St. Louis- Sightseeing at the Arch

On Saturday before the wedding we went downtown to see the arch. We were going to go up in the arch but we didn’t have a lot of time and also, I’m not really sure how I feel about traveling  50 stories in a tic tac with no windows. So we opted to go on a boat in the Mississippi River instead.

Views from the boat.

The old courthouse by the arch.

Underground museum of Westward Expansion.

St. Louis- Rehearsal Dinner

The rehearsal dinner was at the top of the Chase Park Plaza Resort in St. Louis. The theme was “Meet me in St. Louis”. There were 130 people at the rehearsal dinner which overlooked the upper west end of the city.

Dining Room and the beautiful view.

Pete and Debbie’s whole family with the bride and groom to be.

With Shelley at dinner.                                In front of the Chase.

St. Louis- (Zoo, Art Museum, Golfing)

 

Last weekend we went to Lauren and Johnny Wright’s wedding in St. Louis. Johnny and his family are very close family friends. They had quite the elaborate and beautiful wedding weekend. The wedding weekend started Thursday with a happy hour at the bar that they met at and them Friday was a round of golf for the guys. While the guys were golfing at a beautiful course in Forest Park, my mom and I decided to do a little sightseeing. Since this was our first time in St. Louis, we decided that we needed to check out as much as possible while we were there. All of our sightseeing plus all of the wedding activities made for a very full and very busy awesome weekend.

St. Louis has one of the top 5 Zoos in the country and they have the best penguin exhibit in the world. I have never seen a real penguin, so of course I needed to check that out. It was just like the movie Happy Feet!

While we were in town, we were lucky enough to see the Monet exhibit. I really enjoy Monet because of the connection to music  and how music influences much of his work. The museum had his Water Lilies Triptych and it was the first time that all three painting of that work had been together since Monet’s death. They told us at the museum that this probably would not happen again in my lifetime, so I was very excited to get to see that exhibit.

UH OH!!!!! Look what I can do!

 

This week Flash learned how to jump on our bed! Yikes! He has never done this before because he has always been so good about not jumping because he had pano and his legs and hips hurt. Well, now he can. He has decided to use this as an attention getting tactic while Jason and I are getting ready for work in the morning. Maybe he thinks that if he stalls that he won’t have to get in his cage. I don’t know, but this looks like trouble to me.

More Weather and Madness

So Jason and I have definitely been wondering when the frogs and the locusts are going to show up around here. Within my first 2 weeks of school we had an earthquake, a hurricane, and massive floods. Last week we had horrible flooding from the 2nd hurricane, Lee. We got 12 inches of rain and many roads were washed out and shut down. Our traffic situation around here was FANTASTIC! At school we have yet to have a successful arrival or dismissal for the kids in 2 weeks. Most of this week we had to bring many of the kids back to school because the buses attempted to take the kids home but couldn't get down any of the streets. It has definitely been a little crazy around here. We're gearing up for another snowpocalypse this winter perhaps:)

VA Beach

For Labor Day weekend, we got to go to VA Beach to meet up with Jason’s family and go to Jason’s cousins wedding. We had a great time and the traffic wasn’t too terrible either. It was really great to have a relaxing weekend with everyone. The weather was awesome too despite the hurricane that hit the weekend before. We got to have a few lazy days on the beach before the wedding, which was really nice.

The wedding was beautiful and was a great ending to the weekend. It was so great to see everyone!

Weather, Weather, and More Weather

Just a little update. I'm sure you have all heard (it's all the news talks about here) we had an earthquake and a hurricane all in the same week. What are the chances? During my first work week back to school, we had the earthquake while I was in a meeting and our county shut down early. My poor mom had the earthquake (they were much closer to the epicenter) on her first day of school with kids. I can't imagine an earthquake with 30 first graders. Luckily I didn't have kids that day. I have never been in an earthquake before and didn't know what was happening so my first instinct was to hold onto the table...great plan right? All of my co-workers were yelling "Trueblood, it's an earthquake, what are you doing?" Jason called right away because we weren't really sure what had happened yet. Very very strange day that's for sure.
So, we survived that little drama for the week and here comes Irene. We got lots of wind, trees down, power outages, but that's about it. However, it was enough to get me out of school on the first day of school. Amazing that we haven't even started and I'm already making up days at the end of the year. As for the media, we have heard nothing but Irene, earthquake, aftershocks, and Libya. We're rather bored with the morning news here, but doing well:)