Fourth of July

Did you miss me?  Even though there's been a lot going on these few weeks I've been MIA let's recap Fourth of July weekend shall we?

Let me start off by saying that this Fourth of July weekend was one of the best ones in recent history.  I think with Fourth of July being on a Friday this year really helped.  I get 'long' weekend every other weekend so the fact I had a three-day weekend didn't mean a whole lot, but the fact everyone else in the world also got that three-day weekend just made it that much better.

Thanks to my work letting me out 59 minutes early (woohoo) I got home a bit early and was able to just chill out.  Around 6:30, Dan and I (along with my cousin Ben) headed up to Stacked to meet Dan's sister, Amanda and her fiance, Lou, for dinner.  Stacked is a delicious burger joint.  We were able to score a table on the patio out front which was amazing since the weather was so freaking beautiful over the weekend.  We had some beers and burgers and enjoyed each other's company.

My burger - this time I got cheddar cheese, grilled pineapple, breaded jalapenos and bbq sauce

After dinner we headed back to our place where Caleb met us.  We hung out on our deck for quite awhile.  The boys lasted longer than I did but overall it was such a nice night.

On Friday I spent a good part of the day just relaxing around the house.  In the morning I ran to the grocery store to make party potatoes for Susan's get together later that evening.  I let Dan sleep in (he normally does NOT sleep in, but he slept until around 10am when I woke him up with breakfast)

That evening I picked up Michelle and we went to Susan's house for a barbecue/party.  It was a lot of fun, and with the weather being so amazing just added to that.  They had a lot of food and drinks.  It was a really nice time.  Their house overlooks New Town in St. Charles and out there everything is legal, so we had a good view of a bunch of people shooting off their own fireworks.  While it was chaotic a bit, it was a really neat experience.  We stayed there until semi-late and then headed back home. 
 

My hair actually looked good curly (natural) I should have gotten a pic with Susan too... hindsight yo!

There was glow sticks!

On Saturday Dan and I did some running around to a few stores.  We also relaxed and then ended up meeting up with his childhood friend, Steven, and his wife, Sara.  We met up at the casino where some of them proceeded to gamble (I had some drinks) and then we headed over to the concert at Riverport (or Verizon if you want to get all technical).    The concert was The Urge and 311.  It was a really nice show and the fact the weather was so amazing just added to the fun.  After the show they did a mini fireworks display which was great too!

I just realized you can see my arm taking the selfie in Dan's glasses.

After the concert we went over to Dave and Busters until they closed down.  It was fun to play some games.  Then Steven and Sara wanted to go back to the casino... so we headed over there... I am not a gambler - so I mostly just sat there, because drinking at that point didn't sound fun either.  After they wasted a fair amount of money, we dropped them off at their hotel and we headed home.  We didn't get home until 2:30-3... which is LATE for this girl.

Sunday was mostly a relaxation day... and felt so good.  Dan and I both took naps... and it was oh so glorious.

Sadly though all that outside time did quite the number on my feet... stupid mosquitos...

Not counting all the things you CAN'T see

Overall it was a wonderful Fourth of July weekend.  I hope everyone also had a great time!

Weekend in Review: Quiet

I am going to get back into at least telling you about my weekends.  Of course I'm back with one of the least eventful weekends in awhile, but whatevs gotta start somewhere.

Now that I'm working every other Friday again half the time my weekend doesn't start on Thursday nights anymore (cue the sad music)... so Friday after work I got home and I was pretty hungry at that point so Dan and I ended up going to a fairly early dinner around 4:30... (too bad they didn't have an early bird special...)  Dan got a gift card to Chili's for his birthday, so that's where we went.  It was a nice casual meal, and it's always nice when you don't end up having to pay!

After that we headed home and it was a very low key night with me cross-stitching and watching Once Upon a Time.

On Saturday Dan picked up some overtime so I had the morning alone.  I slept in a bit and then headed over to hang out with my mom.  She's headed to Alaska (lucky gal) so I wanted to see her before she went.  We went to Target where I got a bunch of random stuff and somehow managed to spend $115...

Then we got a quick snack at Sonic.  Originally I thought we would eat together because I didn't have plans with Dan until 4ish... but he texted me to let me know that plans had moved to 2... so eating something small was a better idea than a full meal.

After that we headed over to Kohl's.  Mom wanted to see if there was anything she could take on her trip.  I ended up looking at jewelry and getting a new necklace for my dragonfly charm.  Dan gave me the charm (from Tiffany's!!) for my birthday last year.  I never had a 'good' necklace for it, but had used a couple of silver chains I had around.  The first one was actually a nice chain that came with a different necklace, but it got caught on my scarf and I ripped it off... whoops...  The second one was a super cheap chain that just ended up breaking.  I'm so happy to have the necklace back and for only $22 bucks.

From today

My mom was also super nice and bought me another necklace.  I thought it was broken when I got home but it was a beyond easy fix so I just fixed it and wore it.

How many selfies are there going to be??  And the reason my hand is like that is because I was showing off the ring... looks so silly now...

Soon after I got back home we headed up to meet Dan's mom and step-dad for lunch at Gamlin Whiskey House in Central West End.  We had gone to breakfast there, but not for regular food.  It was SO delicious and a great time to celebrate.  Dan's mom had her last chemo treatment!!

I had a lunch 'trio' which included a delicious Caesar salad, a half pulled pork sandwich and yummy mashed potatoes.  So good!  Dan and I were going to go to a bar afterwards, but the one he thought about didn't open for another hour so we just went home instead.  Our night was pretty shot after that... I watched some TV in the basement which made me drift to sleep and Dan went to bed early.

On Sunday I didn't do a whole lot either.  Dan went to a drift car race thing at Gateway with a friend while I just hung out at home.  Later Dan and Caleb came over.  They grilled some brats and we had a nice dinner out on the deck.  It's crazy the 70 degree temperatures in June, but I'll take it for however long the weather gods want to give it!

So that was my weekend in a nutshell - told you it was pretty quiet!

Ketchup

So it's been awhile since I last posted... whoops! 

Here are some things that have been going on...

• My cousin, Amanda got married back in May.  It was a Friday night wedding and a lot of fun because all the people I'd normally hang out with (i.e. my cousins) were there.  So it was like hanging out with them with free alcohol - can't beat that.  We had a lot of fun.

My hair is a mess and you can blame Mr. Daniel for that...

• We celebrated mother's day what feels like a month ago.  It was a really nice day.  We had an early lunch at Blueberry Hill.  Then we checked out the 250 exhibit at the History Museum (totally recommend this exhibit - very cool to see and it's FREE!!).  Next we headed to Ted Drewes for custard.  It was a beautiful day spent with my amazing mom and awesome sister.

• The following weekend Lindsey, Susan and I went to see the Chippendales!!  I saw they were coming to town and always heard that it's a pretty fun thing to go and see... and it did not disappoint!!  We had a lot of fun!!  Afterwards Susan and I went to my cousin Dave's birthday party.  A very nice night!

• Later that same weekend Dan's nephew, Tanner, got baptised.  He was even a god father.  It was a very nice little ceremony followed by a delicious lunch.\
• 

  
• That started off a pretty busy week for me - Wednesday night was Survivor Finale for which I went to Michelle's place (as always).  I even made these cookies for the celebration.



•  The next night Susan and I took a painting class that was Wine and Canvas and took place at the Lakehouse on Creve Cour Lake.  It was a lot of fun and very relaxing!

 

• Next up was Memorial Day weekend which was pretty tame.  Dan and I bbqed and played washers together, which was nice, but not very exciting.
• This past weekend wasn't that exciting either.  I started working on my cross-stitch again (I needed a break, but it's getting pretty far along!!) and started watching Once Upon a Time on Netflix.
• I'm sure there are other things I'm missing that were good too... I however can't really think of them off hand... life has been good!!

Weekend In Review: Beautiful Weather

I'm a little late in getting this up because I started my new job this week - woohoo... maybe more on that another time.

The weather this past weekend was so extremely beautiful it would have been a crime not to spend it outside!

On Friday I hung around the house, did some chores... very exciting stuff.  When Dan got home we got some food.  I rented two movies from Redbox - Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle.  Some friends of Dan ended up coming over so I watched Wolf of Wall Street which was awesome - I really did enjoy it.

On Saturday morning Dan worked some overtime at work so I watched American Hustle.  After he got home I made a grocery list and did the shopping.  When I got back we sat outside.  Dan cooked some hot dogs and some friends came over - Caleb, Michelle and later Ben.  We drank some beers and played washers.  I was amazed at how well I did at washers, I even got it in the center!  It was getting dark by the time we played, so I sorta blame my skillz on not really being able to aim well and thus just throwing better in general.

The weather was the perfect bit of warm and our tree has sprouted all it's leaves so it's nice and shady on our deck.  Overall, it was a wonderful Saturday!!

On Sunday I met my mom (and brought breakfast) and we went to the Lindbergh High School Flea Market.  It was fun looking at all the things there, although some things seemed more expensive than we wanted to pay.  She ended up buying some socks (they were brand new don't worry) and I got a cute little wooden reindeer for Christmas decoration for just 50 cents.

After our Flea Market experience we went and got some drinks at Sonic and then went to Home Depot where my mom wanted to get some new plants for her yard.  There are just so many amazing looking plants and flowers that I could want them all (you know if I didn't kill any plants that I try to grow...)

My mom got a bunch of nice things and she was nice enough to buy me 3 small Hostas. 

Next we went to Ace Hardware where she saw some big Hostas she wanted.  She ended up getting me a big Hosta plant too.

I headed home, but Dan was gone.  So I decided to just go for it and plant all my new Hostas and get the bird bath (that I took back from my mom's house) situated.  I wanted to plant them under our big tree in the backyard.  I also added the bird bath and hanging plant that my mom got me for housewarming.  I also used the tools she got me to plant the Hostas.  It turned out SO GOOD in my humble opinion.

A couple of notes about the pictures... one, I need to get the weeds on the outside of the little fenced in area pulled up (there were a bunch in the inside, but  I cleaned those up when I planted)

Also, that lovely dirt area around the tree?  Well, right now we are kind of embracing it because we don't know what else to do.  That area is very shaded most of the day... but also, the dogs will chase each other around the tree like over and over, so even if we found something that would grow in the shade, I'm not sure it would grow with them running over it all the time... so right now it is what it is.

I finished off Sunday by making dinner (a failed recipe sadly, I made beans and cornbread, but I made the beans with bacon instead of ham which I think made a difference... they were overall bland.  I added jalapenos to them which may have been their only redeeming quality... oh well you can't win them all!)

Overall, relaxing weekend where I accomplished some chores and beautiful weather.  Pretty perfect in my book!

Housewarming Party

This post will cover my weekend in review post for this week... mostly because my weekend (and the week proceeding it) was all I thought about and did things for.  I really wanted us to throw a party for our friends and family.  I wanted people to come, eat and have a good time... and I'd say that was pretty darn successful. 

As you do with lots of events that you plan months for (I'd known I wanted to have a big party for quite awhile since moving in, but finally set the date almost two months in advance).  I wanted as many people as could to come to planning ahead I felt was fairly important.

I did a fair amount of planning for the party including all the food.  Since Dan is an expert griller I let him handle the meat and I handled all the other food.  I debated in my head quite a bit about what to have - I could seriously make so many different dishes.  I was really worried we wouldn't have enough food, but we had SO MUCH food.  I guess it's better to have more than not enough.

Here are the things I decided to make including links to the recipes

• Macaroni and Cheese - I made double the recipe, but would have gotten by with just one batch
• Cheesy Party Potatoes - I made double this too... and this all did get eaten (and for the record I used the hash browns that are cut into little cubes, not the ones that are shredded... oh and since I decided last minute to make a double batch I only used sour cream meant for one batch, and used cream of celery soup instead of chicken for my vegetarians)... also this is not the exact recipe I used, but based on memory it's the closest
• Beans - I got two very large cans of beans,  and most of them did not get eaten.  I added BBQ sauce and brown sugar to them... only needed one can, maybe not at all
• Veggie Tray - I was going to actually all the veggies by hand, but went with a store bought one.  I'm glad I did because people didn't eat very healthy at the party if you know what I mean
• Fruit Salad - I tasked this one to my mom - she always does a good job!!
• Potato Salad - My step-mom wanted to bring something and I let her decide and she brought this, it was good and got eaten well
• Two bags of chips - it was the right amount
• Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting - Made out of a box.  I made two boxes which end up being approximately 40 cupcakes. I really should have only made one batch
• Sheet Cake and Donut Holes - my mom and grandma brought these too - the donut holes nearly all got eaten, and about half the cake.  It was very sweet of them to bring extras
• Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries - I found this recipe a long time ago and always wanted to make it but never did.  I decided since Strawberries are in season that now was the time.  I pretty much doubled the recipe.  They took a bit of time, but not as bad as I thought (especially now that I have a table I can sit at)  They were SO GOOD.  I will make them again, although I'd pipe the cheesecake in them a little differently b/c I didn't put it right into the bag.  These all got eaten fast and I had to save a few for some friends I knew were coming later in the day.
• Lemonade - I made a batch of lemonade to put in a dispenser (I also got about 4 2-liters of soda).  I don't think I put the right amount of powder in there though, but oh well
• Alcoholic Punch - I added more vodka than the recipe called for, it was good!
• Caramel Apple Dip - Susan made this, and this stuff is like crack good.  I'm so happy she made it for the party.

I think that's all the food except the meat which we had hot dogs, hamburgers, brats and pork steaks... see what I mean about all that food?

I prepared what I could (mac and cheese, potatoes, cupcakes) the day before so I wouldn't be running around too much the morning of... of course I still was but not nearly as bad.

Wow, that's a lot of information y'all probably don't need or want!

So the actual party... and I'm about to get gushy here folks... was amazing!!  I am overflowing with gratitude for the people who came and had a good time.  You never know who all will show up especially when a Facebook invite is involved, but we had such an amazing turn out.  I really REALLY wish I had taken pictures, but atlas I have like 3 - and one is a strawberry and the others are the fresh flowers I put around the house.  It was so fun to see our deck so full and people enjoying the beautiful weather.

I'm going to list the people that came, mostly so I can remember since the lack of pictures.  Dan's family came including his parents, sister Amanda, aunt Julie, aunt Michelle  (and her husband and one of her kids), his grandparents.  My family came including my dad and step mom, Grandpa, mom, Grandma, aunt Ruth, and aunt Pat.  My high school friends Amanda (and her husband) and Beth (including her adorable new son).  Friends - Kyle, Randy (Dan's friend), Andy (and Ashley a bit later), Dave (his girlfriend and her friends later in the night), Ben (and his girlfriend Sherelle), Michelle, Susan, Erin and Matt, John and Amanda (and da baby), Charlie, Caleb, and... I hope I'm not forgetting anyone because I would feel bad if I did. 

It was just such an absolutely perfect day.  It meant so much to me to have my friends and family surrounding me having a good time.  I couldn't ask for anything better.  I just love having so many people I care about and love around us together.  It was truly fantastic.

We stayed up pretty late and had a lot of cleaning up the next day - but all so worth it.  Can't say we'll have parties like this very often, but it left me with such a good feeling that I think we'll have to do it again... maybe with not as much food next time :)

Here are the totally lame pictures.  I shouldn't even post them, but I'm going to...

Added some flowers to a planter on our front porch

The strawberries - so amazing!  I really want to make them again like now

All the beer we had left - we're going to have to have another party to get this drank... plus look at the hot dogs we have left too

Fresh Flowers - I arranged them into a couple of little settings - tall shot glasses worked really well for this.  This one was next to the door bell

In the phone holder in the hallway

These flowers are still making me happy every time I go to the bathroom

Like I said, it was a wonderful day filled with family, friends and love.  Thank you everyone who reads this that made it and for those who didn't, you were missed!

DC Trip - Part 2

Let's finish up this nice little recap of our trip to DC.

On Saturday we ate breakfast at the hotel (it was a mad house!).  Then we walked to a small farmer's market they were having in Downtown Silver Spring.  We walked around and the rest of them decided to get some coffee.  I just had some water.

Then we headed to the metro station and headed to the ballpark

On the way in

The weather was gorgeous and our seats were pretty amazing too.  The kinda funny thing is we were in the first row of our section and when we sat down the kid behind us started complaining loudly about how we blocked his view... oh kid.
 

view from our seats

We also managed to get a nice group shot.

We had a couple of beers and some random food.  It was crazy how long EVERY line was for food... never seen anything like that before... but to me DC is standing in line, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

After the game we headed over to a bar called Iron Horse.  We went there to watch the end of the Blues game.  And man - what an exciting game!  The Blues tied it up with only 6 seconds left to push it into overtime.  They ended up winning and my dad was excited to say the least...

(reenactment)

We then headed up the street to go to dinner at Matchbox.  This was also a pizza joint, and very delicious.  We ate way too much food while we were there!

Chinatown where the bar and dinner were located

We headed back to Silver Spring, but had to wait forever because of the Metro system on the weekends (annoying), but we finally made it back.

The next morning (our last) we got up and checked out of the hotel.  We went to Founding Farmers for Easter Brunch.  It's pretty popular in the DC area.  We had a little trouble with our reservation and at first thought we were going to have to eat outside.  Luckily they accommodated us inside by adding a chair to a booth. 

All the food was delicious looking.  Usually I'm more of a savory breakfast person, but decided to go with New Orleans Style Stuffed French Toast with Bananas Foster topping.  It was so so good.  It was like dessert. 
 

F-ing French Toast (quote from a movie)

We headed up to Baltimore and stopped by a museum (it was free and cannot remember what it's called) and to stop by the grave of Edger Allen Poe.  Then Keith took us to the airport where we said our goodbyes and headed back home (which was the worse flight I've been on because of the pressure in my sinuses... blah)

Overall it was a wonderful trip.  Of course I would rather Keith leave closer, but DC is a nice alternative because there's so much to see and do there. A special thank you to my dad and Janet for taking me with them.  It was really a lot of fun!

DC Trip - Part 1

I'm going to do something a little different here... I am first going to get the negative part of my trip out of the way first, that way I don't have to mention it again and you can see truly how much fun I did have.  The only negative part of this trip was that I got sick... I think with allergies.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I felt fine all day Thursday and sometime that night I started to get a headache, which continued the next day.  Then the nose started running and the sneezing and a stomach ache (not sure if that's related or not, but throwing it in there).  It sucked.  Then when we headed back home on Sunday - well the pressure already in my sinuses combined with the pressurized cabin of the airplane made it like a million times worse.  I ended up calling in sick Monday and went home early on Tuesday.  It's currently Wednesday and I'm beginning to feel a lot better, however I'm still fairly congested (I sound like I'm holding my nose when talking)  So there's the bad... it's out of the way!

Back to the good part - last week/weekend my dad, step mom, Janet, and me went to visit my brother in DC.  We picked this particular weekend because the Cardinals were playing the Nationals in DC and thought it would be a fun time to go. 

We left on Wednesday evening.  Our flight got into Baltimore around 9pm.  While we were waiting for our plane in St. Louis we had some food at Chilis and I had a margarita!

Been craving one

When we got into DC Keith and his girlfriend, Sarah, picked us up at the airport and we headed to Silver Spring, where they live.  Once we got up to the hotel and got situated (I got the pleasure of sleeping on a roll-away bed, but that's not me complaining) we went out for some drinks at an Irish pub close to their house - McGinty's.  We had a couple of drinks and then headed back to the hotel.  It was getting kinda late at that point (for me at least)

On Thursday we woke up and got ready at a leisurely pace.  Keith had to work and Sarah had other plans so we decided to check out the Newseum.  With the help of an app on my phone I got us all there in one piece by navigating the metro system and walking - I'm not going to lie, I was pretty proud of myself.

I originally took this b/c I thought they were cherry blossoms, but now I'm not so sure they are... may have been what caused my allergies though...

The Newseum was really pretty neat.  While it talks about journalism (both written and visual) there's a lot about general things that happened in the news.  We spent a lot of time there, and still wasn't able to see everything.  Tickets are good for two days, but we only spent one there.

Outside they had the front page papers of each state.  Here's St. Louis!  They also had these inside as well.  Since I am lame or something I counted how many papers had a cover story about the ferry disaster in South Korea - out of the 40 papers I counted, 18 had that story on the front page somewhere.

They have a lot of cool things in the Newseum, but one of the neatest is the Berlin wall.  Here's a piece you could touch.

Dave was here (like Kilroy haha get it? no?)

They also had a big piece of the wall.  The West Berlin side was all graffetied up while the East Berlin side was clean.

Very interesting, and something that happened in my lifetime which is hard to believe.  Although I was pretty young when the wall came down.

 

They also had an FBI exhibit which talked about famous events - Gangsters, civil rights, Lindbergh baby kidnapping, Unibomber (including his cabin), 9/11 and other terrorist acts, Oklahoma City bombing and Waco.

Dad posing with a gangster

Next we went up to the top floor which had a fantastic view of the Capitol Building.  I used an app my mom recommended to get these pics - Pro HDR Free - they kind of look photo shopped.

Another one of the most interesting things at the museum was 9/11 and it's coverage.  September 11th happened when I was a senior in high school.  They show a video about the news coverage that day and people who were there reporting it.  I cried...

This was the antenna on top of one of the towers

Wall of front pages the day after 9/11 happened

This picture I took a couple of floors up, but goes with the Berlin wall stuff - this is the "Death Tower" which was on the East Berlin side and would watch for people trying to flee to West side.  Their orders were to kill.

Another one of the good exhibits there was they have every Pulitzer Prize winning photographer.  It was a very interesting room and pretty sad because a lot of those photos show poverty, hardship, war, etc.  I didn't get any photos in this area.

Finally they had an Anchorman exhibit.  I walked through it in about 5 minutes - there wasn't much other than some props and costumes.

60% of the time it works every time

Here's a funny t-shirt I found in the gift shop...

After finishing up at the Newseum we headed over to close to the stadium.  We met Keith and Sarah at a micro-brewery, Bluejacket.  It was very good and had an awesome selection of beer.  It was around this time my phone died sadly.

 

After some drinks and food we headed over to the ballpark.  It was a great game and the Cardinals won 8-0.  The game was REALLY cold though, so we didn't stay too too long, but longer than we originally thought we would.

 

We headed back to Silver Spring and went back to McGinty's to watch the end of the game and the Blues game.  I stayed at the bar for the first overtime, but then headed back to the hotel.  I watched the second overtime there and then went to sleep... of course I missed when they actually scored in the third overtime to win the game.

 

On Friday we were pretty worn out from all the walking and missed breakfast at our hotel.  So instead we went to french place in Silver Spring - La Madeleine.  It was a very tasty breakfast!  During this time we tried to find tickets to Saturday's baseball game since it was a day game and we wouldn't freeze to death.  We planned to go to the Holocaust museum that day, but instead decided to drive around DC and take in the sights this way.  I will say I never want to be a driver in DC, but Keith did a great job.  We drove by a lot of the monuments and different areas of DC. 

 

We ended up eating at Comet Ping Pong. We ordered several different kinds of pizza and it was all very delicious.  We ended up heading back to Keith and Sarah's where we watched the Cardinals game and played Heads Up during commercials.  It was a very nice night.

 

Comet Ping Pong

Original Artwork in their apartment, you could talk about this picture for hours!

I'll be back to recap the final two days very soon.

Weekend in Review: ZooQuest and Cardinals

I had a full weekend, but it was awesome... truly awesome!

Friday I got the pleasure of waiting at home for the delivery man to show up with my patio furniture.  It was one of those 4 hour windows (11-3) and since it required a signature I had to be there... I really wanted to get in the shower, but I knew as soon as I did they would show up... so I just waited and waited and finally at 2:30 he showed up.

But in the mean time of waiting I got some super big news job related news.  So that was awesome.

When Dan got home we put together the patio furniture.  Of course I started on a chair and he started on the table.  He finished the table and started on a chair and finished that chair before I even finished my first chair... figures.  I let him put together the rest while I organized the rest of the materials and threw things away and stuff like that.  Soon there after (because Dan is an assembly master) our patio furniture was put together!  I am so happy to have it.  My mom gave it to me for my birthday.  I found the set on Walmart.com.  It was the cheapest set I could find, especially for a 7-piece set and luckily I love it!  Patio furniture is too freaking expensive!

 

After that I got ready and we went out with my dad to Granite City Brewery (it's not actually in Granite City).  It was such a nice night of drinking some beers, eating some food and hanging out with my dad and Dan and Janet.

 

On Saturday I got up and got ready to meet my sister.  We decided a couple of weeks ago to participant in the ZooQuest at the St. Louis Zoo (lite version).  We really weren't sure what to expect, but thought we'd have a good time.  Here we are before we started:

 

At first when we got our packet we felt really overwhelmed.  The basic-ness of ZooQuest is it's part trivia part scavenger hunt.  We had four 'quests' and some trivia.  We started walking around with no clear idea what the heck we were doing.  The four quests were 1) word clouds and we had to find the animal that corresponded 2) A logic problem, 3) a crossword puzzle and 4) looking for visual pictures for missing letters.  Once we sat down and really just forced ourselves to start it went much better. 

 

We had a lot of fun, it was a ton of walking, but it was such a beautiful day, so that was nice.  Of course since it was so nice out everyone and their mom was at the zoo... with a stroller.  Even though we didn't place, I would totally do it again, it was a really fun day with my sister.

 

After we finished we headed back home, grabbed mom and got some food.  It was fun connecting with her.  We would have loved for her to attend too, but she had to work... boo

 

After food I finally headed back home and I was TIRED!  When I got to my house Dan had invited some friends and my cousins over.  They were hanging out on our back deck (new patio furniture for the win).  I was planning on showering as soon as I got home, but hung out with them.  It was fun because Dan moved the TV outside.  Gotta love having a hook up out there. 

 

The weather was soo beautiful so it was great just hanging out.  We played a couple of rounds of Cards Against Humanity then watched some TV.

Liked the reflection in my glasses

TV! Outside!

On Sunday my sister came over and we headed down to the Cardinals vs. Cubs game with Liz and Ken.  The seats were pretty high up, but it was a great view.  It started raining and they delayed the game for a bit, but luckily Lindsey was smart enough to bring ponchos for both of us!  After the rain passed we were able to watch all the game and we did well!! Lots of hits so that was exciting.

 

I came home and was tired, but did some laundry and we ordered Chinese for dinner.  Overall it was such an amazing weekend.

On a final note, I planted bulbs this past fall and they survived the winter and bloomed this weekend - so pretty!!