St Louis for the Weekend

After spending a couple months getting our house cleaned up, organized, and put together, our sea shipment from Brasil arrived last week on Thursday. And our house once again turned into a disaster area. Given that we have plans for the next five weekends, the only rational and logical thing to do was stay home and work on the house.

Since I obviously don't do logical and rational (especially when I have been stuck inside with a 10-month old for two months), I got on hotwire and started searching for a cheap last minute trip somewhere. Anywhere. So long as it was warmer than Burlington. And cheap.

There were absolutely no great deals to be found on flights, so I had to limit myself to drivable locations. I ended up being able to book a room at the Crown Plaza in downtown St Louis for $54 per night. The weather channel said it would be sunny all weekend and a good 10 degrees warmer there than Burlington. So I did a little arm twisting to my more rational and logical husband. And we spent the weekend in St Louis.

We drove down after Eric got away from work on Friday and arrived in St Louis about 9:30. Our hotel was steps away from the Arch and the weather didn't disappoint. It wasn't exactly balmy, but sunny with highs in the 40's at least made it possible to spend a good chunk of our days outside and walking.

After sleeping in a bit Saturday morning, we spent the rest of the day walking through the park surrounding the Arch, venturing down to Union Station, checking out the 6-story Macy's, and just wandering around downtown.

Gabriela fell asleep in the Bjorn during our long walk to Union Station. And I think she would have stayed asleep for quite a while if it hadn't been for the guy at The Fudgery ringing a dinner bell and yelling at her to wake up so she didn't miss out on free fudge.

The change of scenery was good for all of us. I know I needed to get out of the house and play outside, but I think Gabs did too! After a rough last week, we were both in much better moods after some time outside on Saturday.

On the walk back to our hotel after supper Saturday night, we got to enjoy a beautiful moonrise at the Arch!

We checked out Sunday just before noon and drove over to Forest Park to spend some time at the St Louis Zoo.

Some of the animals weren't out, as they cannot handle the cold winters, but it was another beautiful day so we enjoyed strolling though and soaking up some sunshine.

It was a quick trip, but an enjoyable one. A family weekend where all we had to do was play was exactly what we all needed to shake the winter blues! Unfortunately, the unpacking/putting away fairies didn't stop by our house while we were gone and clean things up. So now we're dealing with that.