We planned a week long road trip to see some new sites and have an adventure before our little girl turned 8. After many plans and schedule changes we booked hotels and crossed our fingers. We told Rose about a week before the vacation we were going away for a week, but not where or what we were doing...
We left on Friday after picking up Rose from school early and headed to our first stop: Pittsburgh. There was so many great options of things to do in Pittsburgh and I know we will be back. This trip we focused on children's museums and activities that Rose may soon not enjoy as much.
After a morning swim (we planned this trip and booked hotels before Rose broke her arm) we headed out for the day.
We took a ride on the Duquesne Incline to check out the city
We then headed off to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. There were so many awesome things to enjoy including a whole play area made of packaging tape and many hands on activities.
Rose's idea of a good vacation includes candy so we found a great spot for some sweetness :)
And then we headed to Southern Tier Brewery for mommy and daddy :)
After a good night's sleep we headed off to Indianapolis with a stop in Columbus as COSI.
As with many of our activities, we would love to go back again and spend more time. COSI is huge with both inside and outside fun and LOTS of hand on science.
Nothing to see here...Justin trying out a space potty ;)
During this trip we learned some travel hacks...one of them is to always get a luggage cart!
We made it to Indianapolis and rested up before a full day at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis which is currently the largest children's museum in the world. There were massive displays inside and a whole sports center outside.
Monday night we arrived in St Louis, this was our farthest point West and we picked St Louis for a couple reasons. While we mostly picked children's activities to enjoy with Rose, we also wanted to visit a national park. St Louis had so much to offer and we were able to see a couple different things including the Gateway Arch National Park, City Museum, and St Louis Zoo.
Rose earned her first Jr Ranger pin!!!
If you have played hangman with Rose in the past few months and she gives you 11 spaces the word is 'Mississippi'. She was so happy to get to see the river she enjoys spelling so much :)
We stopped for some St Louis BBQ and they had a coffee BBQ sauce...yup, I was very happy :)
After the arch we headed to the City Museum. St Louis does have a children's museum, but all the reviews said not to miss the City Museum...so we went!
This place is really amazing and so different than anything we have experienced before. We had to change up some of the activities due to Rose's cast, but as with everything she didn't let it slow her down and we had tons of fun!
These spirals are 10 story slides, 2 of them, and yes, we went down both :)
All day Tuesday we were able to use public transportation to enjoy the sites. This made things so easy for Justin who doesn't enjoy all the pointers I give him while driving :) Ignore Rose, she was tired of all my pictures :)
Wednesday morning we visited the St Louis Zoo. The zoo was a great addition to our stops and we all enjoyed seeing the animals especially penguins :)
We enjoyed a cool treat before heading off to Chicago!
For the rest of the trip the weather was rainy and colder, which made sightseeing a bit more difficult, but we found fun activities and yummy food :)
Chicago was just a quick few hours as we needed to head on to our next stop. We enjoyed the Children's Museum of Chicago on the Navy Pier and ate maybe the best pizza ever :)
After a yummy lunch we headed to our last stop on the way home, Cleveland. We gave Rose several options for our activity and she choose the Cleveland Aquarium and we had time to visit the Great Lakes Science Center.
First we visited the largest candy store in the United States...because we always need more candy :)
At the science center they had an egg drop experiment
Our egg made it :)
There was so much to see, this is definitely a place to visit again and hopefully with nicer weather spend some time outside.
We ended our trip to another Southern Tier Brewery, yup...the parents may have selected some cities based on brewery locations ;)
I am happy to say overall everything went really well and although there were some challenging times, we really had a great adventure :)
We ended the month celebrating birthdays :)
One night she was 7
We had a party with family and it's so fun to see go from being the only little kid to now the 'big' cousin!
Rose wanted baby chicks for her birthday and got these two ladies: Cinnamon and Spice.
We weren't done with birthdays as our favorite guy had a birthday a few days later. Rose and I couldn't decide what dessert to make so we made two :) Nobody was upset!
I also got to take the birthday boy out for a special brunch at our favorite brewery ;)
