To amp up the excitement for the trip (and to hopefully gear up the boys to watch more than an inning of the Cardinals game), our theme week for the days before we left for St. Louis was baseball. I quite honestly didn't get around to doing nearly as much as I had planned, but the boys were still really good at both the games we attended.
There were two main activities we did for baseball week. The first was that I bought the boys their first pack of baseball cards. We opened them one morning and laid them all out on the floor. We talked about what team and position each player was, and Gavin immediately realized that although he didn't have any Cardinals players, Declan had a Yadier Molina card. So without any prompting from me, Gavin asked Declan "Hey Declan, do you want to make a trade?" Gav then wisely started with the cards he wasn't too interested in (Dec wasn't biting), so then he moved to the cards that had a sparkly background and he was able to make the trade. At both of the games we attended, Gavin would yell to Yadi "I have your card Yadier Molina!" whenever he came up to bat :)
The other activity we did is one I found on Pinterest. We tried to do water balloon baseball, where you put the water balloon on the tee and then hit it with the bat. Gavin loved doing this the few times it worked, but it was windy this day, and it was hard to get the balloon to stay on the tee. This was our first time playing with water balloons, and given that my kids don't really like getting wet, I didn't think I would need many water balloons, so I filled up about 10. Well, the kids decided that the most fun thing to do was take the balloon and instantly drop it on the ground, so those 10 balloons lasted about 10 seconds. So I spent the next half hour filling up the other 90 balloons in the bag while the kids stood right next to me asking over and over "are they ready yet? are they ready yet?" Ryan even took a little break from work to come out and let the kids pelt him with balloons (in an effort to show them that its ok to get wet). They had no problem soaking Ryan but they still wanted no part of getting wet themselves!
This definitely looks like Gavin is about to soak an unsuspecting Declan, but thankfully for me, that was not the case!
The one good picture I got of water balloon baseball. Gavin loved it (when it worked). Declan didn't try it (even though the kid loves everything else baseball related).
Declan throwing a water balloon at Mommy.
This was the kids' favorite activity: burst the balloon as soon as possible so that Mommy can't keep up with demand!
Water balloon selfie! The kids love taking selfies with me, so even though I am very anti-selfie, I do it for them!
And these begin our St. Louis vacation pics. This is Gavin climbing on a jungle gym at a playground in a small town off of I-55. We stumbled on it by accident last year, and decided to return for lunch/play break this year. The kids did a great job on the long car ride there and back!
I've been weaning Gavin off the baby swings, but I let him get in this time. My mistake! The kids spent 10 minutes making me do blast off underdogs while Ryan drove to the gas station and back for supplies.
I've managed to get the kids into reading in the car, so that watching DVDs isn't the only thing they're doing on a long trip (also, this usually gets Dec to fall asleep for a nap).
We've arrived! Here were are in our hotel room with windmill Grandma and Grandpa. Whenever we travel now, we try to get a suite room (one with a separate living area and bedroom so that Ryan and I can sleep separately from the kids). When Dec walked in, he looked around, looked out the window at downtown St. Louis and exclaimed "You guys got the total package!"
One of the few pics we were able to get of Gav and Dec with their cousin Eliana. With three kids under 5, its pretty impossible to get them to sit still! This was in our hotel lobby, which had a fountain and a "river" with statues of Lewis and Clark and some animals. Both were a big hit with the kids, which kept them entertained while we ate (free breakfast and dinner with booze!)
Silly selfie with Dec at the Friday night game against the Phillies.
Mommy and her little Cardinal fans.
Daddy and the boys.
Just as the game was about to start, out came the tarp. Luckily it was a very short rain delay and we were back on track soon. This is the family pic we took while waiting out the rain.
The boys tried to hold Eliana in place for a pic but there is no holding that girl down!
I just love Gavin's facial expression here.
The good thing about the brief rain storm was that it cooled it down from the balmy 88 degrees it was at game start! Here Gavin is pointing to the sky because he thought there would be fireworks (he doesn't quite understand yet that there are only fireworks for home runs, not just base hits).
Gavin sat with Daddy a lot, learning more about the game of baseball.
Trying to get a t-shirt from the Fredbird girls.
The next day we headed to the St. Louis Zoo. This was our first trip to this zoo, and I'm glad we went. This zoo is amazing, and makes Brookfield look like a dump. We got there early enough to get into the Children's Zoo for free. Here Gav is brushing a goat.
Dec petting a guinea pig. He loved it!
The Children's Zoo was really cool, with lots of interactive things to do, and exhibit where you crawl/climb into the habitat with the animals. Here Dec is in a treehouse that had viewpoints of small lizards, bugs and little rainforest animals. He is working the pulley, which both he and Gavin loved.
Gav asked me to take a picture with "Llama Llama Red Pajama" (disclaimer: I think it's actually an alpaca!)
Dec climbing up to one of the two slides that kids can go down that actually goes through the water that the otters are swimming in! I was jealous that I was too big to go down myself!
If you can't tell what you're looking at here, its a hippo's face surrounded by fish and another hippo's butt. I've never gotten such an up close look at a hippo, it was really cool.
I LOVE this picture because Gavin's expression is priceless. This kid LOVES elephants, and none of the zoos around us have any elephants. So the whole week beforehand Gavin was all excited to go see elephants. Well, we get to the zoo and Gav was just in a bad mood (I'll chalk it up to tired from the night game the night before and too much walking at the zoo). So when we got to the elephant exhibit, instead of being excited, he gave me this face. I imagine I will see this face a lot in the teen years!
Gav cheered up a little when we got to see two baby elephants and their mamas. The one mama was giving herself and the babies a dirt bath, and Gavin loved that. Gav told us that the bigger baby elephant was him, the small baby was Dec, and I was the mama. The other mama elephant was daddy :)
After the elephants, we decided to check out the sea lion show. This is the boys' expressions while watching the show. They both loved it (I did too, it was well done).
Robbie the sea lion showing off one of his many tricks. He even walked up into the audience! The best part of this show though was sitting for a half hour and the giant fans cooling us off (St. Louis is just so darn hot and humid in the summer!)
Gav really loves stingrays, and they had a Stingray Touch exhibit, so Gav and I did it. Gavin squealed in delight each time he touched one, and would then tell me how slimy they are. I had a lot of fun doing this with Gav.
Dec took a little catnap at the zoo. Both boys were clearly tired from the day before, so after this we checked out the monkeys (another great exhibit but no pics) and then we headed back to the hotel for lunch and a major nap.
Gav and Dec both love the Arch. As we are driving down to St. Louis, we always tell the boys when we're getting close enough to see the Arch so they can look for it. It's so cute when they finally catch sight of it. The boys were also really excited about going up to touch the Arch, so here is Gav touching it for the first time this trip.
Dec is amazed at how big the Arch is when you're up close!
The pics go a little out of order here because we took some pics on my phone and some on the camera. It's a pain in the booty to move these pics around on blogger, so I'm just not gonna :) This is Gavin showing off his brand new Cardinals hat. Those of you that know Gavin well know that he doesn't like change, so I was surprised that he wanted a new hat, but he kept talking during our whole trip about how he needed to buy a new hat, so we took some time before Sunday's game to pick one out. I like his choice! Mommy kept the old hat because it just has too much sentimental value for me to part with it.
Such a good pic of Dec and Grandpa. Grandpa was nice enough to let Dec take a little siesta on his lap in the 90 degree heat.
Gav with Busch Stadium in the background. The boys watched all 9 innings of the game on Sunday (a first!!) and we were rewarded with a Cardinals win and fireworks!
Before we left on Monday, we went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. We went here last year simply because we had free tix, and we realized how awesome it is, so I really wanted to get back this year. Here is Dec enjoying the splash pad in the Children's Garden, a really cool part of the Botanical Gardens that basically a giant playground filled with caves, treehouses, forts, rivers, bridges, etc.
These lily pads shoot water at random, and Dec giggled his deep little guffaw each time the spout went off. He was timid at first but ended up getting soaked.
The children's garden is huge with lots of places to get lost, so Ryan and I had to divide and conquer with the kids. I was with Dec, so this is the only picture I got of Gavin, serving up an apple to Daddy in the country store.
Dec experimenting with locks and dams in the river.
Dec and I went up and down this bridge many times, a great work out for Mommy!
Another one of Declan's favorite bridges.
Another favorite at the garden, feeding the fish in the Koi Pond. These fish are huge!!
The boys loved feeding the fish (and the occasional duck that could get to the food first).
View from above.
Back to the arch pics that I was too lazy to move. Here's our annual family Arch picture, I think we look pretty good!
Grandpa and the boys at the Arch.
Daddy always does a good job of taking the artsy Arch pics.
Unfortunately Grandma and I seemed to have stepped into this pic unknowingly. Don't worry Grandma, I'll be sure to crop out us out of this pic in Dec's third year book :)
The vendor we bought Gavin's new hat from gave us the hot tip that Fredbird would be available for pictures in the first and second inning. We went at the beginning of the first and there was no line! Last year we met Fredbird during Star Wars day, and Gavin kept saying he was dressed like a wizard (jedi). Declan was much more willing to go up to Fredbird this year!
I wasn't planning on staying in the picture but Dec didn't want me to leave.
Busch Stadium is such a family friendly place, it makes taking your kids to the game much easier. This is the toddler play area they have, and our kids love it. Gavin just squeaked in this year (the height limit is 42 inches and Gav is 43, but for whatever reason, the "bouncer" didn't measure him, even though the measured kids that looked shorter!) We've already started prepping Gavin that he won't be able to play in here next year! It was such a great family vacation, and we're already looking forward to next year's trip!
