PattisBlessedFamily: St. Louis

The kids had a couple of days off of school for P/T Conferences so I asked my mom if she would be interested in going to St. Louis for a long weekend to see relatives. I wasn't sure if she would want to because St. Louis is where my both my parents are from and that is where they met, got married, had Linda and Chris and lots of other memories. But she thought it was a good idea. My main reason for wanting to go was to see my 92 yr old Aunt Marie. She is the oldest of my dad's siblings and never married or had kids so she was kind of like a Grandma to me. She wasn't able to come for the funeral because she can't travel that far so after realizing how fast life can be taken I decided that I wanted to be able to see her and spend a little time with her. Plus she likes seeing the kids and it had been a couple of yrs since she had seen them. So my mom and I the kids hopped in the car for a roadtrip! The kids did great especially Ellie--she is such a good car traveler. Jack got a little antsy but overall they were great. We stayed with my cousin Laura and her family which includes 2 girls who are close to Ellie and Jack's age. Needless to say the kids had a ball because it was basically a 4 night sleepover--yikes!! But what fun they had. On Friday they had to go to school so my mom, kids and I took my Aunt Marie out to lunch and got to see her new place (she moved to an assisted living about a year ago). It was nice to see her--I know she is having a very hard time with my dad's death. Saturday we went to my cousin's kids soccer games and then just hung out with them and did some bowling! Sat night Maya had a Halloween party so she invited Ellie to go with her. They really had a good time and Maya's friend were so nice to include Ellie. That night my cousin had all of our relatives over for a cook out so we got to see Aunt Marie again. It was a nice visit and so nice to spend some time with her. Ellie wanted to go to the arch so on Sunday we took the kids downtown and headed up to the arch. That was a little hard for me because I have so many memories of going to the arch as a kid with my dad...we would go everytime we went to St. Louis which was at least a couple times of year. My dad was so good about always taking us to do fun things there. My kids loved the arch--especially taking the little tram all the way up. All in all we had a great visit and I'm so glad we went. We are hoping to meet my cousin and her family sometime soon at Great Wolf Lodge. Ellie and Jack love Maya and Marie Claire so we have vowed to try to get together at least once a year. There is nothing like family!! Here are a few pics from our trip...