I'm warning you now, this is a long post with lots of pictures!
Enjoy!
On Sunday, May 10th Trent and I flew to St. Louis with Scott (Trent's dad), Debbie (Trent's mom), and Tori (Trent's sister). The main reason for the trip was to attend Alex's (Trent's brother) graduation from St. Louis University's medical school. The five of us stayed with Alex, Trisa (Alex's wife), and Cannon (our nephew) in their 3 bedroom, 2 ½ bath condo. Picture this: Scott and Debbie in the guest bedroom on a futon, Trent and I on a blow up mattress on the floor next to Alex and Trisa's bed, and Tori on a twin sized blow up mattress on the floor on the other side of their bed, with a dog bed for their very large lab mix (Onyx) in the corner, and Cannon in a crib in his own room across the hall! It was definitely a little crowded, but surprisingly it wasn't as miserable as it sounds :). A few of us suffered through cold showers, but other than that, luckily, we never had issues with not having enough open bathrooms when they were needed.
Sunday night Trisa made a yummy dinner of spicy jerk chicken and rice with ham and garbonzo beans. Mmm!
Monday was our trip to the St. Louis Zoo and dinner at Blueberry Hill in The Loop. The zoo was great! Our favorite things were the penguin exhibit (I played tug-of-war with one and touched another one that swam right in front of me), the 5, one-year old, tigers, the prairie dogs, the ostrich playing with the baby giraffe, and admission was free!
Tuesday was our trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Our favorite part of the gardens was the Climatron, a half-acre of plants, birds, pools, and waterfalls in a natural, tropical setting housed inside a big dome. You feel like you are in a real rainforest! Oh, and the zigzag bridge in the Japanese garden and the hundreds of allium in the front of the building. That night we went back to The Loop for dinner at Fitz’s (where they make their own soda). We had the biggest and best ice cream floats…they each had 4 scoops of ice cream!!!
On Wednesday we drove 4 hours north to Carthage, IL where we visited Carthage Jail (where Joseph & Hyrum Smith were killed in 1844). Then we took a 20 minute drive along the Mississippi River to Nauvoo. We toured Joseph Smith’s home, cemetery, mansion, and store. Then drove further into town to visit a brick house (where they made the bricks for all of the buildings), the blacksmith, the bakery, and Jonathan Browning’s (gun manufacturer) house and workshop. I originally didn’t want to go, but I’m really glad we did. It was all pretty neat, and very interesting.
On our way back to St. Louis we drove through a crazy storm…I’ve never seen so much rain and lightning in my life! We hit a deer, pulled over to assess the damage and had to jump back in the car because we heard tornado sirens going off! We saw a tornado forming just a few miles behind us. A very intense few minutes, to say the least! The rest of the drive home we were surrounded by an amazing lightning show.
Thursday we picked Jordan (Trent’s oldest brother) up at the airport and attended Alex’s graduation. After a quick snack at his reception we headed to dinner at BB’s Jazz Blues & Soups in downtown St. Louis, across the parking lot to Busch Stadium (where the Cardinals play). Trent and I got to taste toasted (deep fried) ravioli, real St. Louis food.
(Tori, Trent, McKenzie, Trisa, Alex, Jordan)
(Tori, Jordan, Alex, Trisa, McKenzie, Trent)
Friday we went to the Arch. We rode a funny egg shaped cart (only big enough for 5 people) up 630 feet to the top. We toured the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Museum underneath the Arch and took a steamboat tour on the Mississippi. We really liked being at the Arch and the Mississippi River, it was an amazing place to see and visit!
(Cannon and Trent)
Friday night we went to a surprise, 80s rock ‘n roll themed, birthday party for Alex. I am not posting any pictures, too embarrassing!
Saturday morning it was back home and back to real life!
Congratulations, Alex! We are really proud of you!
Thank you so much for letting us stay with you and for showing us such a fun time! We look forward to our next trip to visit you guys in Memphis!
.JPG)
