To be fair, we’re only half-way through with the one that we’re on and it has *mostly* been fine so far. Cardinals game in St. Louis? Check!

Tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in St. Louis? Check!

Don’t judge! It was actually super informative and historical. Yes, we took our kids and no, I’m not sorry. Yes, they offered free brew at the end, but no, I didn’t have any. I opted for the Diet Pepsi instead (though I’m really a Coke Zero girl at heart). It’s a free tour and, as we lived in St. Louis for 6 years, long overdue for our family to go on.

Then a quick pass through the reason we moved to St. Louis back in 2005: Covenant Seminary. We initiated our vacation here by purchasing a new book for each of us…

More small town Americana than you can shake a baseball bat at thanks to rural Illinois:

And…small town ER visits for Millie:

Okay, so technically only one ER visit so far. But I took her to a walk-in clinic first just yesterday. Tonight, after 2 hours of consecutive non-stop coughing, she earned her way to the ER for a double dose of breathing treatments, chest x-rays, and a take-home arsenal of meds. We were supposed to begin our westward journey tomorrow, but we’ll be hanging out here on the farm another day to see if we can whip this cough into shape or if she gets to back for round 3 tomorrow.

So, not too Griswold-ish yet, but give us time. Colorado Springs awaits.