St Louis Zoo

On Saturday Aug 16th we decided to head to St Louis and take the kids to the Zoo. We also took Cody (nephew) and Travis's mom with us. We stayed in the downtown area and the kids LOVED the hotel. We went out on the street and took a short walk and found a place to eat dinner. After dinner we took the kids down to the hotel pool and swam for a little bit, everyone pretty much had the same idea as us though, so we didn't stay too long. It was really crowded.

The hotel room was a suite and had 2 rooms. 1 room had 2 queen beds and the front room had a pull out couch. My plan was to put the kids on the pull out and us and nana take the 2 beds...BUT since the kids couldn't get to sleep, Cody ended up in one of the beds, timmy fell asleep in our bed and then I transferred him to cody's bed and nana and elizabeth slept on the pull out. I don't know exactly what time it was but timmy ended up in bed with us and after what seemed like 2 long hours of his flipping and turning Travis and I finally just woke up. So at 6 am timmy was awake for the day.........

We finally all got around, went downstairs to the lobby and ate the "free" breakfast buffet. It was good and we didn't have to go in search of food.

We left the hotel and headed to the zoo. The kids were excited to get there. We got in and started at the Herpatarium. The snakes and lizards and other creepy crawlies.

At first Timmy was a little hesitant of the snakes and lizards, but then he found Orange Frogs! He really liked them and even needed a picture of them. We left there and headed to the Primate house. The kids were LOVING the monkey's. We had been telling the kids we were going to go visit their cousins! Timmy said No I want to visit my cousin the squirrel, which ran right in front of him when we walked into the zoo!

Timmy was even waving hi to all the monkey's. He would just watch them, I think he would have stayed there all day if we'd have let him.
After the monkey's we just started walking and seeing all the animals. We came to the Tigers and there was a momma tiger with 5 babies. They are 4 months old and were just having the best time playing, rolling etc. One cub even ran down into the water and just laid in it.

We eventually rode the train around the whole zoo and saw a lot of animals that was as well. There was a lot of stuff that we wanted to do, but just simply didn't have the time to do. The kids were getting tired and run down and after all timmy had been up since 6 am, so we finally left around 2pm.

Elizabeth did get to go to build a bear workshop while we were there and found a panda bear and we got timmy a MONKEY! They have carried their animals everywhere with them since leaving the zoo. Timmy even cuddles up to his monkey at night.

I want to take the kids back again, it really was an awesome zoo and we didn't get a chance to see the penguins, which I am told is the thing to see at the zoo...oh well next time.

Oh one last funny from the trip! When I got off work and was gathering clothes for the trip, I was getting timmy's stuff, since we were only going for 1 night we didn't need alot of stuff, and since Cody and Nana were also going we didn't have a lot of room in my car for a ton of stuff. So I was getting timmy's stuff and travis was helping elizabeth. She wanted to take her sleeping bag and I told her to be sure and get her bathing suit. So I stuff timmy's stuff down in the sleeping bag bag and head off to our room to get my stuff. Travis had his stuff laid out, I throw it all in a bag, we start loading the car, the kids wanted to take their pillows and we leave to go get nana and Cody. On Sunday morning we are getting ready and elizabeth didn't have any clean clothes! She got underware, socks, bathing suit and tennis shoes and nothing else packed in her bag...SO luckily the outfit she had on was still clean looking with no stains on the shirt! Note to self, ALWAYS check Elizabeth and Daddy's packing LOL!

Let's go on an adventure!

Last weekend the kids wanted to go on an adventure. So we took the kids to Ha Ha Tonka. What a great place to get lots of outdoor fun. We started off at the castle aka: Elizabeth's princess castle and then we went to the natural bridge and finally to the spring down below the castle. We did lots of walking and the kids were great about all of it. Never once did I have a kid wanting a free ride ;) The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too humid.

As we were driving down to the castle we were stopped in the road by 2 HUGE bucks crossing the road. They went on across and stopped on the hillside above us. We were able to snatch some good pictures of them.

This picture isn't the best, but it shows up the best.

The kids loved the castle and they were imagining what it looked like before it burned. They had all kinds of imaginative things. They showed us where they thought the "front" door was. We found one door which led into the basement and they decided that was the dungeon! LOL!

After spending lots of time here and walking all around it and looking off all the observation decks we ventured on down to the natural bridge. The kids thought it was pretty neat. Timmy at first was a little leary of it. He was afraid there were snakes. I told him not to worry that snakes didn't like natural bridges LOL! But he believed me.......

We didn't stay long at the bridge. So we went on over to the spring. We parked at the end of the spring and that is where the Lake starts. There were lots of boats floating around and lots of people swimming. The fish were even jumping out of the lake.

The walk was about a mile and a half. So it took the longest of all our walks. But it was a really beautiful walk. The spring they said was a cool 56 degree's year round and there was a nice fog off the water. There is even an island. There is also a huge rock that is balance on a cliff, but because of all the foliage you can't see it right now. I think this fall, maybe when the leaves are even changing we might go back again.

So after our adventure was over it was 5 pm and the kids were starving. SO off to the lake to find somewhere to eat. Hmmmm wonder where Travis might want to eat...Yep we stopped at Culver's. Travis thinks they have the BEST hamburgers. So that's where we always eat at the lake.

After getting the kids' bellies filled to the rim it was off to find some go carts to ride. We went down to the strip. Road around there. Got out did an arcade, which the kids LOVED and found the BEST lemonaid ever....travis's cousin man's the stand! We tried to go down below the dam to show the kids, but I guess because of all the flooding, it's closed off right now. We tried to show them from above, but you just can't really get the whole effect.

On the way out of the strip we stopped at a go cart track. Me and Elizabeth rode one and Daddy and Timmy road one and Cody had his own. We had fun. My cart kept back firing and was by far the SLOWEST. I had it gunned the whole time and Cody who was the last one out even passed me up.....

We went on down the road, headed back towards home and stopped at one other track. We rode them and afterwards found out they had a "Jr track" Timmy and Elizabeth were able to ride all by themselves! BEST $15 we have EVER spent!!! I have never laughed as hard as I did watching my kids race each other. Timmy is definatly my no fear kid! Elizabeth kept wrecking! It was definatly worth the money to watch them. Travis I think will even buy the next kid go cart he can find for them (worth the money of course!)

So that was pretty much our day. We had such a great time. And the kids loved every minute of it. I was suprised nobody fell asleep on the way home. It was 9 pm before we even got headed home. But they were pretty much out like a light once we all got home.

Here is the video of the 2 race car drivers!