A Weekend Getaway

This past weekend we met my parents in St. Louis for a short weekend visit. This is a good half way point for us and as I have mentioned before I have a brother and sister in law who live in St. Louis. Their little boy, Nicklas, will be one at the end of the month, so we wanted to get to see him to wish him a happy birthday!!! We had hard rain and no good windshield wipers on the way up, so it took us closer to six and a half hours to get there than the normal four and half. But after a Wal-Mart stop to get new wipers (and my MANLY husband who proudly put them on himself just to have one fly off two miles down the interstate- calling for another stop =) we made it into St. Louis Friday night and enjoyed some company with my parents before bed. Saturday morning we enjoyed breakfast and headed to my brother Matt's house for the middle part of the day and had a delicious lunch and a great time watching the kids play together! Cousins are so fun!

Here Papa Marc and Hannah Grace and Nick are building a pretty awesome tower that was of course way cooler to knock down!
Hannah's never short on hugs! Even if the recipient is not always wanting one =)

Is he not just TOO ADORABLE!?!

Unwrapping his little presents! The big 1st b'day! Time flies.

Reading with Gramma Linda, or has Hannah Grace calls her "Nina"

Bennett finally gets to join in on the action after a nap.

We headed back to the hotel Saturday afternoon for an attempted nap time that was a complete no go. Hannah fell asleep during her breathing treatment and only slept for about twenty minutes before Bennett's wailing in the Pack'N'Play woke her up. NO one ever said trying to get a two year old and a one year old to nap in a hotel room together would be easy!! That night we ordered pizza at the hotel and took the kids swimming.

Three generations on Strohscheins. And add in the other "guys" (plus Hannah who all of the sudden wanted to be in the picture... )

Bennett LOVED swimming (no surprise here). He really wanted me to let go of him, I think he was convinced he really could swim. On his tummy he would do so good paddling his arms and kicking! I was very proud of my little swimmer =)

And Hannah Grace of course had a blast too, she was just a little more timid doing it =)

Matt, Cici and Nick. Cute fam!

After Sunday breakfast and a stop back at Matt's to say goodbye we headed down to Union Station just to walk around with the kids and have some lunch.

The fam at Union Station.

Looking at the old little girls clothes display with Nina.

Bennett and dad hanging out.

Walking with Papa.

Me and my kids. I love them so much!

Walking around- what a trooper Grandma is carrying Bennett! That gets tiring FAST!

Riding in the little "jiggly" ride that neither one of them were too sure to think about!

My parents with the kids.

and us.

We loaded up the car and left town after lunch at Hard Rock. As we were driving out of down town -right by the arch, that we were of course showing Hannah- we drove away and she said "Bye, bye rainbow!!" Well I guess the arch could pass for a really dull rainbow ,ha, the way kids minds work =) and back to Memphis we headed. It was short and sweet and we had tons of fun! And the kids did so great being out of their element and going with the flow. We look forward to doing it again!! So bye bye rainbow! Until next time...