OK I'm ready to talk about it now

Alex and I love to travel. And ever since we left the big city life to raise our children in a small town, we like to go and just hang out in the city, any city. I like the hustle and bustle and just love the feel of the city. I absolutely love to people watch, so I like to walk around the mall or sit in a city park. I just like being around lots of people, different people, even strange people. Before the quads we used to go on short weekend trips about every month. We'd just pack up the kids and go; we can drive a couple hours east to Louisville or a couple hours west to St Louis. But once I found out I was pregnant with quads, our traveling came to a sudden halt. And we haven't gotten to do too much since. Sure we have taken a couple vacations, but I really miss the short weekend get-aways. They seem to recharge me. So I have been determined to get back in the swing of things as soon as possible. Having quads (esp on top of 3 other children) has had a profound affect on our lives (now that's an understatement!). And the first year of their lives, it was ALL about them. We were in survival mode. But now I am really making an effort to balance our family life out. Which means that this family is not all about having quads. It is about a married couple and 7 children. Each of those entities needs its own individual nurturing, as well as the family as a whole needs to grow as a unit. Now I have been told over and over that 'it is too much work to take all those babies out, just leave them at home'. And I totally agree. However, I truly believe in doing things as a whole family too. I WANT to be able to go out with all my children. This is our family now, this is our 'normal'. And even if I do continue to leave them at home, at what point do I start taking them out? At some point we would have to take them with us, so why not now. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying I wouldn't enjoy myself more if I left them at home (with the nanny of course) and I'm certainly not saying I'm taking them every time we go out. But I do want to be able to take them, especially out to nice restaurants. So that means they have to go out with us enough to learn how to behave well, because Lord knows I love good food and I love to go out to nice restaurants. There are times that our get-aways will be just for the 2 of us, other times we will take the big boys and then there will be times when we will go as a family of 9.
So all that being said, this past weekend was our very first time going away on a weekend trip as a family of 9! We decided to go to St Louis. I have been trying to find activities that would be fun for the big boys was well as be appropriate for the toddlers, which is not easy to do. St Louis is full of activities for all ages, but the big boys most favorite place is the City Museum. That place is unlike any other. Housed in the 600,000 square-foot former International Shoe Company, the museum is an eclectic mixture of children's playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects. http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp Below is a small example of just the outside play area and you can see the warehouse in the background. This place has a 3 story slide, tree house, caves, adult (and child) sized ball pits, daily circus and on and on. It truly is unreal. It's more fun than anyone can enjoy in one day. Plus it has a toddler area. So it was perfect for our first outing.

The plan was to take the family to the big boys basketball game Sat morning and leave right afterwards to drive to St Louis. Spend the afternoon in the City Museum, enjoy dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory (kid friendly) and retire early enough to the hotel to go for an evening swim. Spend a leisurely Sunday morning at the hotel and go to the Science Center for the afternoon. They have the Grossology exhibit there right now and I knew the big boys would enjoy that since it is all about the gross things the human body does (fart, burp, boogers). Then we would finish up with a nice dinner and come home happy and full of accomplishment... buahahaha!
First of all I have to tell you that we had a heck of a time even getting a hotel room to accommodate a family of 9. We ended up having to book 2 suites! Secondly I must admit to you that although I did bring my camera with me, I never even took it out of its case. Sigh. So all my pics are from my cell phone (and fuzzy).

Somehow I managed to make it to Sat morning without getting one thing ready to go. So while Alex took the big boys to their basketball game, I stayed home with the tiny toddlers to get us ready to go. I was able to pack all 9 of us into this ONE duffel bag. I was pretty proud of that!
However, I did still have a huge diaper bag and the 4 peapod tents for the tiny toddlers to sleep in. Plus the whole slue of electronics we seem to have to take with us everywhere now-a-days (laptop, cell phones, ipods, dvd player). We didn't actually leave town until after noon. The toddlers slept on the way there and we stopped for lunch just before getting into the city. When all 9 of us are together we usually don't bother with a stroller, especially now that the tiny toddlers can walk. They are able to hold our hand and walk short distances now.

Daddy and his little boys

Adre and Allee

Our BAV
Lex and Bella

We didn't actually get to the City Museum until almost 4pm. And boy was it packed. We headed straight up to the toddler room. We let the big boys go from there and the toddlers headed straight for the ball pit.

Bella (pink) and Allee (purple) I should also warn those of you germophobias out there, this will be hard to see. It was certainly hard for me at the time, but I just kept thinking of the good, strong immunity this will build. haha.

Mrs Becky and Mr Randall met us there soon after we arrived. And what a blessing! It was so nice having extra eyes and hands to keep track of them all. They seemed to be EVERYWHERE!!!
And of course they all wanted to go UP the slide.

Aiden (blue)This was a big slide, shaped similar to a skateboard arena. There was a ramp to the top, then a drop off where they had to literally turn onto their belly, hang off, and drop to slide down. This caused a few palpitations on my part (and gasp from others around us), but they all got the hang of it very quickly and soon looked like pros.

Ashton (white, yea I know, what was I thinking letting him wear white) Going UP the slide again, *Sigh*

The fun stairs to the slide, they were made from something like round canisters turned on their sides.

BG on the sky walk (sorry about the glowing eyes) that went from the slide area to the ball pit area

They loved to just roll around at the bottom of the ramp

Here you can see the drop that BG is doing and Aiden just learning to do it

There was a separate area with just building blocks

There was even a toddler train. Talk about causing palpitations! I was OK with BG riding it, but had a hard time sending my tiny toddlers off into a tunnel where I couldn't see them.

BG enjoyed it, but it was hard to read the tiny toddlers; they seemed pretty expressionless. They didn't get scared at all, which surprised me about the boys. They just sat there and rode off, no seat belt, nothing to keep my tiny babies secured. They acted like that was something they did every day. No big deal.

Allee and BG climbing to the roof of the ball pit, which the ball pit is on the second level, so they were 3 levels up. But it is all enclosed in.

The ball pit. They mostly liked to sit on that ledge and look at it or watch the other kids play, but they didn't get in much. Allee lost a shoe, so Mrs Becky had to climb in there and move all the balls around, but she found it.

The little ramp had a tunnel they could go thru

A little rejuvenation time... it simply amazes me that that man can sleep anywhere with anything going on around him. I am truly jealous of this talent.

Mrs Becky letting the girls enjoy a ride on the mechanical tiger (? I think its a tiger anyway)

And then the meltdowns began about 7pm.

We attempted to go to the 7pm circus, but they could not sit still and Aiden actually fell down a couple bleachers, so we left pretty quickly. We found a room full of sponges tho and couldn't resist playing with them. Yea, this is where the germophobia in me really came out! But I did let them play, just not chew on the sponges.

BG liked to try to stack them, but then the tiny toddlers liked to knock them down.

And off we went, by 7:30 the tiny toddlers we DONE! Mr Randall ended up staying with the big boys until like 10:30pm. They had so much fun exploring all the areas and trying to scare Mr Randall (luckily he's not scared of heights).

We have been trying to teach the tiny toddlers to hold each others hands so that one person can walk them all, but so far we can only get BG to hold their hand.

We ended up stopping at a drive-thru to pick up chicken nuggets and milk for the toddlers (so much for Old Spaghetti Factory, and thats too bad cause I love their mizithra cheese). Straight to the hotel, check in, unload, prepare room (toddler-proof, lol as if that were possible), quick baths and in the peapods they went. They were in complete meltdown mode as it was 10:30pm before we finally got them into bed. Then Mrs Becky was kind enough to stay with them and allow Alex and I to go out for dinner. So we got to enjoy some sushi at the Drunken Fish! It was midnight before we ate, but hey you gotta take it whenever you can get it.

Thank you Mrs Becky for staying with the toddlers and Mr Randall for keeping the big boys.

The next morning the toddlers were up bright and early, as usual. You would think they would sleep in since we all got to bed so late, but oh no. And they were all still cranky! We had breakfast at the hotel. Then took the squad to the pool.

Sorry for the really fuzzy pic here, I was trying to get a good pic of the girls in their swim suits. Their suits are so dang cute, and they are just darling in them. But I couldn't get them to stay still long enough to get a pic. Just trust me, they are cute! lol

Mrs Becky and Mr Randall helped hold the tiny toddlers, as they did not enjoy the big pool.

Mr Randall holding Allee and BG, with Adrien helping comfort. And Lex in foreground.

Lex in a headstand

Enlight of the morning crankiness hang-over, we decided to NOT take the toddlers to the Science Museum. Daddy and Mr Randall took the big boys while Mrs Becky and I took the toddlers to the St Louis Galleria. I figured I could keep them in the play area while she gets some shopping done. Great plan, except there was NO play area at the mall. So we ended up keeping them in strollers and just walking around. I tried to get some shopping accomplished, but was not very successful with 5 toddlers in tow.

We had lunch in the food court. We picked a table in the very back as far away from everyone as possible and enjoyed some Johnny Rockets. I thought this pic was too cute. I have never set them up in a straight line like this before.

BG, Allee, Ashton, Aiden, Bella

Funny story: At one point Bella and Aiden were playing together. Aiden had his back turned to Ashton. Ashon had pretty much eaten everything in his bowl that he wanted and Aiden still had plenty. So while Aiden was distracted with Bella, Ashton very sly like, leaned over and switched bowls with Aiden. And when he knew he got away with it, Ashton grinned the biggest sneaky 'I did it!' smile of accomplishment. So dang funny, but just a preview of future events I'm sure.

After an afternoon of hanging at the mall, we met back up with the boys at PF Changs for dinner. Yummy! That is by far one of my favorite places to eat. It is the restaurant the quads have been to the most. However, this trip started out frustrating. The boys went ahead of us to get a table. I actually wanted them to order and we'd bring the toddlers once the food was ready. It had been a long day with no naps ontop of crankiness hang-over from the previous day, I didn't want to push our luck. But the hostess would not even seat them until the entire party arrived. UGH! so frustrating, and I did politely let the hostess know my reasoning for wanting it the way I did. But seriously, if someone asked you for a table with 5 high chairs, would you argue with them? Heck no, I'd be trying to do whatever I could to get them in and OUT as fast as possible. Anyway, surprisingly, we did enjoy a leisurely, delicious meal and the squad behaved better than expected. No melt downs, no screaming, just a lot of eating! As usual our service was spectacular and the food was fantastic! Afterwards we headed home, the toddlers slept the entire trip and still went straight to bed once we got home. I would say we wore them out this weekend (and us too!).

All and all we had a good weekend and I am so glad we did it. It is especially nice to get our 'first' trip under our belt. And I certainly learned a lot, I will do some things differently next time to make it more smooth. I think the biggest obstacle for me was not having a stroller for all 5 of my toddlers, that is a must for our next get-away. Looking back on our weekend, and thinking about what exactly my frustrations were, I think the main thing is that it is just harder to be away from home and out of our safe, secure environment and stable routine. For example, at home the toddlers have no access to a TV, but in the hotel room they could reach it. So all 4 tiny toddlers would bang, bang the screen and push ALL the buttons. They would constantly turn it on and off and switch channels and bang, bang. It was very annoying! As an isolated event I could handle this, but it just seemed like every time I turned around they were doing something else. All these small challenges add up to big frustrations. And truethfully, there were more good times than bad, its just that the bad ones (melt downs) stand out in my mind more. That's why I waited a few days before writing this so I could let the good memories flood my mind and flush out the bad ones. LOL. I do hope that we have many more get-aways as a family of 9!