Our First Family "Mini" Vacation

If you have been reading our blog you know that we took an amazing trip to Italy! This weekend we had the opportunity to take our two kiddos to St. Louis for our own mini vacation. My family was down at the lake, so we had their place all to ourselves. We left Saturday morning after taking it easy and just hanging out. Below is Avery mimicking her daddy before we left:

She makes us laugh everyday

After some sort of nap/rest time we headed to the Cardinal game

Here they are in the Cardinal store waiting...

Mack was just hanging on during the game due to lack of sleep

Avery LOVED it! She was jumping up and down

Here are the friends we brought. Brian is a friend of Mark's from high school and his girlfriend Meagan was wonderful! We had fun and they helped us so much (luckily she is a pediatrician and loves kids). Avery doesn't go to too many people, but Meagan was her favorite that night.

Mark was having fun...wish I could have joined him with the beer!:)

This is one of my favorite times-in the morning!

When the kids woke up (we woke them up at 9:00) we fed them and got them ready for the St. Louis zoo. We were very excited because the zoo is so much fun-especially with kids. My parents are Friends of the Zoo, so we get to go into everything for free (which is nice with kids when you don't know how long they will last). Of course there was a heat advisory today...

Mack is brainstorming how to get the hat off!

They really thought the elephants were interesting. I don't have pictures, but the penguin house was also a hit and is the BEST place to be when the temps are high. Mack was so mad (and loud) because he wanted to get the penguins and probably eat them :) we had to leave!

This is them looking at the elephants

A really neat area was the kids zoo!

You can pet the animals! Or if your Mack pull the ears off! Again we had to leave the poor animals after that.

They also have these cool fountains. Avery refused, but Mack thought it was so fun. He was laughing loud and walking all over the place!

Here we are at the end...not a dry part on our bodies. We found an air conditioned area to eat lunch and then got them ready to head home.

Even though we only went to St. Louis (an hour and a half away) it was fun to enjoy our first mini vacation with just the four of us. Can't wait to explore more this year as they get older and when it's not so hot outside!