A Weekend in St. Louis!

We recently spent a weekend in St. Louis, MO. The purpose for the trip was for our daughter to attend an event on Saturday for an organization she is member of, and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and turned it into a fun little family getaway!

We left Friday after the kids got out of school and drove down to St Louis. It is about a three hour drive for us. We decided that since we had to be up early to get to the event, that we would just grab a snack at the hotel’s restaurant and call it a night.

Saturday morning we were up early and headed to Jefferson Barracks Park, where her event was being held. Jefferson Barracks Park is an old Army post that has trails, covered picnic areas, a disc golf course, and museums on site. We attended our daughter’s event and took a walk through the park while we were there. Though we didn’t get to tour the museums, we did enjoy seeing numerous deer and being out in nature for the morning.

Jefferson Barracks Park: https://www.stlouisco.com/Parks-and-Recreation/Park-Pages/Jefferson-Barracks

In the afternoon we headed over to the City Museum. This place is amazing! I don’t even know how to describe it accurately. It is a giant building filled with a labyrinth of tunnels, climbing structures, stairways, slides, artwork, and various activities for kids of all ages. It was a very unique experience, and we all had a great time there exploring! If you get to visit St Louis with your family, I highly recommend visiting this museum.

City Museum: https://www.citymuseum.org/

For dinner we met up with my husband’s aunt in Soluard, which is a hip little neighborhood in St. Louis. We saw many restaurants with al fresco dining options, bars with outdoor patios, sweet shops and other cute little shops while we were there. After dinner, we enjoyed a cupcake at The Sweet Divine, which had both the kids and adults nodding in approval as we savored each bite. It is a boutique bakery and coffee bar, and my daughter and I thought it had a European vibe that made us feel like we were in Paris. They even served macarons, which were absolutely delicious! We called it a night after our bellies were full and happy.

The Sweet Divine: https://www.thesweetdivine.com/

Sunday morning we headed over to The Gateway Arch. We walked through the park area, took the tram ride to the top of the Arch, and walked through the museum. We enjoyed learning how the Arch was built, and the kids enjoyed the interactive lessons on the history of St. Louis in the museum. The tram ride was a unique experience that the kids really enjoyed too.

The Gateway Arch: https://www.gatewayarch.com/

We found a little restaurant close to the park, and enjoyed an al fresco lunch before heading home. We really enjoyed our short visit to St. Louis, and found the people at each venue we visited to be very nice and helpful. We hope to visit again soon!

Lessons learned:

1. Research and plan for parking at venues in the city. I tend to forget that in larger cities you need stickers to park on certain streets, or that we will have to find parking garages near our destinations. I just Google Mapped where we were going each day, and then looked around the map for parking garages and lots that were close. I probably could have saved us some money by finding free parking or cheaper parking nearby if I had done a little bit of research before hand.

2. Plan for our dinners. We were not planning on meeting up with my husband’s aunt, and I’m glad we got to visit with her. If we did not meet up with her, I did not have anything planned out for dinner. Being downtown and trying to find a place to eat, and then finding a place to park would have been a hassle. I need to be better at planning meals out or even just having a few ideas ready on these short trips!

3. Try to book a hotel with an indoor pool. Our hotel’s pool was outdoors, and the weekend we were there we had some cooler weather with some rain. The kids were a bit frustrated that they didn’t get a chance to swim. Sorry kiddos!