St Louis Vacation Day 1 ~ The Ups and Downs

Let's start with the down ... On Tuesday, while cleaning up the Suburban for the trip, Rick pulled his back out  ... BAD! He ended up laying on the bedroom floor, but I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance to get him back up. Thankfully he was able to get up and get some movement, but very little. I was also afraid he wasn't even going to be able to come to St. Louis with us, but with lots of miscellaneous drugs, he is here.

We arrived in St. Louis on Wednesday afternoon and settled into our hotel. We chose function over fashion on this trip, and are staying at Staybridge Suites. It is great for our family (Rick and I, two 15 year old boys, an 8 and 6 year old, and a dog). It has a living room, full kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It has a pool (very important!), free breakfast in the mornings, and during the week they have had free light dinner. It's been perfect for us!

After unpacking, we headed straight for the St. Louis Arch. The kids had been so excited to see it, and it didn't disappoint.

Dawson really enjoyed the Lewis and Clark exhibits. He studied it a lot this year.

We rode the elevator up to the top so that they could see the spectacular views.

Someone was a little nervous on the ride up.

The kids loooooooved this!

And then we went back to our super-functional and 5-star-to-us hotel to get some sleep because we were waking up extra early to go to the zoo the next morning.