St. Louis

 Last weekend we decided to take a mini vacation to St. Louis. I've been wanting to go since our trip was cancelled last summer, and we love exploring new cities! We got on priceline and booked the Hyatt in downtown for $60 (I love priceline!). We were only in St. Louis for 2 days but we had a total blast!

Stopping at the Stake n Shake in Columbia... as you can see Rob and I are so excited about our trip that we are totally neglecting our children sitting in the background... I suppose is they were kidnapped we would at least have a picture of the culprit

Four hours and four milkshakes later... we reached our Hotel to find that is was across the street from the Arch! We got settled in and then talked to the concierge who took one look at us and told us he knew exactly where we should go... The Loop. We hopped on the Metro (oh how we love mass transit!) and walked a few gorgeous blocks to the Loop. When we saw the main strip, I started laughing SO hard. The street had been renamed... 

Barack Obama Blvd! HA! That concierge read us like a book. We then headed to the pizza place Pi, and it was INCREDIBLE!

The pizza was absolutely delicious and just looking at the picture right now makes me hungry! Everything was organic, natural and scrumptious... well done Mr. Concierge!

Heading back to the Hotel, we enjoyed another Metro ride. The kids loved it and we of course thought of the Max back in P-town. 

Walking back to the Hotel, we enjoyed the fantastic view of the arch. Rob said that his friend told him you could go to the top. We decided that this friend must have been kidding... right!? 

Anyway, back in our room (yes this was our view!) we took in the Cardinals game from both the TV and out the window. We would watch the home run on the screen, and then see the crowd erupt out our window. Very cool. And the Cardinals won! 

DAY 2

There was a Starbucks in our hotel so we started out the day right. We then walked across the street to the Arch... it was truly incredible! As we got closer we discovered you COULD go to the top!

This is the very base of it... 

Under the Arch is a museum reminiscent of a D.C. memorial... which actually the Arch IS a memorial. Anyway, we got our tickets to go to the top and the lovely Arch worker asked if any of us had a problem with heights or claustrophobia... I said no, but thought well kinda?!?

This is why he asked:

This little pod holds five people (barely) and rocks back and forth all the way to the very top of the Arch... crazy!

It's even smaller than it looks like in this picture!

At the top!

This was our view!

In the middle was the old Courthouse that you saw in a picture earlier, the tan building to the right was our hotel. 

After our adventure in the Arch, we packed up and headed to the St. Louis Zoo. I usually find zoo pictures a little boring... but I couldn't resist!

Bear faces... I love Justice in this one!

Ok seriously HUGE tortoises... Probably the coolest thing I saw there!

Watching the hippos swim was incredible as well! 

We also caught a few smaller elephants playing in the water... I'm pretty proud of this picture... he's even looking at the camera!

The joys of cotton candy!

After the zoo we headed over to REI... which we don't have in KC. It was pretty fun to walk around and dream of all the adventures we will go on one day! 

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Wholefoods, another store we don't get to go to often enough, and then headed back home. 

Amazing trip. Now its time to plan our next road trip!

Our Merry Christmas

This Christmas, more than others, I felt so blessed. I know so many people that are hurting during the holidays, because of their situations, or because of the pain of those around them. My heart goes out to all of those people, and makes me even more grateful for the simple things in life, like my kids, my husband, our church family, our house, and skype! Here are a few pictures of our wonderful Christmas.

Before the chaos...

Let the chaos begin!

After the gifts were opened, Rob went out to get the paper...

Such a beautiful WHITE Christmas! Later in the evening we went to a friends house where we had our Christmas dinner. This is the view as we pulled our car out of the garage.

Our house enjoyed its first Christmas as well!

Apparently video games can occupy many kids at the same time.

After we left our friends house, (which is a story in its self... let me just say there ARE hills in the midwest, and a lot of snow: Subaru PRIDE!) we drove around a bit enjoying the still beauty of a snow covered city. Once we got home, and put the kids to bed, we enjoyed a nice game of backgammon and a new concoction. I made hot apple cider and added a bit of Grey Goose La Poire... it was amazing! (and yes our alcoholic beverages are sitting on a Bible)

The perfect ending to an amazing day!

Keeping Busy!

Where to begin... we moved into our new house, but I don't have any pictures because it was a long ordeal! If you haven't already heard the story, I'll summarize it by saying: never get a mortgage through Bank of America! Once we were in, we had a few crazy weeks of unpacking and then it was my birthday! My parents flew out for the week and were able to celebrate both my birthday and Thanksgiving! It was so awesome to hang out with them and show off our new house. 

Making their Mamma a birthday breakfast

Birthday lunch at Gates!

Exploring Kansas City

Thanksgiving day, the boys barbecued the turkey so we had time for cards

Very excited, and feeling very manly 

Picture perfect and tasted even better than it looks!

How we spent most of our time... Farkle

Their new past time... cross dressing

The next week we were able to go with a friend to see Swell Season! If you haven't heard of them you need to go rent the movie Once and be amazed. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have had. I wish I could share video with you all... oh wait I'm sure you can find it on youtube... and you should!

Last week we had a beautiful snow day! Grace stayed home from school, Rob stayed home from work, and they all played outside! I, on the other hand, enjoyed drinking some hot coffee, reading a book (that wasn't for school) and watched them from the comfort of the warm house.

Last weekend we had the staff Christmas party and the kids looked so cute that I had to take a picture of them. 

Today was Grace's Christmas program at school. It was so fun to watch her up there... and actually hear her little voice. It was also really strange to be sitting at my child's Christmas program! After the singing, the kids had a little party in their class and I was able to see her in her school environment. I was also able to see who this Caleb boy is that she is always talking about. In fact, she came home one day and told me they were married. He is just to the left of her. You can't see his face but in the second picture it looks like he is whispering in her ear! 

I'm sure I will have more Christmas pictures soon!