St. Louis 2016

Now that school is out, we took the opportunity to go on our last family-of-three mini-vaca to St. Louis with our friends Kate, Ryan, and their babe Emma. We wanted to take Dayton to the zoo because he loves all animals in his books and has learned almost all of their names. We started talking about seeing the animals at the zoo and then little man never stopped. We planned our mini trip for the weekend that I got out of school. The hubs took Monday off and we planned to be gone from Saturday to Monday night.

We left Saturday morning and drove down to St. Louis. After one or two stops, we got there around three in the afternoon. We checked into our hotel and headed over to the Budweiser Brewery. The boys had wanted to take a tour, so we all went along for the ride tour. I'd never been on a brewery tour before, so we put the kiddos in strollers and learned all about Budweiser. The tour was pretty interesting, but Dayton was tired and very ready for dinner so most of my attention and energy were spent on entertaining a cranky two year old. Don't worry, we still had fun!

We ate dinner at a local brewery and distillery right down the way from Budweiser. It was delicious and the boys got to growlers to go and we headed back to our hotel to put the kiddos to sleep. We stayed at a Courtyard Marriott and our rooms just happened to be close to the courtyard, so we put the kiddos to bed and headed out to the courtyard to enjoy some snack and beer (minus me). It worked out perfectly. The courtyard had tables and chairs and couches and the nights were absolutely perfect. The weather could not have been better. All of us were more than happy to hang out outside while the babes slept.

On Sunday we all slept in, had breakfast and then headed out to the zoo! The St. Louis zoo is free and you can even bring in coolers with snacks and drinks. Amazing. Dayton absolutely loved the zoo. It was so cute! The first animal he got to see was a rhino and the look on his face was priceless. He couldn't believe that the animals that he was seeing from his books were actually real. He was so serious and then got the biggest grin on his face. He kept repeating the names of his animals and then saying how big they were. We had such a great day and were at the zoo for almost four hours.

After the zoo, we were all famished so we went back to the hotel to change and rest up a bit then headed out to dinner. My friend Sami had recommended a local pizza place called, Pi. It was amazing. If you ever go to St. Louis you have to go to Pi. It might be the best pizza I have ever had - and that was the genera consensus of everyone in the group. Go there. Trust me.

Monday morning we explored the stadium and downtown area around the arch. They were doing a lot of construction around the arch, so we were able to take pictures far in front of it, but not anywhere near it. Oh well, maybe next time! I have never been to St. Louis or seen the arch up close, so I was happy to get down there and see all the sights.

So long St. Louis! We had a great time seeing a few of the sights. We'll be back again soon.

P.S. - maybe next time I won't be 34 weeks pregnant. Whew! I feel like I did pretty good for being so far along, but boy did this mama get tired with all of the walking around! Thank goodness the weather was so great!