Yes....Friday finally arrived & it's time for our mini-vacay to begin!
I'd had a very busy, very stressful week at work, complete with every idiotic question/scenario possible, and I was more than ready to have this week OVER WITH!
My colleagues and I had already planned a Friday night bash at a local Mexican restaurant (complete with mega-margaritas....the BEST in town...maybe in the state!). Dan & the girls joined us for a bit, then Emilee & Kalia headed home to get some rest before our trip (Dan had worked the night before & hadn't gotten much sleep that day...Amanda stayed & "partied" with me). We met at 5:30 and finally left the restaurant around 8:30. Of course we only made it to the parking lot, where we continued talking til around 10:15 or so. We officially called it a night and headed home. I, in typical Brandi-fashion, had left all our packing till the last second, so by the time I got all that together, took a shower & crawled into bed it was around 12:30. I awoke around 4:30, apparently ready to start my day, because I had trouble getting back to sleep. I think I ended up getting around 4 1/2 to 5 hours that night. EEEKKK!
My sister & her family arrived bright & early Saturday morning, ready to start the day. We had plans to visit the St. Louis City Museum & Aquarium first, before heading to our hotel & checking in.
The Museum was AWESOME!!! The kids had an absolute blast climbing on everything & running thru tunnels. Most of the activities were over Kalia's skill level, but we did find a toddler area about halfway thru the day where she was able to play in a ball pit, play with building blocks, etc... The activities were perfect for the other kids though (ages 3-12). They did some arts/crafts (painting & clay art), climbed thru a whale's belly, slid down a conveyor belt, rode a 2 story slide, played in a treehouse....and this was all before lunch! After lunch we headed back upstairs to check out the bank vault, ran on a giant hamster wheel and saw lots of fascinating architecture.
We also visited the aquarium where we played with sting rays, saw lots of sharks, snakes, HUGE turtles & tortoises, watched turtle races (where my niece & nephew actually picked the winning turtle & won certificates to the gift shop) and crawled thru an underwater tunnel with sharks swimming all around you.
We also visited the aquarium where we played with sting rays, saw lots of sharks, snakes, HUGE turtles & tortoises, watched turtle races (where my niece & nephew actually picked the winning turtle & won certificates to the gift shop) and crawled thru an underwater tunnel with sharks swimming all around you.
To say we were all pooped when we left was a HUGE understatement. But I think every one of us had a huge smile on our faces. What a fun, fun place! We'll definitely be going back!
From there we jumped in our vehicles, grabbed the directions we'd printed off the internet & set out to find our hotel. One funny....apparently Yahoo maps & MapQuest produce totally different directions from one place to another. My sister was convinced we were going to get lost, but we made it safe & sound.
Our hotel was VERY NICE & reasonably priced. Everyone had unlimited soda & popcorn, and each adult got 3 free drinks & snacks for a couple hours. The pool was an indoor/outdoor pool and the girls (and us adults) had fun swimming under the "wall". The breakfast the following morning was DELICIOUS (scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits & gravy, donuts, waffles...you name it!) The best part....the a/c in our room wasn't working, and there wasn't another room just like ours available, so we ended up getting BOTH rooms free. Yep....not just ours, but since I had booked Tina's for her, she got hers free as well! We got all this for FREE!!!!
Our mini-vacay was starting out just perfect! Next it's all about Grant's Farm & the Magic House.
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