St. Louis, MO 2018 – Day 1: Traveling From Houston

So when I mentioned to one of my friends that we were taking a trip to St. Louis, Mo, she responded with, “why???” Haha!!! Which I totally get, it’s probably not the most desirable city to travel to, but there is a lot more to do there than one might think, and hopefully these posts of our fall trip will prove that to you!!

But even more than just going to see the sights and eating some delicious BBQ, we choose to visit because one of Jacob’s grandmothers lives there, and she has only met Jackson. Having lost my last grandmother last year, it really just impressed upon me the need to share your children with their great grandparents while they are here. It still devastates me that my Granddad Jack passed away just a mere four months before I had Jackson, and some days I would give anything to have him here and see him hold my boys. I know he would be so proud of them.

So when I was pregnant with Jenson, I told Jacob we should plan some time to go see his grandmother after we had him. Sure enough, our beloved Southwest ran a promotion on flights, and we got great prices for our tickets. Plus with my Venture Card Capital One points, we were able to get some other traveling expenses covered.

I hope you enjoy taking a look at our week there, and if you’re ever passing through, you should find some great food and attraction recommendations! Here goes day 1!

We started our day off by driving into Houston from College Station, and met Jacobs parents at the airport parking lot. Since we were visiting his moms side of the family, we asked them to tag along with us!

After we took the shuttle to the airport and went through security, we got settled at our gate. We grabbed some Wendy’s for lunch, and then I gave the boys their travel backpacks. I always pack their little Mickey backpacks full of cheap stuff from the target dollar section, snacks and other little toys like hot wheels cars or a monster jam truck. They really look forward to their trip surprises! I usually will save one or two things for the way back as well!

Jude has been our airplane man for a couple of years now. He loves playing with planes, and is a master at turning anything into a plane. He’s really creative with that sometimes! He loves watching to planes at the airport and looking out the window. And he loves taking a good nap on the plane as well haha!

I have to brag about these boys, they are good little travelers. Yes they get tired, whiney, hungry and pitch fits along the way (that’s normal day to day life anyway hah!), but they are great at navigating the airports and taking flights with us.

I really feel like starting them young taking them to new places is important for them to get used to traveling. Even if you can’t fly or drive long distances (we still haven’t ventured on a really long road trip yet because they struggle more in the car than on planes!), just go somewhere and do something. That was my mom’s approach when I was growing up…even if we just took a short trip to the beach for a few days, she made sure we did something together each summer and I loved that about my childhood, and have tried really hard to incorporate that into our family life. I am obsessed with traveling and really hope to pass that along to our boys. Going to new places just does so much for your perspectives in life and new experiences are just plain good for your brain!

Once we got to Missouri, we shuttled over to the car rental lot and picked up our super cool mini van! Haha! Jacob got all of the car seats in, which we opted to bring with us instead of renting…I know that is a LOT to move through the airport, but at $10 a day per seat to rent them, we decided we would travel with them and use our extra grandparent hands to get them through! We loaded up and headed to our hotel.

We chose to stay on the upper west side of town, because it was closer to Jacob’s grandma and less expensive. Once we got our things to our room, we went back out for dinner. We were all pretty exhausted from the day, so we got a quick meal at McAllister’s and enjoyed watching the beautiful sunset from their outdoor seating area.

After dinner, we went back to our room and crashed! On to day two!!!