Megan and friends in the Gateway City

Towards the end of August, Jillian and I wanted to visit my parents in St. Louis. Fortuitously it happened to coincide nicely with my sister and her two boys coming to visit as well. Megan hadn't seen her St. Louis grandparents since the 4th of July and the great concrete step debacle. Since then she has only continued to grow and become more grown-up in her attitudes, so I was excited for my parents to see her again, as well as my nephews. This would be the first time they've seen her since she started walking and I was excited to see how they would treat her and incorporate her into their hijinks.

The trip could not have started any worse. I would like to change a worn-out cliche to "Hell hath no fury like a toddler bored." We left late in the day on a Thursday, hoping that our darling little lady would sleep most of the trip down. She didn't. But to be honest, for the first few hours of our trip, Megan was actually quite pleasant. It was once we were firmly entrenched into hour three of our near eight hour trip when she should've been going night-night that all hell broke loose. We knew she was tired and fighting trying to get comfortable. Normally she shows her irritability for about 10 minutes and then nods off.

Not that night. She let us know for the better part of, oh, somewhere between the next 2 hours and the time it takes for a person's brain neurons to fray. Nothing seemed to work. We stopped, we fed her, we rocked her, we gave her toys. We climbed into the back seat with her, we sang to her, we tried to console her. It was a long trip. When we finally arrived at close to 12:45 EST there was our daughter, eyes wide open, right there with us to say hi to Gram and Paw-Paw.

Travel notes aside, once we arrived at the homestead, Megan was absolutely wonderful and she loved her two cousins. In a land of adults, she loved being around folks who were closer to her eye-level. As in the past, my nephew Seth took to the role of personal bodyguard. He's only 9 years old and he loved playing the role of 'big brother.' He carried her upstairs, downstairs, out to the backyard. He wanted to show her how to play cornhole, and liked reading books with her. Whenever we went anywhere there was no debate who would sit in the seat next to Megan. He was there. I felt so confident with him that I even went upstairs to shower while they played in the living room and didn't worry in the slightest. That either speaks to my confidence or to my frazzled brain cells from the drive in.

Having other 'munchinks' around, most of our activities were geared towards the younger set. Our first major trip was to the St. Louis Zoo. They have a penguin exhibit that is phenomenal. You can go in and literally be a foot away from the penguins. (You could literally pet them, if there wasn't a zoo rep standing several feet away, presumably to tase anyone who followed through with such wishes) I spent close to 10 minutes just standing there watching these guys. In fact, the picture above is from the group waiting for me to come out. They're excited.

To rectify myself to the group I had to come out with something major to get them back in my good graces. Only one contraption could save me. The Merry-Go-Round. Some of us (ahem, Jillian) were reluctant to ride, lest the cool kids at Riverside High showed up to mock us, but I fearlessly led the troupe round and round. Megan was absolutely adamant in her desire to ride the Merry Go Round. Once it started to move, she wasn't as confident. The pictures herein don't exactly capture her sheer nervousness once her bear started going up-and-down. But to give her credit, she didn't cry. She just slapped a serious face on and stoically waited for the ride to be over. And true to her nature, when it was, I had to peel her off the ride because she wanted to go again.

On the trip we also trekked over to the Botanical Gardens to let the kids run some energy off through log cabin tree houses and such. This was a HUGE hit to Megan. I think Christian and Seth had a lot of fun with it, and it was meant more for kids their age, but Megan was not about to be stopped. There was an area where kids could play 'insect dress-up' and so she was transformed into a beautiful ladybug, wings and all. Never mind the wings were meant for someone about 3 years older, she was determined to rock those wings, and I think she was fabulous.

The Gardens led to one of the highlights of our weekend. In one area they installed a 'water arena' where there were various holes in the ground where spigots of water would periodically shoot out. Think of Old Faithful, if it only spat out a cup of water at a time. In fact, I won't find the words that the following montage will convey. Just enjoy the pictures that follow. I dare you not to be entertained.

Finally, one of our other big family outings was to head over to Forest Park and get a couple of paddle boats. From a personal standpoint, if you see these pictures and think it looks awesome, it's because you hadn't spent the past hour constantly pedaling a floating structure all across a huge lake while your butt cheeks and knee caps burned. That said, some of the views were gorgeous, and if I was in better shape maybe I wouldn't have complained. For some reason, this wasn't Megan's favorite activity. We tried to pass her off to the other boat but she was having none of it. Maybe you can see the strain she's under in the next pic. I think she was just ticked she couldn't pedal the boat.

Eventually though our time came to an end, and we had to head home. Ugh. Another 7 hours isolated with the princess. We left right at her nap time so the first hour or so was done in sweet, silent bliss, but she eventually woke up and was annoyed to be in the same predicament she was in on the way there. We stopped in Urbana, Illinois for ice cream and to show her my old high school stomping grounds but I don't think Megan was impressed.

The drive back didn't really go any better than the drive there, although I will admit at one point I pulled her out of her car seat to just cuddle with her and that worked. I think she enjoyed being able to roam around instead of being confined to her seat. I know I didn't do the safest thing but we were under severe duress. I promise Jill drove extra safe for the 20-30 minutes with her out of the car seat. Soon thereafter we bought some milk at a gas station and at 9:30 pm ... she fell asleep and we made the last few hours of the drive uneventfully and thought about what a great weekend we had. Thank you Gram and Paw-Paw for a wonderful weekend of outdoor fun.