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Blog, Family, st. louis, vacation

Explore St. Louis


Hi there! Long time, no see! It’s been over a year since my last blog post. When I logged back on to start typing up this blog post, there were so many new updates to WordPress- I had to completely relearn how to use it. Even though it’s been a learning curve, I am really enjoying the updates. It actually has me considering getting back into blogging a bit.

Anyway, for now I’m sharing about our recent Staycation we had in St. Louis. Full disclosure- We partnered with Explore St. Louis for this staycation. Though it was not a sponsored trip (I did not get paid to share about our staycation,) we were hosted- which just means that we did not pay for it. We are so very grateful for this opportunity! My whole family had the best time!

Day 1

We were very excited to be staying downtown in the Hyatt Regency. We had three adjoining rooms. The hotel itself was beautiful and such a great place to stay. However, the view was definitely the highlight. We had the perfect view of the Arch right out our window. We enjoyed spending time in our rooms in our downtime. I actually wish we would have had more time to just hang out and relax in our rooms!

I mean, how amazing is this? Such a beautiful view! I have a full room tour on my Instagram. You can see the videos on my “Day 1 Staycation” Story Highlights.

City Museum

After getting checked in, we headed over to the City Museum. If you’ve ever asked me for things to do in St. Louis, there’s a good chance that I recommended the City Museum to you. These first sets of pictures below are what you see as you enter the museum. There are so many areas to explore. Tunnels going through the ceiling, under the floor, and everywhere in between. With the Covid restrictions, there are areas that are blocked off right now, but we still found plenty of areas to explore.

There are multiple floors in the museum as well as an outdoor area and more on the rooftop (not sure if it’s open right now.) We tried to go outside but the door we usually use to go out there was locked. So we didn’t make it outside. It was also around 90 degrees that day so I didn’t really try very hard haha. But we did see people playing on the outdoor structures so I would assume some of that area is actually open.

We ended our evening back at the hotel. We attempted to eat dinner at Brewhouse (located inside the hotel.) By the time we got down there, we realized the kids were way too exhausted to sit still in a restaurant so we ordered it as carryout and took it back to our room. Definitely the right decision! Delicious food, eaten in front of hotel tvs- because… I mean, what a luxury, right?

Day 2

Union Station Aquarium

Day 2 started at Union Station. It was our first time visiting since all of the new additions. We went to the Aquarium first. Because we were on a schedule, we only had about an hour here. I do wish we had another hour or so. Our kids love to stop at each station and hear the workers share about the creatures. There were a couple of areas for kids to color/create art work. But we just didn’t have time for them to stop for that.

It is a smaller Aquarium. But we really enjoyed our time there. They loved petting stingrays, seeing the very rare blue lobster, getting “kisses” from the fish, and seeing the sharks. We all hope to go back again to see everything at a more leisurely pace (and hopefully see the sloth next time around!)

St. Louis Wheel

Union Station also has other things to do, including The Wheel, a carousel, a rope course, and mini golf. We did the carousel and The Wheel. I have to be honest, up until the moment we got on the Ferris wheel, I had firmly stated that I would not be getting on it (I’m slightly terrified of ferris wheels.) But I did it for my kids. Kai didn’t want to ride so I was going to stay with him. But no one wanted to go without me. So Don was the lucky one to stay on the ground with Kai. I will say this was a better experience than any other ferris wheel I’ve been on. It’s enclosed with air conditioning and music. The kids absolutely loved it! I tolerated it haha. But I got the cutest video/picture of Evangeline and Primrose comforting each other since it was so “scary.” (Spoiler alert- they weren’t actually scared haha)

Soda Fountain

Lunch was at Soda Fountain, also in Union Station. I’ve been wanting to try it since it opened. It truly didn’t disappoint! Everyone loved their food. The BLT I had was honestly one of the best I’ve ever had! And we couldn’t leave without trying their amazing, over-the-top shakes! We were so full from our lunch so the 2 shakes were plenty for us to share. It was such a fun experience! We loved our waitress- she was so sweet…not only to us, but to the tables surrounding us. And we met the owner- who was also so, so sweet! As we were leaving, the kids said “we HAVE to come back here!”

River Boat Cruise and The Gateway Arch

After our morning at Union Station, we headed over to the Riverfront. Our hotel was walking distance to the Arch/Riverfront, which was a major plus! We went on a Riverfront cruise which is something I hadn’t had the chance to do since I was a kid. We loved the views from the boat!

We walked around the Arch grounds before going inside. For those of you not familiar with the Arch, there is a museum underground. And there are also trams that can take you to the top of the Arch for an amazing view. I put a poll in my Instagram stories- and the majority of people who voted didn’t realize you could ride to the top! At the time we went, those trams were still closed. But they are now open again, of course with new restrictions. The museum is free and my kids enjoy walking through. I’m linking my “Day 2 Staycation” Instagram stories in case you want to see how this day looked. And you can watch as the nicest worker at the Arch showed the kids a little “magic” trick. As we were leaving, the kids were all telling me how they enjoyed the trick he showed them.

Cardinals Nation Restaurant

By this point, we were exhausted. And we were still full from lunch. But we had reservations at Cardinals Nation Restaurant. From the moment we arrived, the staff was absolutely amazing! The hostess, waitress, chef, and owner. They went above and beyond to make this a special evening for us. We were literally right across the street from the stadium, where the Cardinals were playing. My only regret is that we went on a night that everyone was so tired and full. The food they brought out was so amazing! I honestly want to go back for those pretzel bites alone! Probably the best pretzels I’ve ever had! And everything else was just as amazing! I hope to visit again to fully appreciate it all. If you are a baseball fan, I highly recommend it!

I’m including a photo of the bathroom because the theming of the whole restaurant was perfect!

Day 3

Museum of Transportation

Day 3- our final day! We checked out of the hotel and headed to the Museum of Transportation. I hadn’t visited since I was a kid so I didn’t remember anything about it. Right away, everyone wanted to do a train ride.

There are tons of trains- some you can climb inside and walk through. There are also some other indoor areas with automotives. And a creation station for younger children. We enjoyed walking through the garden for a painted rock scavenger hunt. You’re encouraged to find painted rocks and then re-hide them before you leave. We had lunch waiting on us at our next stop so we didn’t get to experience everything. But it’s a fun place for anyone with an interest in different modes of transportation (especially trains!)

Magic House

Our final destination is a place we know and love dearly, The Magic House. We have been members for several years now and it’s a place we love to visit multiple times a year. Besides the train photo above, this was the only family photo we got. I propped my camera up on a table, used my remote, and got this one on the first try. I love it so much!

Something we really enjoy about the Magic House is that some of the exhibits change throughout the year. So we don’t feel like we’re doing the same exact thing every single time. On the other hand, my kids actually enjoy doing the some of the same things every single time! The play village is always one of our favorite areas. Primrose could probably spend an entire day taking care of the babies in the baby nursery!

We cut our Magic House visit short (compared to visits in the past) because we were so tired at this point. But we’re all looking forward to making a reservation to go again soon! I’m going to end this post with a link to my “Day 3 Staycation” Instagram stories. We had so much fun on our Staycation and we are all so thankful we were able to do and experience so much in our own city! Thank you to Explore St. Louis for this opportunity!!

I hope you all have a great week!! Before I go, I would love if you left any feedback below. I don’t know if there’s any interest in more blog posts- and if so, what type of things you would like me to blog about. But I’m open to hearing what you have to say!

September 14, 2020
Blog, christmas, Family, holidays, kids

Clem on the Shelf


I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! Don has worked nights (holidays included) since our 7 year old was born so it’s been that long since he has spent a Christmas morning awake with us. He switched to the day shift last year right after Christmas so this was the first time he was able to spend Christmas morning with us. We were very excited to be able to start new traditions this year!

Unfortunately, yesterday all of our kids started getting sick. We’ve had 6 kids with coughs, 3 with fevers, 2 close to having a fever….and a partridge in a pear tree 😉 So we’ve had to reschedule our last Christmas gathering with Don’s family while we keep our germs at home and try to clean up the toy tornado left behind from Christmas day.

Anyway, over the past few weeks, I’ve been posting pictures as a part of a little photo series on my Instagram under the hashtag #clemontheshelf so I wanted to share them all here, along with sharing a bit about them.

Last year we had taken a picture of Clementine as a tiny little baby on our mantle and deemed it our “Clem on the Shelf” (you can see that picture HERE.) I’m sure you’re fully aware what an Elf on the Shelf is. While we don’t actually do the whole elf thing, we did have a lot of fun setting up these pictures of Clementine.

The first picture idea came to me while I was out running errands one day. I called Don (I hate talking on the phone so this must have been really important in my mind haha) and told him the whole idea I had for a picture. I am pretty sure I had more confidence in his photoshop skills than he did but he agreed that it sounded like a good idea.

By the time we were done talking about all the ideas with the first picture, I decided that I wanted to do a little mini series and already had multiple ideas floating through my mind. I knew they all obviously had to include our Clem on the Shelf. But I also wanted to incorporate our letterboard to help with the storyline of each photo.

With each photo, we would photograph Clementine separately and Don would photoshop her in later. He is actually currently working on a guest blog post to share a little behind the scenes look at how he did it. It isn’t exactly a tutorial but it does explain his process and what he learned through doing all these photos. I can see how his skills improved over the course of the past few weeks just from playing around and watching tutorials.

What I think is really neat is that some of these pictures are actually 3-5 pictures all layered together to make the final edit. It’s kind of amazing what goes into making one “simple” picture.

I think the best part about this project was working together with my husband to come up with the ideas. I usually pitched an idea and then we’d toss ideas back and forth until we came up with the end result. The hardest part (for me) was coming up with the letterboard quote. I’m pretty sure that with each of the quotes, I would ask Don what we should write and then turn down all of his ideas and just go with something I liked haha. But it still helped to hear his ideas because sometimes it sparked an idea for me.

The kids also had a lot of fun with this project and seeing how it all came together. When it came to the last photo and I wanted to do the reverse setup of our first photo, I was afraid that they would complain about being tied up and duct taped…especially with Desmond, our 2 year old. But they were all giggling and thought it was hilarious. I had a hard time find a photo where Desmond didn’t look too happy.

I think we need to print out a short little photo book with the pictures to set out every Christmas season. I think it’ll be really fun for the kids to look back on and see some of the fun memories we made together.

As for the question of our plans for next year, I do think our elf will be back! But it’s up for debate on if Clem will be taking on the role or if her new baby sister will be taking over. Clementine was actually not the easiest to work with this year. We had to get really creative with how to get her to cooperate (and it involved quite a few mini marshmallows.) But I love how they all turned out!

Now that this project is done, I feel that I have been depleted of all creativity so I’ll have to work to get out of that funk.

Thank you to everyone who followed along with our little series and for all the kind comments! We really had so much fun putting these together so it means so much that other people have enjoyed them too!

December 27, 2017