St. Louis trip!

Earlier this year, we bought some St. Louis Cardinal tickets at an auction. The date was open-ended, just had to be a Monday-Thursday game. Since I'm off on Fridays and it was easiest for hubby to do that as well, we decided on a Thursday game, and ended up going on the 10th!

Cooper is in the terrible twos so we debated whether to take him, but ultimately decided to do so. We figured that we had already been on a vacation earlier this year, so we should take him, and that we could make a little trip out of it and go to the Zoo, Grant's Farm, or some other fun stuff like that!

I actually had some comp time from working a golf tournament so was able to take off the full Thursday, which enabled me to get our packing and such done. Since I had to pick up hubs from work, we decided to just get straight on the road then! It had been a hectic morning and I didn't have time to whip up any lunch for C and I, nor did J pack his, so our first stop was Burger King!

Traffic was awesome and we had a good, quick trip to St. Louis. I had booked our rooms via Hotwire and we ended up staying at the Sheraton - super nice hotel! Once we got checked in, we explored a bit before freshening up for the game!



I let J pick what we had for dinner and he chose Hooters. Ha! Of course, my son would get his white jersey dirty within 2.5 seconds of his food being served. Then it was time to head to the game - which was actually Cooper's first (we did take him to a miner league game last year, however.)

We only had two seats, but realized quickly we should have purchased three. Whoops. Thankfully, we were surrounded by tons of people with kids or who liked kids (including our college "friend" Sara, who sat behind us and is studying to be a preschool teacher and loved playing with Cooper. Plus mama packed plenty of snacks :)

The game? Eh. It was horrible. We lost 9 to 1. Ouch. Anyhow, once it was over, we trekked back to the hotel (about .75 miles away) and settled in for the night. Our room was a suite, so we were able to have Cooper in the pullout couch!

The next morning was so leisurely! The hotel comped us breakfast, so we headed down. Ugh. NOT my best friend, especially since I already said I wanted to have Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I ended up with a bagel and some fruit. The boys had waffles. Wahhhh.

Then we headed up to the room to get changed for the pool. That made it worth having a healthy breakfast - ha! Once done in the pool, we went back to our room to shower and pack before checking out.

Within about five minutes of being on the road, Cooper zonked out. We had decided to visit Grant's Farm that day. I realized I was a bit hungry, so we figured we would pull over for some Subway (cheap and healthy!) to let him nap a bit longer.

If you are ever in the St. Louis area, you MUST try out Grant's Farm. You pay for parking, but admission is FREE! You get to walk through the famous Budweiser Clydesdale stables, then a tram takes you on a tour before dropping you off in another area. There is a carousel, stations to feed/see animals, animal shows, a Biergarten and more. AB even as a hospitality area where you get 2 free drinks (that alone was worth the $12 parking fee!) Cooper had a blast and really loved it. At the end there is a general store with pretty reasonable prices, and also a lake where you can paddle boat. We planned to paddle boat, but they would only let 2 people in each one (and Cooper was considered a person) so we chose not to, since we wanted to do it as a family.

 

 

 

After Grant's Farm, we headed to Chesterfield, and went to a running store. We were fitted for shoes/insoles, and it was pretty interesting! I learned that I overpronate so need a specific shoe for that - who knew? Then it was time for Cheesecake Factory!



It was a gorgeous day and as we drove up we noticed a lot of people sitting outside, so we were thrilled there was no waiting to be seated there. We had a yummy meal, then hit the road.

We had a great trip and I can't wait to take Cooper back!


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