both pull hair, so we couldn't get them too close, but they both did great.

Thursday morning we headed to the airport to meet my mom and dad. After that we had lunch and headed to my great aunt idel's house. It was nice to talk with her and introduce the kids to her. The rest of the afternoon we spent at the hotel pool, then went to dinner at my grandparents. Friday we spent the morning looking for shoes for Abigail to wear Saturday night, hers had given her blisters the night before, so we needed to find something else. Then we had lunch at White Castle, and heading to my grandparents to pack and get ready to go to my Aunt and Uncle's house. Friday night we went to dinner at my dad's brothers house, most of my dad's family was there and the kids ran around and played and had a great time.

Saturday morning we headed to Iowa for the 50th wedding anniversary parties. We spent the afternoon at Fun City where we all played the video games and won tickets all afternoon (IT is like Chuck-E-Cheese) A lot of the kids and families were there for the afternoon while the guys and some of the other families went golfing. The Saturday evening was the dinner/dance. princess is a dance-a-holic! She loved it! We could barely keep her off of the dance floor. Leaving the party on the way home she wanted to know if she could dance more at the hotel...lol The kids went swimming that night when we got back to the hotel, and Michael (my nephew), monkey and I hung out in the hotel, well we slept! Sunday morning we ate breakfast and headed back towards St. Louis. We hung out and got stuff packed and ready to go and headed home. We left St. Louis around 215 and drove till about 945 and then stayed in a hotel until Monday morning around 6 am. We headed out and finished the trip home. We got home around 10 am.

It was a nice trip, monkey has three teeth cutting through right now, so that's not fun. the hubby, monkey and I all have some kind of cold/sinus thing going on, so we are pretty much miserable! Here are some videos and pictures from the week enjoy!

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