Taste like St. Louis

This morning Russ picked us all up and we headed to St. Louis for the day. We went to the arch first. I had been there before but the last time I was there was a long time ago with my aunt and cousins and we didn't get to go up in the arch because it was so busy and we didn't have enough time. Today however there were not very many people there so we got tickets and went to the top of the arch. They don't lie when they say the trams are small but they didn't bother me. The view from the top was amazing. You could all of downtown St. Louis in farther. Russ and Mike being the optimistic people they are kept telling us how something was going to break down in the arch or something through out the day was going to kill us. We drove to Union Station after we left the arch. There are a bunch of shops there and we ate at Sbarro there. When we were leaving Kaitlin, Russ and I went upstairs and sat in chairs in the lobby while we waited on Mike and Katie.  In the seats next to us were the coaches of the Harlem Globetrotters. We thought it would be weird to take a picture so I took pictures of the gorgeous room and casually got them in one hehe. We got up and left and a bus came to the front door and unloaded the whole team of the Harlem Globetrotters. we thought about asking for a picture but we didn't. They were staying at the hotel at Union Station. The doorway is an act and if you whisper in one side you can hear it in the other side. It is really cool. We drove to the Zoo after. It was kind of cold but it was nice because there were hardly any people there. Whenever we went to go to the monkeys, Mike tried to get us to go somewhere else because he doesn't like them. He took us to the primate house when he thought we were going to the reptile house and wasn't happy to see more monkeys. I loved the big cats and penguins like usual. There were several animals that weren't out. Kaitlin and I kept pestering Mike to go to the butterfly house,he would just tell us that it was just insects but we knew there were some butterflies there and we just wanted to see them. From the zoo, we went to the loop. It's kind of like a combination of the landing in Branson and the strip in Lake of the Ozarks because it has miscellaneous stores but it has a bunch of eating places too. We toured some of the shops and then ate at Fitz's - Mike's recommendation. I had strawberry soda that was made there, they make it in the restaurant and you can watch. I also had a bbq chicken burger. I ate one of Mike's chicken wings but they were way spicier then he said. We went to Ben and Jerry's then went to West County Mall. We met Kirstin there and got to hang out with her for awhile. Before she got there, we went to Dick's Sporting Goods. Kaitlin, Russ and I went up and down the escalators a few times and I sang loud, "I'm singing, Im in a store and Im singing, Im in a store and Im SINGING"- from Elf. When Kirstin went there went in some stores. We went to this one store and Katie, Kaitlin, Kirstin and I looked at all the beautiful dresses. I didn't miss the price of dresses but I do miss buying them for snowball and prom. The boys weren't too happy with the girly stores. We came back to Katie's after dropping Mike off and Russ dropping us off. Lauren B. came over and now we are watching Crazy, Stupid, Love. I won't catch up on bible reading until tomorrow. To explain tonight's blog title our St. Louis friends had certain requirements of what we had to eat and drink while we were here. The last thing was we had to try St. Louis water. Hardly better then Lancaster water well when Rathbun wasn't having trouble. Well good night!