Last week Monday our family drove to St. Louis for a post-Easter family vacation. We picked St. Louis because it lies inside a radius of drivable locations, but we were very pleasantly surprised at the plethora of family friendly activities. We packed a lot of activity into our week, which included visiting some very dear friends. It was a great trip. We came home with our cups filled up, rested and joyful to return to everyday life here at home.
Our first stop was the seminary campus. We started at CHI, and browsed the exhibits on Durer and Muhlenberg. Chris and I would have loved to read everything, but the kids were ready to run around after being in the car all morning.
Isn't she cute?
We walked around the campus feeling suspiciously Fort Wayneish. The campus was very beautiful, but I am so glad that my husband picked the other seminary.
They were doing some work on campus. Gus loved the diggers.
After the campus tour, we needed to stock up on groceries for the week, and because this was our first big trip with our new smartphones we simply typed "walmart" into the map and found a store only 7 minutes away. It is so futuristic! The creepy female voice in the navigation feature told us exactly how to drive from the seminary campus to the store. We already loved our smartphones before the trip, but we giggled in awe and adoration about how easy it was to get around the city. We could have found groceries without smartphones of course, but it was a luxury being able to depend on the creepy female voice to chauffeur us around all week. She saved us a bunch of time and headaches.
I struggled to find affordable housing in St. Louis. Because we have a larger-than-most family, many hotels require us to stay in a suite or book two rooms. The best rate I could find in the downtown area was $200 a night, further out in suburbia the rate was $140 or $150. Taxes and fees would have pushed the nightly rate up higher. I called around. My my friend Adriane gave me the best lead. Her apartment community has furnished guest apartments for a very reasonable fee. The apartments are meant for lessees waiting for their apartment to open up, but others are allowed to stay if there is availability. We didn't stay in her apartment community, but were referred to another in the area. We rented a three story, 2 bedroom town house for $90 a night (no taxes). It was perfect and saved our family lot of money. Housing was by far our biggest expense, but I'm glad that we stayed there. It was clean and comfortable. It was the perfect sanctuary from our busy mornings, giving us the ability to come back to a quiet place and spread out for a restful afternoon before another busy evening out.
Taco night!
Here is the messy kitchen. It is our (my?) mess. It is the only picture I took. I'm embarrassed, but I wanted to include it anyway. Don't judge me.
