Meet Me in St. Louis

We went to St. Louis to visit Kris & Mitch last weekend!!

We made it just in time for their one-year seminary anniversary.

They took us to see the Arch on Friday. I was amazed at how big that thing is because all the pictures I have seen do not do it justice. The engineer in Justin was really impressed, and he kept asking me questions about the welding beads. I hated to tell him that I don't know anything about welding beads or how old they are.
The Museum of Westward Expansion is located underground at the Arch. It's free, so we decided to check it out. There are these little balls that you can get in that go up in the arch. This is what it looks like. When not slouching my head hit the roof, so I decided that I definitely was NOT going to be riding up in there. Can you imagine the 4 of us in that little ball? No thanks.
Justin decided to wear his Cubs shirt. Apparently St. Louis hates the Cubs, and it wasn't in our favor that they were playing each other in Chicago that weekend. This picture was taken right before we were asked to please leave the museum.
Next we went to the Anheuser-Busch brewing factory. We got there just in time for their last (free) tour of the day at 4 p.m. We got to see the Clydesdale horses and all the rooms where the beer is made. I have never seen so many bottles of beer in my life. That is probably a good thing...

At the end of the tour you get to go to the hospitality room where each person gets two free samples of whatever they want. Lucky for the boys, me and Kris aren't really beer drinkers. Needless to say, we had a great time laughing at Mitch and Justin.

"I LOVE this tour!"

That night we went to dinner at 1111 Mississippi. It was phenomenal.

{I should take a moment to say that by this point my "diet" was out the window. It all started on Thursday night at the Houston airport when we only had 10 minutes and 2 choices for dinner... Pizza Hut or Schlotzky's...bring on the Turkey Club. And for lunch on Friday I had a super cheesy chicken sandwich on a kaiser roll with honey mustard and a bite or three of J's buffalo chicken pizza.}

We each ordered something different... duck (me), veal, chicken and rabbit. It was delicious!! And Ju-C and I shared white-chocolate bread pudding and milk chocolate mousse wrapped in dark chocolate for dessert. I was seriously in heaven.

I think I am the most happy when surrounded by good friends and nice food. I know that probably sounds shallow, but it is the truth. I just appreciate a well-prepared meal.On Saturday we went shopping. Kris works at Anthropologie and gets a 40% discount, so I thought for sure I would find something I couldn't live without. I should have known better, because whenever I have money to spend I just can't seem to part with it. It's when I don't have any money that I find things and become obsessed with them.

C'est la vie.

So we left the mall and went to this famous ice cream place on Route 66. It's called Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, and I had never heard of it. I got a little something called a Big Apple Concrete, which is basically a piece of apple pie blended with vanilla ice cream. YUM-O. I sucked it down rather quickly. You would think by this point I would be really worried about the condition of my sinuses, but NO. We went home, got some barbecue and settled in to watch Michael Phelps win his last gold. For dessert? A couple dozen Krispy Kremes, which I washed down with an ice-cold glass of 2% milk.

I figure that if I am going to die, I'm going to die happy.

So we had a marvelous time in St. Louis. It was so good to see Kris & Mitch and get to act silly with them for a couple days. They are a lot like us, and we so enjoyed our time together.

Today I am sick. Imagine that. I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection, and I am going to be so embarrassed when I go to my last post-op visit on Monday. He is not going to be happy with me.

It was worth it.

If you care to see 84 more pictures of the Arch and 438 more pictures of the beer tour click here.