So even though Labor Day was last week, how about I share some pics from our long weekend with you? Yes? Okay. We decided to go to St. Louis for the holiday weekend as a kind of mini getaway before we have kids and it’s a lot more difficult to get away together. Much thanks to Stephen’s parents for watching Bailey while we were gone. Fortunately she is loved greatly by both my and Stephen’s parents, and if they love our dog, we have no doubt they’ll love our baby even more. 🙂
Stephen scored a pretty good deal on a hotel for us on Priceline, and we stayed at the Hyatt Regency at the Arch.
We could see the arch from our room!
We ended up having TWO rooms at the hotel due to some unfortunate circumstances I won’t get into here, but our second room was a junior suite and super nice, so it worked out okay.
Before we checked into our hotel, we stopped by the St. Louis Zoo. Even though it took over an HOUR just to get to a place where we could park our car, we enjoyed our time there. We saw a very cute sea lion show:
We attempted to take a picture of ourselves without cutting out some portion of one of our heads. As always, we were somewhat successful.
We also saw these Wild Somali A*ses (I promise that really is their name, but I’m throwing in the asterisk so as not to steer perverts here), who were posed so oddly that we couldn’t resist taking a picture.
Saturday night we walked down to the nearest MetroLink station and went to Union Station, which just so happens to house the hotel where we stayed on our last trip in May 2008. I was also delighted to find that the Hogwarts Express sign was still there, so of course I had to take a picture. Check out the difference between me now and me then!
Erin circa May 2008
Erin circa Sept. 2010 (and pregnant, too!)
Our hotel had a Starbucks in it, so Stephen had his first taste of Starbucks! Neither of us drinks coffee, but I used to frequent Starbucks quite a bit for the white chocolate mochas and the frappuccinos. Stephen had decided before our trip that it was time he sampled something, so he tried the vanilla latte and thought it was okay but not great. I got a decaf nonfat Java Chip Frappuccino, which is delicious and which I used to have FAR too often in grad school (and you better believe I got the full fat variety back then), but he didn’t love that either. We went back on Monday morning, and he thoroughly enjoyed his hot chocolate (no coffee in that, haha) while I had my white chocolate mocha. Yum!
Sunday was the big event of our trip–seeing a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium! But before that, we had to make a stop by THE St. Louis landmark-the Arch. Stephen is quite dwarfed by it in this picture.
After some sightseeing in the wonderfully cool, breezy air, it was off to the Stadium, which was also within walking distance. I had been to the old stadium once before many years ago but didn’t care a lick about baseball at that time. I still don’t care a ton about baseball, but I love the way my husband loves the Cardinals, and I was excited to experience a live game with him. Plus, ballparks have great food! 🙂 We had seats behind third base, and we had a really good view of the whole field!
Fortunately for us, the Cardinals actually managed to win a game, which is a rarity these days. It was a really fun game, and I’m so glad we got to go.
For our last outing, we took the MetroLink once again out to the Delmar Loop area and had dinner at Pi Pizzeria. We ordered the thin crust with pepperoni and extra fresh mozzarella, and it was very different from other pizzas I’ve had but completely delicious. (Sorry, I didn’t take a picture!)
Monday we stopped by Stephen’s parents for a quick visit and lunch at Subway, and after a very brief visit with Stephen’s grandma, it was back to Jackson for us. It was a very quick trip, but I’m glad we were able to get away and spend some time together.
Now, I must know: what is the best trip you’ve ever been on?