"Suite" Life in St. Louis

It was a wild and busy weekend! We set off for St. Louis to celebrate Poppy's birthday. We arrived at DIA with plenty of time to spare -- more than we had even planned since our flight was a bit delayed! The girls kept themselves entertained and the flight was pretty uneventful. Always good news when traveling with toddlers.

Delayed at DIA

B got pretty lucky with GG sleeping most of the flight.

We finally arrived in St. Louis! Auntie Becky, Madison, Poppy & Melissa were waiting for us. We very excited to see them and the girls were thrilled they got to stay up past their bedtime!

GG and Auntie Becky

Annabelle and cousin, Madison

They are two peas in a pod. These girls adore each other.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early and on our way to Grandma's house. We spent the morning looking at pictures, the girls played with Barbies, and B fixed Grandma's computer and speakers. Grandma didn't join us for the zoo, but she did go with us for lunch.

Grandma and (a few of) her great-granddaughters.

We calculated she now has 13 grand kids and 12 great-grand kids.

For Valentine's Day each year, Poppy adopts an animal at the St. Lous zoo for each of his granddaughters. His donations keeps the animal fed and cared for the entire year and he renews them each year. Annabelle & GG each received a zebra last year and Annabelle also received a warthog her 1st Valentine's day. We visited the St. Louis zoo to meet their animals and their names are posted as official adopted zoo parents.

The zoo crew

GG has the best view in the house

G loves the carousel! She'll definitely be our little thrill seeker.

My sweet tween niece, Madison.

We picked up B's cousin, Amanda at SLU and had lunch at Fitz's. She's a sophmore and is getting her degree in nursing. It was really nice to see her. The last time I saw her was at my baby shower when I was pregnant with Annabelle. She is doing really well at school and it was great to catch up with her.

GG snuck in a little nap after lunch, but Annabelle was going on two days without a nap at this point. Considering how much she usually likes her sleep she was doing really well. We headed down to Busch Stadium for the Cardinals game. This was GG's first game and what a way to experience baseball! We sat in a suite behind home plate with unlimited hot dogs, brauts, a nacho bar, cannolis, pretzels and plenty of beer and sodas to go around! Melissa's family joined us for the adventure which included Melissa's sisters 6 kids and her brother's 6 month old little boy. There were so many kids! Luckily there was plenty of room for them to run around and expend some energy rather than being stuck in their seats the entire game.

GG's first baseball game!

What a view!

Happy girls at the game

The dessert cart came around and each of the kids got their very own treat. Annabelle and James each had cupcake the size of their heads! Annabelle ate half the icing off the top of hers before passing it off to GG. GG always manages to find the best seat in the house!

Sunday morning we met the Paz gang for lunch at Norwood Country Club. My Uncle Jerry, Aunt Barb, cousin Chris, his wife Rebeka and their little one Ian joined us. It was wonderful to catch up with them and watch the cousins play together. We've been fortunate enough to see them twice this summer and it's been great watching our kids grow up together. We squeezed in a lot of fun and family in a very short amount of time!

Ian Paz

Paz cousins