Happy 5 year anniversary to us!

I can't believe that 5 years ago we said "I Do!"

A lot has happened in that 5 years but we've always come out on top.

One thing will never change - just how much I love you, Keith!

We are planning on going down to Ste. Genevieve for the wineries and to go around the town.  We've been to the wineries before but not around the town.  Should be fun!

Cheers to many more years!

Final Ride before She's the Bride - Nashville Night Life

After the winery and shopping around town, we headed back to the hotel and got ready to head out on the town.

We started out with dinner at the Tin Roof:

All of us except for one have grown up with country music so everything played was happily sang along too.  After dinner, we started bar hopping:

Crazy Town

(where someone gave Kris a crown & me a Maid of Honor sash)

 

Honky Tonk Central

Swingin' Door Saloon

before ending the night at Coyote Ugly

 

Obviously what happens on a Bachelorette party, stays at a Bachelorette Party ;)

It was a fun night and I think we succeeded in making sure Kristine had a blast.

52 days until she says "I Do!"

Final Ride before She's the Bride - Arrington Vineyards, Nashville TN

This past weekend was my sister's Final Ride before She's the Bride in Nashville,

We arrived Friday night and just hung out at the hotel.

Saturday was our day to play!

After a great brunch at the hotel, we started our day at Arrington Vineyards, about 20 miles outside of Nashville.  This winery is owned by Kix Brooks, of Brooks & Dunn so we were excited at the idea of running into him (didn't happen, boo).

We started out with a tasting:

We all picked out our wines after the tasting and settled in on their gorgeous deck with a gorgeous view:

Before we left we decided to play among the vines, which was fun wandering up and down the rows.  If you've never tried grapes straight from a wine vine, you should, they are good!

The rest of our day was spent around Nashville, shopping and whatnot, before we really hit the town that night to celebrate the bride.

Saddle on over tomorrow to hear about our night on the town!

Start Bar VIP party

Last Tuesday night, Keith & I were invited to experience Start Bar before it opened up to the public.

Start Bar is a tribute to what make arcades great, mixing the past and the present.  Arcade bars have been popping up all over the USA and STL is the latest to get one.  It is located next to the Wheelhouse and is owned by the same owners.  All adjacent to Busch Stadium.

Alive Magazine put the event on and you received drink tickets and a ticket that gave you a full size pizza pie.

The atmosphere was great.  There were plenty of arcade games to choose from, classic and ones of today.  The upstairs loft houses 3 large screen tvs, complete with couch sitting areas so you can take your friends on in games of mario kart, just to name one.

It was a fun night, doing something we haven't thought about doing in a long time.  Games are fun, whether they be arcade or board and we've been in the moving mode the past few months so to be able to just let loose and play, it was a great night!

Thank you to Alive Magazine & Start Bar for a great gaming experience!

Friday Five!

Today's Friday Five is dedicated to my sister's bachelorette party in Nashville that I am leaving for in a few hours

1)  5 ladies in an Acadia are heading to the country music capital for a weekend to celebrate my sister's upcoming wedding.

2)  Our dinner stop is going to be in Marion, Illinois, which is a mere few minutes from where one of my college roommates lives.  If planned right, I may be able to have her stop by and say hi.

3)  One of the tentative activities for the weekend was visiting Arrington Vineyards.  One of the owners is Kix Brooks, of the duo Brooks & Dunn.  What a great visit that would make it if he happened to be there as we love that band.

4)  The rest of the weekend's activities are up in the air.  You'll have to pop by next week to see what we did.

5)  A trip to Nashville is not complete without a brunch at the Loveless Cafe, and I'm hoping that will be our last stop before we say adios to the city.

Have a COUNTRY of a weekend!

Deep Sea Discovery Vacation Bible School

Last week I spent the mornings with 15 kindergartners, learning how God is with us wherever we go during our Deep Sea Discovery Vacation Bible School:

I've been doing VBS for years and decided to go to the K level about 4 years ago because they have more fun with all the activities.  Our church always does a great job of decorating for the week:

It was a great week of worship, and knowing that God is indeed with me wherever I go!

Meet Me at the Muny: Young Frankenstein

I love Fridays in the summer because I'm always guaranteed a date night with Keith with our season tickets to the Muny.

This week we started the night off with dinner at Double D's pizzeria.  We found this little hidden gem, family owned pizzeria when I was reading the local Call newspaper awhile back.  People were raving about it and we stopped by and we can't stop going, its that good.  Check it out if you're in the STL area!

We then settled in at the Muny for Young Frankenstein:

We've majorly lucked out in the weather department because we haven't had a show where we have been dripping in sweat from the heat.  The show itself was good, reminded me a bit of the Addams Family.

The next time we're at the Muny, we'll be seeing Mamma Mia!  I've never seen it, I'm super excited!

Louisville Slugger & Churchill Downs

Having never been to Louisville, we didn't want our road trip to end without seeing some major sites and sounds of the city.

After a great brunch at the hotel, we checked out and headed over to the Louisville Slugger Museum.  I had heard time and time again about this really big bat, and oh my yes it is big:

Because we were on a time crunch, we didn't get to do the entire museum, and they weren't making bats that day so you weren't going to be able to pick out the one you'd get on the excursion.  But we made our way through what we could and got to see an original Stan Musial bat, as well as homeage to our beloved Cardinals:

We browsed the store area and I walked away with a bat keychain to add to my collection.  It was fun to see all the different collections.

After the museum we headed over to Churchill Downs, which if you are unfamiliar with, is the home of the Kentucky Derby.  I have not been to the actual KD before but when I was with my venture crew years ago, we stopped for a few races at Churchill so it was fun to visit again:

The statue I'm standing at with my Dad is the final burial spot of Barbaro, a very cherished race horse.  Little did I know his entire body was in that until I read about it.  Usually when a race horse dies, at Churchill Downs they bury the heart and the hoofs as a memorial so this horse is the only horse buried here.  After seeing the main entrance, we went inside and I love the way they have you enter the area:

We looked around and moseyed to the areas we could get to, one of them being the stables:

I do wish Keith was able to come but since he wasn't, that just means I'll have to visit again with him and do more in Louisville when we have more time.  I can't say enough how amazing the state of Kentucky was.  Super nice, great mannerisms and it dawned on us that we don't hear a lot about things happening there so maybe its a place to go sometime.

Until the next road trip!

Louisville, KY road trip day #1

I grew up in a car loving family - one where we off road jeep, love NASCAR, have favorite drivers, and watch every race.

For Fathers Day we had the idea to gift Dad tickets to the Quaker State 400 at the Kentucky Speedway:

We have been blessed in the past to have attended NASCAR races, and events, at Kansas Speedway, Indianapolis Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, which is the home of NASCAR.  On actual Father's Day, we gifted Dad with it and it was finally time for the race!

We left early Saturday and drove straight through to Louisville.  Dad's cousins live there so we met up with them for lunch at a restaurant in downtown called Feast:

It was delicious ad just what the doctor ordered after the car ride.  I got the brisket (which I'm not use to brisket being shredded), with tater tots and a drink.  Simple menu, complete with a vast beer selection and bourbon slushies.  Yum - definitely what the doctor ordered!

After lunch we checked into the Sheraton Louisville Riverside Hotel, which was to be our home away from home for the night.

If you've never been to Louisville, its separated by the Ohio River and places that are for Louisville are actually in Jeffersonville, Indiana, which was the case for the hotel.  We dropped our stuff, and headed to Sparta, Kentucky for the track.

We parked and made our way to the track area.  If you've never been to a race, it is as american as you'll get and we found that the people in Kentucky have manners and are nice!  We had a few hours before the race so we wandered around, saw the army drop the green flag and got settled into our seats:

Dad was rooting for Jimmie Johnson in the #48, my sister and I were rooting for Dale Jr in the #88.  Unfortunately none of our drivers made it in the top 10, however they did finish and that's all that really matters.

Brad Keselowski won the race and there weren't any burn outs because he ran out of gas and had to be pushed to victory lane.

It was a great race, and even greater to see my Dad happy in his element.  Until next time NASCAR!

Meet Me at the Muny: The Music Man

The Muny took a week off for the 4th of July holiday but came back with a vengeance with the showing of The Music Man:

One of the best things about the Muny is I'm guaranteed a date night every Friday during the summer.  So we started off with dinner at the Beerhouse at River City Casino (one of our favorite restaurants) where we feasted on some of our favorites.  The weather had started cooling off, which made for a great night for a great show:

One thing I am always amazed with is the artistry behind the the sets at these shows.  They are always awesome:

Surprisingly it was an early ending show and the night was over before we knew it.  Meet us at the Muny next week for Young Frankenstein!

4th of July celebrations

So Missouri saw a lot of this over the weekend:

which altered a lot of plans we had for the 4th of July.

Friday we got a few loads of our stuff from our storage area (aka in laws basement) before going to Susan's SoCo Island Oasis (aka my cousin's backyard pool which is in the neighborhood next to us) to cool off from the lovely humidity:

before spending the rest of the night in, grabbed some pizza and watched movies.

On Saturday I had the baby shower and we were supposed to go to Hermann for my friends band.  Well it kept raining...and raining...that I just didn't want to mess with the drive out there.  So we opted to go to dinner instead and just stay around town.  No problems with that!

Sunday morning started out with me working then came home with absolutely nothing on the plate as the party we were supposed to go to got cancelled because of the weather.  So just did things around the house and relaxed again.

Monday was a day that we actually did something for the holiday!  We joined my parents in my church's parking lot with a picnic dinner and a perfect view of the Manchester fireworks.

 

  

After all the rain, it was a great ending to the 4 day weekend!

How did you celebrate the holiday?

Ahoy mates baby shower

Last Saturday my stepmom & stepsister threw a baby shower for my other stepsister who is pregnant with her 3rd baby and due in October.

They chose to have it at Sister's Tea House in Fenton.  I had never been to this place and it turned out to be really cute.  There were two parties happening at this time so it was interesting to peek in on the other one as well.

This diaper cake was a highlight of the shower and so far the biggest diaper cake I've ever seen.  The lady who made it said it took over 200 diapers.  Aye ye ye, that's a lot of diapers that I'm sure will be used!

Little man got some great gifts that I'm sure he will love once he arrives.  Jase will surely be loved.  Can't wait to meet you in a few months!