The Brewery, The Arch and a Little House Work

Nothing like starting out your Sunday with a trip to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery! Well--we did have lunch first!

It had been raining earlier in the day, so we were glad that it had cleared off.....

Can you tell what Trevor thought about the scent of the brewery? This is how he spent the majority of his tour! Some day he'll feel differently, I'm sure! :)

The tour ended in the sampling room. Kids could have glasses of pop, and each adult could have 2 free glasses of beer. There were many different varieties to try. Ron was just thrilled to find samples of Stella Artois, which is a Belgium beer. He had his 2, and then Holly's 2. Keith stuck with the Bud Light. I was the party pooper and just had pop. We took our time in the sampling room because it was air conditioned and the Cardinals game was on TV. (They ended up winning in the bottom of the 9th., so the whole room was getting into it!)

Then we were off to the Arch. Cale and I both made the comment that we just never get tired of looking at the Arch. It is just so impressive.

The kids all lined up against the Arch. AJ and Cale are almost exactly a year apart in age. (Cale is older). Jared and Megan were actually born on the SAME day---4 hours and 44 minutes apart. (We didn't see that coming those 9+ year ago!) and then there is Trevor. All of our little ducks in a row....

We watched a documentary about the building of the Arch before we went up inside of it. VERY interesting movie. Let's just say there was no OSHA back then. They showed those guys working way at the top with NO safety equipment!! They just walked around up there with no worries--and their cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. It put my stomach in knots just watching them. The movie said they had budgeted for 13 deaths during the building of the Arch, but they didn't have any. Amazing.

Waiting to head up the Arch--there was a display that resembled the docks on the Mississippi. The kids had to play around with the scales....

We have to fit inside that door. Hmm. I thought it was bad enough, and Keith and I aren't tall people. Now Ron, on the other hand, is TALL! I was afraid we might have to fold him in half!

Inside our "pod" heading up the arch....Keith, Megan, Jared, Trevor and I. We had our pod maxed out. Ron, Holly, Cale and AJ were in a different pod.

In order to look out the windows in the Arch, you had to lean way over and sort of lay down. There were a lot of people up there so you had to wait your turn to see out....630 feet in the air. By the time we got up there it was starting to get dark, so none of my pictures turned out from out the windows. It was a pretty cool experience!

I do have to back up to the start of our day. The original plan was to do the Arch and then the Brewery but we woke up to a thunder storm. Cale just didn't think it was a smart idea to be in a metal structure 630 feet in the air when there was thunder and lightning. (He IS a pretty smart kid!) While we waiting things out in our hotel room, Keith decided that our fridge was not working properly because of all the frost that was in it. So he took it upon himself to defrost the freezer part. As he pulled a large hunk of ice out he looked at me and said "Don't get me wrong...I love this part!"

He was right....the fridge worked like a charm after that!