2 Crazy Moms, 5 Wild Kids, and the Land of the Gateway Arch

So about 2 months ago, I was on one of my many phone calls with my dear friend (and college roommate!), Shanna.  We figured out that our kids had the same spring break.  If you know anything about Shanna and I OR if you would ask our poor husbands, we are always, pretty much constantly scheming our next visit with one another.  What was labeled as a dream initially became a reality fairly quickly...before we knew it, we named our middle point, St. Louis, we checked the hours of driving, we (she actually) searched and found a Homewood Suites in a suburb of St. Louis - a two-bedroom suite with living room and little kitchen...perfect for 2 moms to hang out while the kids slept at night!  BAM!  Our trip was planned, we just had to wait, but not too long since we planned it so late.  So here are the kids in the van by 8:30 last Sunday morning, eating their breakfast, and already watching their first movie, gearing up for the 6 hour trip (a mom of the 2000's has to travel without husband somehow, so don't judge, pretty much there was a movie, leap pad, and ipad playing almost the whole trip!).

The travels went pretty well for both of us, Shanna drove out of blizzard like conditions in Omaha.  I drove out of sunny weather in Tupelo, Shanna drove through every kind of weather possible, she definitely conquered more to get to our destination...we both arrived around the same time, and our time together started off great!!  I was pregnant with Clara and Stanley was almost 2, when we flew to Omaha for a visit, so the kids didn't really remember us or each other (although Shanna and I had seen each other at least once or twice between)...the kids hit it off.  The boys played hard the whole time!  Kayla was so sweet with Clara, and of course, they all played together, too.  We had our moments, but overall, we can't complain!  In fact, I'm ready to plan our next trip.  We are on the 3 year annual plan -- moms and kids one year, just moms the next year, and the whole family the next (or our husbands are fully expecting us to say, drop all that, girls weekend every year!)  That may not be as possible so I'll take the time with her and her kids (since our husbands tend to be busy with their work!)  I'm thankful to be a stay at home mom so that our schedules allow for us to do these kinds of things together!

Here the kids are in the hotel the first night, it was so fun to have our kids together again!!

Homewood Suites has a great breakfast in the morning, so there we all went down the elevator still in our jammies and had our breakfast...meal time is always a little crazy in my house (I don't know about yours!), so I'm sure you can imagine Shanna and I could have pulled our hair out a couple of times, and of course we were lucky to get any food for ourselves by the time we were all settled!  Monday morning, we decided, thanks to Shanna's bravery! to take the kids up the Gateway Arch...I'm so glad we did because the kids loved it (especially the tram (to stanley it was like a train!) ride up the arch!) and I realized that I don't think  I had ever been up the arch before (although I thought I had!)

Stanley with the Arch behind him!

Stanley had to jump on top of every bench and tree
stump along the way!

The kids with the Arch behind them...Clara didn't want
to ride in the stroller, either that or we have been in the
south too long, and she was really cold, because
she cried the whole way...oh my! that increased the stress
level by the time we got in and out of the arch! :)  Yes,
she's looking down, because she is screaming and Stanley
is trying to console her or yell at her to stop crying!

On the ride in the tram up the arch, pretty small space, glad we didn't
find out any of us were claustrophobic! 

Cute shot, eh?  Looking down at the city...

So you may wonder, what else will these brave moms do with their kids?  First, we stopped at Panera (where else?!) and the kids ate like crazy (and moms did too, don't worry!), I think we already wore them out!!  Then, we went shopping, of course!!  Eric said he knew that we would find a way to go shopping....so Yep, we took all the kids inside, had them all cozied in with snacks and drinks, and we shopped away!!  ..... Uh....NO!  The kids sat in the van, totally content watching movies while the little ones took their afternoon naps (don't judge at the amount of TV our kids watched!) as Shanna and I took turns shopping at Trader Joe's (I so wish Tupelo had a Trader Joe's!), Target, and World Market.  Here's a shot of them in the van.  :)  Look at how cute Seth and Clara are sleeping beside one another, don't worry, we are already working on the papers for their arranged marriage...why, yes, I'd love to have Shanna for Clara's mother-in-law!!  

Our next stop was at a mall close to our hotel where there was a great play area for the kids.  After sitting in the van for literally several hours, we thought for their good and ours, we better let them get some energy out before heading back to the hotel!

The great thing about Homewood Suites is Monday through Thursday, included in the price, is a full dinner meal...so if you are traveling through the week, remember that for your travel plans.  Homewood   Suites rocks, especially if you have 2 families splitting the cost because it is a little more expensive.  The meal was great, probably not the best pick for the kids (chicken and dumplings), but they had a big meal at lunch so we weren't planning on them eating a lot anyways!  Here they are eating while moms are still trying to get their own food...

When we returned to the room, they played hard AGAIN, ate some popcorn, and to slow them down we let them watch the iPad, which turns out wasn't the best of ideas, because they all wanted to touch the iPad, oh well...look at Stanley's red cheeks, that's how hard they were playing!!

After the kiddos went to bed both nights, we stayed up and talked.  Monday night, Shanna went out and got us some ice cream to indulge in!  There can't be a trip together without at least one ice cream trip!!  

Here we are the morning we left...such good memories together!!

Praise the Lord, we both made it home safely!  And, I even drove 4 miles out of the way just to get Culver's for lunch.  Culver's was one of my favorite ice cream and "fast" food places in Lexington ...since I had ice cream the night before that was pretty much like Culver's, I decided I would not have to indulge again....I felt so proud of myself for making a wise decision with no regrets...and there we sat waiting for our meal to be brought out to us...it finally came, and the worker said, sorry ma'am, for your wait, we'd like to give you this coupon for a free medium concrete...YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!!  The devil is in the ice cream!  I quickly scanned over the coupon, it was only for that location, expiration date for a month from that day...seriously?!!  SERIOUSLY?!  I kindly asked the man if he could bring out a peanut butter cup concrete (of course!) with 3 spoons and 3 bowls (because it would not be a wise choice to eat a whole medium concrete)...he gladly did, except he thought I said peanut butter only concrete...yes, if you know me well, I had to have my chunks if I was going to have it...so he kindly came back with my concrete complete with all my requests.  Me and kids enjoyed every bite of it!!  It's good to know that we can look forward to a Culver's run when we meet the Beachy's again in St. Louis!

The kids did well with the traveling, let's face it, my kids have to be good travelers being 12 hours away from both grandparents.  Tuesday, I think they were so tired, they stayed fairly quiet with minimal requests (score!) most of the way until the last hour when Clara started having melt down for no apparent reason, all attempts made from the driver's seat were unsuccessful to make her content.  So what would any mom who has DEEP OHIO ROOTS in her do...yep, that's it! for the last half hour, ON REPEAT we fist pumped, cheered, and danced to the Buckeye Battle Cry!  My Ohio-kids-growing-up-in-the-south were all smiles by the time we saw Daddy in the driveway.  What a great time for our kids to hang out, to get some good girl talking in, and some good laughs - just making it an all around memorable weekend!!  Shanna drove back into snow, and I drove back to the trees blooming everywhere...I do like that part of the south!!  Spring is here!!  Although I feel funny even saying that, because winter here is nothing like the north (although it was "worse" than last year!), so it doesn't feel quite as much as an accomplishment to "make it" to spring, but regardless, it still feels great to get to spring.  It was a capri, flip flop wearing kind of day!!

We even got a little sun today when we went to the Tupelo BBQ Duel downtown...boy, did we have some good BBQ - we love the south for that too!  It's been a good weekend, we have had 2 weekends with Eric's days off being Friday and Saturday (working at a church, we are blessed to still have a weekend just a little shift earlier in the week), just around home, and it's been absolutely wonderful.  Eric and Stanley had a guys' night Friday night, and went with our friends, Caleb and Brody to the Monster Jam truck rally!  Super cool for a almost 35 year old...er, um.... 4 year old boy!!  :)  We played outside and at parks this weekend, it was a beautiful weekend, and unintentionally, I didn't take my camera with me any time, which I think it's good for our kids to not have their pictures taken every time we do something (I know crazy coming from me!)...Eric did get some pics on his phone of the Monster Jam, I'll have to post them!! :)  That's it, I'm so thankful and blessed to have Shanna as one of my bestest, dearest friends - she has stood by me through thick and thin for about 15-ish years...I can't believe it's been that long since we first met when we moved into our dorms.:)

As always, thanks for making it to the end of my long post, and thanks for stopping!

 Love,

Kendra