St Louis Recap!

I never know what to title these blog entries, and I feel like my titles are always so boring! Oh well. After Chicago, I spent the next week at home in Edwardsville! Here goes the recap:

• Monday morning started super early to catch my flight down to St Louis, where Mom picked me up and we had breakfast at the most amazing crepe shop in the city! They make all kinds of crepes and have the best fresh-squeezed orange juice! We ran errands and hung out for the rest of the day!
• We had a HUGE storm during the night--possibly one of the most intense storms I've ever been in! The thunder and lightning was so intense that the whole house was shaking! It knocked the power out at Dad's refinery for a few days, so Dad was able to spend Tuesday and Wednesday at home! Mom took off for the rest of the week to spend time with her sisters down in Mesa--they're a crazy bunch! Check out her BLOG for some pics of her crazy week! :)
• Sarah and I decided to head north to Grafton for the day to go to Raging Rivers! You take the Great River Road to get there and the water park is right on the river! There are just a few rides at the park, but it's fun because as you're going down the slides, you can see the Mississippi River! The River has gone down about 15 feet or so since it crested a few weeks ago, but you could see on the sides of buildings how high up the river had gone!
• On Thursday, Sarah and I got a little bit of shopping in! While we were out, we got all the fixins for a good dinner...fresh pineapple, spinach salad, and Zombie Boogie style meatballs! Zombie Boogie Juice is a pineapple-habanero BBQ sauce my family discovered while living in Illinois that is unlike any other sauce I've ever had and so good!
• Dad took Friday off so that we could go hang out while Marsh and Sarah were at Youth Conference! We went into the city and had PF Chang's for lunch...yum! Later in the afternoon we saw The Dark Knight...I don't think I'll ever see that movie again! Just a little *too* intense for me and I think I didn't sleep very well that night because I think I was dreaming about the movie!
• Sarah and Marsh were at Youth Conference again on Saturday, so Dad and I had another fun day just hanging out! We BBQ'd for lunch--Dad's a pro at that sort of thing! Later we decided to get some custard from Bobby's...it's pretty much the most amazing custard ever! As it turned out, it was classic cars night featuring '55-'57 Chevy's...Dad was loving it (and I thought it was fun, too!) So we enjoyed our custards and walked around and looked at all the fun cars!
Later that night was the Pioneer Day Celebration Concert that was being broadcast from the Conference Center with the Tabernacle Choir and The Osmonds...I thought it was kind of an awkward 'concert'...one minute was pioneer-type-ish songs, and then the next minute the Osmonds were out singing their hits with their cartoon things playing behind them! I thought it was awkward, Mom kinda liked it. If you saw it, what did you think??
• Anyways...I left Sunday morning, so naturally I packed on Sunday morning! This weird little thing happens whenever I leave home...I get all emotional and choked up! I hate when that happens! Dad dropped me off at the airport and it was all I could do to keep the tears from coming! I'm not sure why this weird thing happens, but it always does! I wish I lived closer to home so it wasn't such an ordeal to go home for a quick little vacation! Oh well. I was talking to Mom tonight and she said it's looking like plane tickets to go home for Christmas are going to be around $600! Yikes! Time to start saving for that trip!

Dad and Marshall will be making the trek out here to Utah in a couple weeks...I'm so excited! Marshall will be starting at BYU this fall and Katie and Joe will be back here at the end of the month. Sibbling Reunion! I think we'll for sure have to have a party! Everyone will be invited!