St. Louis trip and Caleb's birthday

Before I get started with this LONG post, and it will be long because there are a lot of pictures, and I did this on purpose because each picture tells a story that I just couldn't leave out, I just want to say this, I love my family and I didn't realize how much really until this crazy trip was over. I'm glad we went, even though the beginning of the trip was a nightmare, as you will read about, and I'm glad I took a bunch of pictures so I could share with you this mini weekend we had.

Here is the story of the St.Louis trip:

A couple weeks ago I was on facebook and saw a post from my Mother-in-law (Grandma Clark) that said she was going to be in St.Louis for a conference on August 14th. Realizing that St.Louis is ONLY 4 hours away I had this grand thought, "Oh we could drive down with all the children and pick her up from the airport and spend time with Grandma, just our family." Then we could celebrate Caleb's birthday and do something fun as a family. The trip down to St.Louis wasn't fun at all. Why you ask? Imagine this: 6 older children shoved in the back of a mini van for 4 hours that doesn't have a working DVD player which means no movies. 5 of these children being boys who LOVE to wrestle around and fight. 4 of these children being teenagers. There was a lot of fighting, name calling, pushing, argueing, and much more on the way there.

First stop St.Louis airport to meet Grandma Clark

Before Grandma's plane arrived, the children were grumpy.  Caleb was not in the mood to be photographed.

This is exactly what you want to see when you are picking someone up from the airport.

Grandma Clark with Caleb.  Caleb hadn't seen her in almost 3 years.

Jared, Brenden and Daniel with Grandma Clark.

After picking up Grandma we went to the  St .Louis, Missouri LDS (Mormon) temple

gorgeous flowers on the side of the temple.

I was trying to get pictures of everyone together, however Alyssa was not cooperating and kept taking off.  Jason caught her and tickled her until she laughed.

Most of the Clark boys.  Not sure where Scott was.  Left to Right-Brenden, Jason, Daniel, Caleb and Jared.

Jared holding a gigantic leaf.

Finally a picture of Alyssa smiling.

A very ugly statue in St.Louis that we kept driving by.  I swear we saw it at least 10 times in 2 days.  We also drove by at least 20 Taylor Swift semi's since she was there for a concert, but I couldn't get my camera out in time to snap the picture.

Next stop the St.Louis arch.  It was a gorgeous day and perfect for pictures of the arch.

Here I am under the arch taking a leap.

Inside the museum underneath the arch was this sign.  I thought it was funny.  So I guess messing with the fake animals in the museum is a No NO.

Since I'm a Lewis and Jason is a Clark we liked this sign and have to have a picture with it inside the arch museum.

I tried to write on this cake in gel icing for Caleb's birthday celebration.

We surprised him at the the hotel room door and sang Happy Birthday.

The next morning we went to Denny's restaurant for a big breakfast to start the day out right.  Everyone seemed much happier in the morning.

another picture from breakfast

Scott being silly with Alyssa.

Next stop the St. Louis zoo.  My children loved the mist machine.

One of my favorite animals of the day an orangutan because this one was super silly and kept flipping over and pressing himself against the window.  Can you even tell that there is a windown between us?

My next favorite, the giraffe.

His head came super close to us.  I think his head looks like a dinosaur head.

Jared at the zoo.  He wanted this picture for his facebook profile.  I think he looks especially handsome in this picture.

Awesome looking tiger.

We saw this car on the way out of the zoo.  Too funny.

Next stop the Science Museum.

there was a scale in the space section that said if you stepped on it, it would tell you how much it would cost to send you into space.  All three of us got on the scale at once.



At the end of our trip we decided to eat at Golden Corral. Here is everyone stuffing their faces.



At the dessert section of the restaurant there was cotten candy.  Jared had like 5 of these.  I couldn't believe he kept eating them.

Scott using the speed detector to check out the speeds of the cars going underneath the bridge we were on at the science museum.

There was a hole in the floor so I took a picture of a car going underneath our feet.



On the trip home everyone acted much nicer, but it amazed me that there was still goofy things going on in the back seat.  Notice Brenden's head and Daniel's hand stretched across the back showing the "Nec" sign.

:

Overall a good trip. It didn't go as planned since we were going to go to Six Flags St.Louis for Caleb's birthday, however out of all the Six Flags in all of the United States this one closes during the week two weeks before August is over. It was a let down to not be able to go, but in the end it was great to do the things we did and I'm glad we made the effort for a family vacation this summer.