Meet Me In St. Louis
We took a mini-vacation over the weekend to St. Louis. It was fun and exhausting. I think it was good preparation for our Disney trip though. We learned a few lessons on traveling with a little one.
First of all, we packed about 18 bags for our one night trip and decided we will need a bigger car when we have another baby. Ok, ok, maybe not until we have two more babies...but still! I took lots of things "just in case."
Josh, Hannah, & I packed up the car and headed for the Zoo first. St. Louis has a great Zoo, and the best part is that it is free! Josh took me to St. Louis for the day when we got engaged, and that was the last time we had been to the zoo there. It was fun taking Hannah around to see all of the animals. I'm sure this is an activity that will keep getting more fun as she gets older, but she was definitely interested in watching the different animals.
After the Zoo, we headed to Ted Drewes Custard, which is a famous "ice cream" place down there. This is somewhere we had been meaning to go for years. They are famous for their "concretes." Mine was really good, but Hannah ate a lot of it :)
That evening, we met Jordan & Courtney for dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. I really like this restaurant. The architecture and design is just beautiful. The food isn't bad either. Unfortunately, by this point, it was past Hannah's bedtime, and she had barely napped in the car, so she was rather restless and it wasn't an extremely enjoyable dinner. The food was good, but Hannah was ready to go to bed, so we headed back to the hotel.
The main reason we were in St. Louis was for the kickoff of the Illini football season. We were set to stay on the same floor as the players, but when they saw that we had a baby, they said they would move us to the next floor so they wouldn't keep her up. I figured that was their nice way of saying so she wouldn't keep them up. Josh was glad they moved us. We could just imagine Juice being interviewed after the game saying that he didn't play well because a baby kept him up all night in the hotel. Well, as it turns out, we were on the floor with Juice and most of the players after all, so I guess they got mixed up.
Hannah did ok sleeping in the hotel, but not great. Several times, people in the hallway woke her up. I was ready to go yell at them. She also got up at 5 am! Ahh!!! Luckily, our hotel room was very spacious, so she ran around until 8:30 and then we met everyone for breakfast. After that, Josh & I managed to get her to take a small nap in the hotel while Josh's mom and Courtney went shopping for fall clothes for Hannah. Then, we went down to the lobby to watch the players load up on the bus to go to the game.
Once the players were gone, we headed out for the big game. I LOVE the start of a new football season. There is so much anticipation and hope for what the new season will bring. I love to cheer on the team as they run out of the locker room to take the field for the first time. My heart was so full of pride, and I was confident that we could win this one. We play Missouri every year for our season opener, and they win more often than not. However, we were favored to win this year. We were so excited! Unfortunatley, that hope was crushed rather quickly by our poor, unemotional play. Some of our key players had injuries early on, and we were very dissapointed. The score was still semi-close at half time, but they demolished us in the second half. Hannah enjoyed the first half. She watched the dancers and clapped when the crowd clapped. Funny enough though, the girl who was woken up by every little sound in the hotel, totally crashed at the game where it was so loud you couldn't hear the person next to you! She slept through a majority of the second half. We left pretty much as soon as she woke up because we were getting killed.
The drive back was long and I was TIRED. We made two long stops, including one at Wal-Mart to let Hannah run around because she was sick of her carseat. Then, she and I both fell asleep in the car, but Josh had to wake me up because I was apparently snoring so loud he thought I was going to wake up Hannah. Oops!
All in all, it was a fun trip, and we learned some important lessons. I just hope our football season doesn't continue as poorly as it began...
We took a mini-vacation over the weekend to St. Louis. It was fun and exhausting. I think it was good preparation for our Disney trip though. We learned a few lessons on traveling with a little one.
First of all, we packed about 18 bags for our one night trip and decided we will need a bigger car when we have another baby. Ok, ok, maybe not until we have two more babies...but still! I took lots of things "just in case."
Josh, Hannah, & I packed up the car and headed for the Zoo first. St. Louis has a great Zoo, and the best part is that it is free! Josh took me to St. Louis for the day when we got engaged, and that was the last time we had been to the zoo there. It was fun taking Hannah around to see all of the animals. I'm sure this is an activity that will keep getting more fun as she gets older, but she was definitely interested in watching the different animals.
After the Zoo, we headed to Ted Drewes Custard, which is a famous "ice cream" place down there. This is somewhere we had been meaning to go for years. They are famous for their "concretes." Mine was really good, but Hannah ate a lot of it :)
That evening, we met Jordan & Courtney for dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. I really like this restaurant. The architecture and design is just beautiful. The food isn't bad either. Unfortunately, by this point, it was past Hannah's bedtime, and she had barely napped in the car, so she was rather restless and it wasn't an extremely enjoyable dinner. The food was good, but Hannah was ready to go to bed, so we headed back to the hotel.
The main reason we were in St. Louis was for the kickoff of the Illini football season. We were set to stay on the same floor as the players, but when they saw that we had a baby, they said they would move us to the next floor so they wouldn't keep her up. I figured that was their nice way of saying so she wouldn't keep them up. Josh was glad they moved us. We could just imagine Juice being interviewed after the game saying that he didn't play well because a baby kept him up all night in the hotel. Well, as it turns out, we were on the floor with Juice and most of the players after all, so I guess they got mixed up.
Hannah did ok sleeping in the hotel, but not great. Several times, people in the hallway woke her up. I was ready to go yell at them. She also got up at 5 am! Ahh!!! Luckily, our hotel room was very spacious, so she ran around until 8:30 and then we met everyone for breakfast. After that, Josh & I managed to get her to take a small nap in the hotel while Josh's mom and Courtney went shopping for fall clothes for Hannah. Then, we went down to the lobby to watch the players load up on the bus to go to the game.
Once the players were gone, we headed out for the big game. I LOVE the start of a new football season. There is so much anticipation and hope for what the new season will bring. I love to cheer on the team as they run out of the locker room to take the field for the first time. My heart was so full of pride, and I was confident that we could win this one. We play Missouri every year for our season opener, and they win more often than not. However, we were favored to win this year. We were so excited! Unfortunatley, that hope was crushed rather quickly by our poor, unemotional play. Some of our key players had injuries early on, and we were very dissapointed. The score was still semi-close at half time, but they demolished us in the second half. Hannah enjoyed the first half. She watched the dancers and clapped when the crowd clapped. Funny enough though, the girl who was woken up by every little sound in the hotel, totally crashed at the game where it was so loud you couldn't hear the person next to you! She slept through a majority of the second half. We left pretty much as soon as she woke up because we were getting killed.
The drive back was long and I was TIRED. We made two long stops, including one at Wal-Mart to let Hannah run around because she was sick of her carseat. Then, she and I both fell asleep in the car, but Josh had to wake me up because I was apparently snoring so loud he thought I was going to wake up Hannah. Oops!
All in all, it was a fun trip, and we learned some important lessons. I just hope our football season doesn't continue as poorly as it began...
1 comment:
Yeah for a fun trip! Sorry for the disappointing loss. (I won't point out that we were enjoying a Hawkeye victory b/c it could have easily gone the other way...)
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