It's been a pretty busy summer for us. For the first time since we moved from Los Angeles, I worked during the summer. I really loved working through the summer for several reasons. But above all else, I love that it gave the boys an opportunity to be independent.
The down side of working, meant less time with my boys. So when discussing what to do on the last days before school starts, we decided to hit the road. We only had 3 days to do this, since I had to be back at work early Monday morning, so we had a 5am wake up call. I struggled with insomnia all week, so that 5am wake up was pretty rough, but I did it. Not surprisingly, the kids jumped up and were ready to go in no time. They love weekend getaways!
St Louis is only a few hours away, and we had no traffic.
Our first stop was to visit the St Louis Zoo. Entrance to the zoo is free, but for $12 per person, you get tickets to the stingray exhibit, train, 3D motion simulator, and a few other things. If you plan on doing at least 3 things from their list of attractions with a charge, then get the $12 pass. We did, and it was worth it. If you are in doubt, speak to someone at the entrance. The employee I spoke to was pretty helpful.
Our first stop was the stingray exhibit. When we went on our Disney Cruise, we were able to get in the ocean and feed some stingrays. The kids got a kick out of it, so we thought we would give this exhibit a try.
We got to pet some stingrays, and a hammerhead shark.
There was someone dressed as a shark, who told us how we needed to put our hand in the water and be perfectly still. Once we did that, the stingrays and shark came right under our hands. The kids really enjoyed this.
After that, we headed over to the gorilla exhibit. That area was pretty packed with people, but I got a shot of one gorilla swinging around.
And some wandering peacocks.
The zoo is pretty big, but has an easy layout to follow. We walked from animal to animal.
We even made a stop at the 3D motion simulator. There was just a short wait, but it was starting to get pretty humid. Noah was melting.
The ride was fun, though. After that, we took a little lunch break. The food wasn't cheap. $48 for fast food. But it was tasty.
How humid was it, you ask? Even the animals were just wilting.
We decided to take the train to the other side of the zoo. Noah wanted to see the hyena's.
Ah. That's better.
Too hot for a bear to be outside.
And finally, a sleeping hyena!
We were pretty tired after that. Even though it was only in the mid 80's, it was extremely humid. That really took the energy out of us. So we headed back to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott. Ahhhh. At least, a bed and some a/c!
After a bit of rest, the boys decided they wanted to go for a swim. The pool was small, but there were only a couple of people in it.
Just floating around.
After swimming, Nik wanted to go to Applebee's for dinner. Reason why, he was thinking about his old teacher and para's at his former middle school. What a sweet kid!
Following dinner, we headed over to The Muny. I had purchased tickets for a performance of Grease.
We didn't have our beloved orchestra seats, but that's what happens when you buy tickets only 2 days before the show. The seats weren't bad though. And I paid $135 for all 4 tickets, which is what we would normally pay for one seat.
This was an outdoor venue. It's actually the oldest outdoor theater in the country. We had never been to an outdoor theater, so were very curious to see how things went.
Our review of Grease? It was pretty entertaining. Nik really seemed to love it. I think he appreciated the humor more. Noah also enjoyed it, but I have to say that the outdoor setting really distracted him. Even though the sound was great, it was hard for him not to be distracted by airplanes flying over, or some of the rude people who sat around us. And by rude, I mean people not controlling their children, people whipping out their ipads and cell phones, and holding them up to take pictures, people singing along with the cast, etc. If I had made more money for these seats, I probably would have been pretty angry. And I will say that if we ever do go to an outdoor theater again, it will definitely be cheap seats. No use paying top dollar with this type of behavior. I think people were just too relaxed in an outdoor venue, and totally forgot about proper theater etiquette.
Let me move on to the second day of the trip. On the second day, we went to City Museum, which I have already wrote about. Following the museum, we went back to the hotel so I could recover. Alex and the boys went swimming. Then we decided to end the day by going to the movies to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. One of my summer camp students raved about White Castle, and told me that I must visit one while in St Louis. So, we decided to see what they big deal was. There was one located about 10 minutes from the hotel. When we got there, we had an urge to just move on. I wish we would have listened to that urge.
When we walked inside, the place was totally empty, and we were hit with a smell that was most unpleasant. I have since found out that is the classic White Castle smell. Yuck! Noah kept asking what the smell was.
We order an assortment of white castle burgers, and Nik ordered some chicken wings.
Yuck! Nik was the only one who ate his food. He said it was fine. The rest of us were disgusted, and left our food alone.
Fortunately, the AMC had a full restaurant, and we were able to order a meal for Noah to eat.
And they handed out Ninja Turtle masks to AMC stubs members!
The kids enjoyed the movie, but there was a very annoying kid in the theater, or I should say annoying parent. A kid continued to scream for the first part of the movie. Why they didn't take him out, I have no idea. But thankfully, about 30 minutes later, the kid was removed.
The next day, we headed home. We had so much fun in St Louis. We will be back! Phantom of The Opera will be there in March, and there is a Comic Con in May. We will have to come back for at least one of those.
