Monday, June 29
Our last day. How did the month go so fast. For me it literally feels like I was making my lists and checking them and packing and running to Meijers 10 times a day making sure we had every last thing we might possibly need like there isnt another store in the country. Which there is not another store in the country, that we found anyway, that compares with Meijers. Maybe its just the familiar, who knows. But it is clean, reasonably priced and you can find EVERYTHING there. Okay enough about Meijers.
We got up, and left our last comfy hotel room. The kids wanted to go up in the St Louis Arch, and Cece needed to get her passport book (for national monuments and parks) stamped. So we headed down that way, but because there is another home baseball series in town the downtown was busy and lots of people were also wanting to ride to the top of St Loiy! And there were no parking spots to be had. After we paid $4 for a parking spot in a full lot, Ken was getting edgy. So Ken sent us in and he was going to find a parking spot. I really knowing all along he was ditching us to read the paper. Gotta love him:D! So he found a nice shady spot to read the paper, and I headed into the maximum security under ground with our kiddos. We had to wait 1 hour to get our pod ride to the top. We were psyched. They asked several times along the path before actually getting into the "elevator". "Are you claustrophobic" I was like jeese, its just an elevator. Well no its a tight little pod thing that is completely closed in and you sit in a circle with your knees all touching. Then you get out into a triangle shaped room about 25 feet long with oh 100 other people. Uh yeah if you didn't know you where claustrophobic you would find out reeeeeeeeeal fast on that trip. The views where amazing, however. The kids loved it and said it was worth the wait. Noah decided that you could actually jump off the top of the arch into the river like the character did in the book he is reading, but we decided that you most likely would die. After 10 minutes of pictures and peeking out tiny windows and trying to spot Daddy from the top of the Arch we headed down, our last hurrah, the last big sight of our trip. My hear sank a bit. It was all so much fun, every bit of it, the good and the bad. Family time is the Berries, the longer you hang together the sweeter it gets!
We had to split up to get down or wait 10 more minutes, so we split up. Luke, Ainslie and I went with strangers and Noah and Cece went together with strangers. I got off first and watched nervously for my kids to find me, like someone is going to abduct them from the pod of the St Lois arch, crazy tired mom thoughts, anyway here comes Cece with crumbs all over her face and a big smile. "I got a snack from a lady" she says. "The mom lady says that when shes bored or nervous she eats so she pulled out a bag of mini cookies and asked me if I wanted one" she continues. I look at Noah, he shrugs. I'm like you let your little sister eat food from a complete stranger coming down on the pod??? And of course he said no, cause you know you should never take food from a complete stranger on a pod! Right?! Oh we got a good laugh off that one anyway. Cece always bags a snack somehow, I cant believe she didn't ask her for a drink and then a piece of gum. To be 6 again.
So once we are out from under the ground we call our chauffeur who has been waiting patiently for us. Off we go to find lunch. The funny thing is we eat lunch at a Cracker Barrel the same place we started our culinary adventure. At the beginning we made bets on how many times we would eat at the "Crack" Someone said eleven, but now I cant find my note I made with all our guesses. I said 4, so I won. Thankfully. From there it was put the pedal to the metal. We stopped once to go potty and get a caffeine/treat fix at Mc'y D's.
10pm we pulled in the drive way. Stacy our house sitter greeted us,as did our much missed hairball Jack. I am not sure who was more excited us or him. Lots of barking and squeals.
Home sweet home.........
