St Louis Day 1

I'm from St. Louis. I think it's one of the coolest cities ever. Since my parents moved from St. Louis to California a few years ago, we haven't had much of a reason to go back and visit. My brother and his family were planning to come to the Midwest for vacation this summer, so we decided to meet up with them in St. Louis to show our kids all the fun things we got to do growing up there. 

When we first got to St. Louis, we met up with some of my old friends for dinner.

We went to America's Incredible Pizza Company, a pizza buffet and arcade games type of place.

Our kids had a fun time together.

Connor loved this car ride. 

 And Mckay's favorite was the horse.

:)

Then we went back to the hotel, saw Neil's family, and got some rest for our big day of fun the following day. 

We started with the Gateway Arch. Oh how I missed being able to see this sight from the highway all the time. Indiana highways are mostly lined with corn.

 We took the tram ride up to the top of the Arch. There were 10 people in our group: 4 adults and 6 kids (ages 8 down to almost 1). They gave us the option of taking 2 trams cars (which have 5 seats each) or squishing into one car and having kids on laps.

Can you guess which one we chose?

These picture do not do justice to how small the tram cars actually are.

I'm certain we had more fun with everyone crammed in together. Plus, it was fun seeing the faces of people at the top of the Arch as the line of people kept coming out of our clown car tram.

Both boys thought it was pretty cool looking down from the Arch at the city.

 I loved watching them hang onto the window with their little bums hanging down.

Just like we did as little, short kids.

Connor didn't have enough patience for a family picture.

Notice how we are all wearing orange and/or striped shirts? Unintentional.

Next, we went to lunch at Fitz's. We were too busy eating delicious food and watching the root beer being bottled to take any pictures.

Our next stop was the Zoo. It's one of the top Zoos in the country, and it's free. It also happened to be a really hot day. All my energy was going toward keeping cool, so no pictures again.

In planning this trip we realized that we'd never been to Ted Drewe's Frozen Custard before. EVERYONE in St. Louis has been to Ted Drewe's. The hot weather gave us the perfect reason try it out. 

 It did not disappoint.

 Even the little kids liked it.

Connor was too tired to eat any, but we wanted him to feel included anyway.

Worn out from a long day, we went back to our hotel and got St. Louis Bread Company for dinner. It felt so nice to call it that instead of Panera Bread.

The kids were on the verge of mutiny if we didn't take them to the hotel pool at least once, so we finished our day with a quick swim.

Stay tuned for Day 2...