St. Louis

We recently spent fall break in St. Louis visiting family and friends. It was such a good time and we packed so much in. I guess I will give a quick run down of everything we did. We arrived and headed off to meet Cassie, Sean, and Luke at Imo's Pizza. The next day we hung out with Cassie and Sean all day-- I can tell you Jack absolutely LOVED it! First we went to the Science Center - this place is free by the way- and Jack had a great time playing with all the hands on activities, so did all the adults. In the picture above you will see that we put Jack inside the tornado simulator. Cassie was a little jealous and ended up getting in too. We had so much fun that daddy was sad when we had to leave. Then it was off to lunch at Ameghetti's Deli (it was delicious!) Jack, however, was not in the best of spirits so we ended up going back to the Hanks for play time with the singing frog. They had this frog that sang and after being terrified of it that morning Jack warmed up to it and couldn't get enough. We had a little time before dinner so we went to Tower Grove Park. Pete was very happy to go because it reminded him of his childhood. (In case I hadn't mentioned it-- Pete grew up in St. Louis). Pete also drove us around his old stomping grounds. We got to see where he grew up and went to school.

The next morning we went to Grant's Farm - this place is also free. This is the historical home of Ulysses S. Grant and is owned and run by Anheuser-Busch. It is a great place for young kids. They have the historic house(s) of Grant, the clydesdale stables, and a petting zoo- this is where Jack was able to feed the goats. We were so moved by the civic philanthropy we have decided to buy more Busch beer. After this stop we headed off to Best Steakhouse for lunch. Granny, Danny, and Jon came to town so we had lunch with everyone. Apparently Cassie picked this place-- we all thought Sean did. Cassie wasn't a big meat person a couple years ago, so this is a big step that shows the heavy influence of one Sean. :) After that stop we said bye-bye to Sean and hello to the Magic House. They have a great 1-6 yr. old area, and we spent an hour and a half there and could have easily spent more time had it not been for our desire to see the whole thing before Jack ran out of steam. The picture with Jack and Granny playing in the water is from our time at the Magic House. After this we went to dinner at Joanie's Pizza. Yes we had pizza two of our 4 days in St. Louis, however, it was all good, and they had two very different tastes.

Unfortunately, Granny and gang had to leave early Monday morning, and Cassie had to go back to work so we were on our own. The first thing we did was drive to Wash U and check out the campus. Pete wanted to scope out the math department. It is a very beautiful campus. Then we drove to the zoo- this place also free. Jack LOVED the zoo. Jack loves animals, at home we spend a lot of time looking at his animal books. Lately, he has been interested in rhinos and hippos so we took a picture of him by the rhino. After walking all over the zoo for at least 2 maybe closer to 3 hours we were all tired and grumpy-at least I was- so we put a hold on all our St. Louisy activities. We just sort of drove around and picked neighborhoods we could live in if our path ever takes us to St. Louis in a more permanent situation. Then back to Karen and Dan's place where Pete and I spent the afternoon playing with the Wii. We have never played Wii before so it took some of us--ahem-- a bit to learn how to tame our movements so as not to knock dust from the ceiling. :p Then we finished our night off by eating fast food with Luke and Karen.

That was our trip-- we had so much fun!! We really want to thank Dan and Karen for their extreme hospitality!! We had so much fun playing Wii bowling that we thought we could actually bowl, and attempted to do so today on campus-- it was not a success. So just for everyone out there we want to say that success on a game does not translate to success in real life.