Christmas in February

For Christmas Ed and Cindy gave Corey and I a weekend get-away to Saint Louis! They took the boys on Friday and Corey and I took off!
The three hour drive was fantastic. We talked, we laughed, we were together. Corey and I don't get to be together enough and it was lovely.

Our hotel was right on the edge of the Mississippi and literally right across the street from the famous arch. Corey had been there as a child, but I had yet to cross that off my list of landmarks so first thing after dropping off our stuff at the hotel we walked on over:

There is more to the arch than meets the eye. There's like a whole little underground city going on under there. Did you know? There's a museum, a movie theater, the "journey to the top," and gift shop of course... etc. It was really quite fun to look around!
At this point Corey and I were starting to really get into our groove. It felt like we were dating again... heavenly. Corey was making me laugh and we both were getting rather silly.
Unfortunately... the arch is technically run by a government agency so no one working there was in a 'silly,' kind of mood. We tried to joke around with people and all our jokes fell rather flat. Even the other people visiting seemed to be all business. It was weird!
It didn't stop us from having fun though... let them be party poopers if they wish!

Those are the pods that take you take to the top.
The militaristic man who lined us all up shouted out the instructions:
"STAY up against the Wall.. DO not move until the other passengers have exited... DO not enter until they other passengers have completely left the stair case... ARE there any questions?!?!" Corey whispered "Sir no Sir!" at me which sent me into a fit of giggles and earned us a crusty from the worker-man.
Lighten up people!
Sheesh!
The ride up was... I'm not gonna lie... pretty scary!
I was very, very grateful we had updated our life insurance policies just the night before. It was so rickety and you are jammed in those little pods... Corey was still making me laugh which helped, but honestly... it was scary!
Up at the top was just really cool:

Quite a lovely view. I bet in the summer it is especially nice. We'd like to take the boys if we can.

This collage is a collection of the rest of our activities before heading back to the hotel.
We walked around the museum area... Corey saw a bear... we learned the arch is taller than Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty...
We walked to this great little restaurant downtown and ordered exactly what we wanted. I splurged on a heaping plate of fettuccine with mushrooms, broccoli and tomatoes. I have been craving fettuccine for weeks and I ate the whole thing. Corey had a chicken parmesan sandwhich. Yumm!

We didn't quite feel like going back to the hotel yet so we just took to the streets! We walked around seeing what we could see... there wasn't a lot of shopping... it was mostly restaurants and businesses, but we did find this great little outdoor art walk. My favorite was the fat bunnies. We both agreed that Saint Louis felt like a large Salt Lake City... it's a place we could totally picture ourselves living someday.