St. Louis August 2012

We left Italy on a Wednesday morning.  Tim carried the big suitcase, the car seat, and the laptop bag with two computers.  I carried the medium suitcase, diaper bag, tote bag, and pushed the stroller.  As we were going through the airport, we decided that we need a separate car seat in St. Louis, so we bought one for next time, and wished we would have thought of it sooner.  Our flight was uneventful.  It isn’t as important for us to sleep on the daytime flights, but we still want Ben to.  This time Ben disagreed.  All things considered, he wasn’t bad, just restless.  Ten hours in one seat is a long time!  We let him crawl around the lounge in Atlanta during our layover.  Finally, he slept on the flight to St. Louis.

My mom picked us up at the airport, and Ben recognized her right away.  It was about 7pm by now, which was 2am in Milan.  Ben is such a trooper!  We had dinner with my parents, and then headed down to Cape Girardeau to see Tim’s parents for a few days before his mom had to go back to school.

Our first few days in the central time zone, Ben woke up between 5 and 6, instead of his normal 8am.  Luckily, Grandma didn’t mind getting up with him so we could sleep.  Grandma and Grandpa had lots of toys and books ready for Ben.  They played bubbles, went to the park, and read lots of books.

Bubble machine

 Trying on hats for my birthday

We definitely had to get Mexican.  We can always count on Nathan and Steph to go to El T's with us.

We went to a park in Cape that had lots of animals.

 

 Feeding the goats.

Playing with all of Grandma and Grandpa's toys.

When we went back to St. Louis, we had lots to do.  First we had Ben’s birthday party, then we had doctor and dentist appointments, then we had lots of friends and family to visit. Tim and I got to have several adult nights out, thanks to both sets of grandparents.

Ben and Nonna

 Aunt Missy

 Uncle Brandon

 Grandpa McCord

We spent a day with Laura, Jeff, and Cecilia.  Ben loved their pool!

 Just getting our feet wet.

Splashing!

 Cecilia hamming it up.

 Laura and I always wanted to get pregnant at the same time, so our kids could get married (okay, or at least grow up together).  Turns out that we were pretty close!  Our pregnancies overlapped by 3 months, and the babies are one day less than 6 months apart.  And they can't take their eyes off each other.

Then we had a Robert Family Reunion, Cardinals game, BBQ, and trip to the zoo.  We spent a day with Uncle Danny and Britton.  We went to the arch and walked around the landing. 

That night we went to a Cardinals game with a big group of family.

Roberts, Bestes, and Millers

 More Roberts

 More Roberts

 We couldn't find this cheerio cup in Italy, so we got one here.  Ben had fun with it.

 Riding around with my cousin.

 The little Robert boys.

 We went to the zoo with the family.

 

 All the boys wanted to ride the train.

Ben loved the train.

Cousins Mike and Jen with their oldest, and Tim, checking out the penguins.

We got together with most of our birth class friends.

There is quite a variety of baby food in Italy, and we brought back some horse and rabbit.  We got it out at Ben's birthday, and at Laura's, and no one wanted it.  Finally we got someone to try the horse.  Ben had never had it, but he had tried other meats, like beef and fish.  Our friend's baby didn't like it, but Ben did.  And their cat did.

Chocolate covered bananas, much better than horse.

 We went to Suson park with my parents.

 We visited Great Grandma Aholt..

 We went back to the zoo with our friends Nathan and Stephanie and their two-year-old, Liam.  We rented a double stroller, which had no divider and shared one belt.  We didn’t know what to expect, but it was perfect.  Liam wanted to ride because Ben was doing it, and Ben kept putting his arm around his buddy.  At one point, they were back-to-back both pushing for space, and we couldn’t help but laugh. 

The new sea lion exhibit.

 

 Looking for the swimming hippo.

 A night out with Matt and Kim.

 Great Grandpa McCord

Nonna taught Ben "So big!"




Just like she taught me.


We had originally planned to spent one night in Cincinnati to see a Cards game and one more stadium, but we decided that we wanted to spend more time with family instead of 10 hours in the car.  So we went down to Cape for one more night.  We went to Cape Splash, which Ben absolutely loved. 

Our last night was back in St. Louis. Ben loved playing with the cup of swizzle sticks the whole two weeks we were there.

Nonna even let Ben play in the sink.

Ben did sleep some on the plane back, but only while Tim was holding him.  He had jet lag when we got back, and woke up wanting to play at midnight every day for a week.  To make matters worse, he got his two front teeth during that same time.

Things we made sure to eat/buy in St. Louis:

Mexican

Chinese

Margaritas

Buffalo Wild Wings

Jack in the Box

Cheap plastic hangers

Ibuprofen

Benadryl

Cheaper clothes for Ben

Deodorant

Pancake syrup
Spill resistant cheerio cup

When we got back, Ben went right to his bookshelf and started pulling books down.  It was amazing to see the difference in the things he could do since we had been gone two and a half weeks.  Emptying the bookshelf in record time, pulling up easily, and cruising with one hand.