Bubble Tea Fail

Joe really appreciated not having to wake up and dress in blues today. Instead, we took our sweet time getting moving and eventually meandered across the state lines to drop Eric off at the airport. I have to admit, I do like having houseguests, especially when they’re good friends from home.

Once we were back in the car, we decided to try and hunt down a bubble tea place that was within reasonable distance from the airport. That in itself proved to be an easy task, but we [meaning I, really] were disappointed to find that it first of all didn’t open until 11:00am, and it was open every day except Monday. So there we were, on Monday, and it was barely 10:00am. Double fail.

boba / bubble tea

SO, home it was. I had a few errands to run and then it was back in the car for the 40ish minute drive back through St. Louis to the opposite outskirts for another Express meeting. It certainly went well, and I left again feeling positive about the experience, even if the drive ends up being out of range for what we feel is conducive for right now. We’ll label this a networking call if all else fails.

Good news: On the way home, I talked to Kalyn for the first time in a few days’ time. She and Sam will be stopping through here this next weekend for an overnight and then the D90 and I will be joining them on the road through Colorado, New Mexico, and their final destination of Arizona. I can’t wait. As we decided before when we checked out the wall map, we’re only a hug away, right? Haha. I’m excited!!

measuring ohio to arizona :(



Back at home, we had a few hours to kill before church softball. Since each game is a double-header, there was plenty of time to sit and chat with some of the other bystanders. Towerview won both of their games, so that meant a quick post-celebratory bite with Lorne at Panda Express…. C’mon, who doesn’t love Panda? We’ll work it off this week.

church softball | joe & lorne discussing game tactic :)

Joe finally goes back to work tomorrow, so Sydni and I have free reign over the household chores and errands. Guess we should get some rest.

xo | cmd

Walkin' to Church

So yesterday after we finished our first tour of some of St. Louis’ favorite attractions, we took a short stroll around the grounds of our townhome community. We discovered a grassy field out back that led straight into the Towerview parking lot. Today we opted to walk to church instead of drive the ¾ mile to get there.

After church, we met up again with Kyle, Lorne, and also Tyler at the base bowling alley for $1 day – the games, food, and most beverages are all $1/ea on Sundays. We played two games each, and I was quickly reminded that I should probably bowl more frequently than once every three months. Oh, well.

The rest of the afternoon was exactly what should be expected out of a Sunday: absolutely nothing fancy, just more Wii and relaxing. Joe got a call around 9:30 that he doesn’t have to report to work tomorrow because the obs floor still isn’t finished [remodeling], so that means all of us can make the trip to the airport in the morning to drop Eric off.

The boys are head to head on an NES baseball tournament, so I’ll leave that monster to run its course and head to bed ;)

xo | cmd

Clydesdales, Grant Farms, & Gateway Arch

Hello, busy day!

We got a bit of a later start than planned, so we skipped making breakfast here and instead made a pitstop at Bob Evan’s [healthy, yeah, I know]. We drove across the river from IL into MO and traversed through some quiet suburbs until we hit Grant Farm, which is a large component of the Anheuser-Busch operation. The world-famous A-B Clydesdales are housed there, along with a menagerie of other gorgeous wildlife.



grant's farm & budweiser clydesdales
eric & joe with a budweiser wagon | cori in the carriage house

Sydni got a full run of exploring as we strolled through the Grant Farm and saw all the animals: Clydesdales, bison & buffalo, goats & kangaroos, peacocks & bald eagles, lemurs, elephants, and a slew of other zoo-like creatures.

st. louis gateway arch

Once we’d checked off Grant Farm, we hopped over to the Gateway Arch, the iconic landmark welcoming all to St. Louis. I’ve only ever driven through the city itself, so this was a new adventure for me. Joe, Eric, Sydni & I got our tickets to the Jefferson Memorial Museum and the North Tram. The North Tram is the term referring to an elevator of sorts. I say of sorts, because this sucker was t-i-n-y. There were 5 seats mounted in each of these little bubbles, and that was literally all the space available. Each little bubble took roughly 4 minutes to get from the ground to the top of the 630-ft arch overlooking Missouri, Illinois, and bits of Kansas in clear weather. It was an interesting experience with a fascinating view from the top.



630 ft high overlooking st. louis & surrounding area

Our last stop after the arch was an impromptu dinner at Caleco’s, a classy little spot we found just walking through some of downtown. The conversation piece there was an exquisite saltwater fish tank complete with baby starfish and a puffer J [because I love some cute puffer fish].

baby star fish | puffer ♥

With our bellies full, we headed back home and rounded out the evening with a stroll around our townhouse community, until we found a grass patch behind it that led straight into Towerview’s parking lot. I told you our church was closeby!

*Yawn. It’s movie time, now, so until tomorrow!

xo | cmd

Base Picnic & Bible Study

Today started off with waffles. A day that starts off with waffles is rarely ever a bad day. Haha.

waffle time!

The boys headed out to meet up with Kyle, Lorne, & Nick to help one of their buddies move his things out of a storage unit. Sydni and I hung back to clean up, which we finished sooner than we thought. That meant some free time for jewelry!

Behold:

handmade fun:
dragonfly pendent for mama
simple purple droplet for sydni

Sydni & I headed to the Sandven’s and the lot of us trekked over to the Scott AFB picnic. We hadn’t been to a base picnic yet, so we weren’t sure what to expect. It was a free event, and the entire base was invited. This thing was huge, more like an outdoor festival with free food, swag, and hot, hot sun. We ate, we walked, and we played. Definitely not a bad day for a picnic. We took Eric over to the lake for some cool-down cornhole before we headed back home to get ready for Bible study.



local radio station promo inflatable | eric & joe trying out a picnic game




bengals cornhole



rick warren

Towerview has a couple’s bible study that takes place every other Friday at the pastor’s house. This was our first session; the topic series tonight was the first of three on Raising Your Kids Without Raising Your Blood Pressure. How appropriate! J Excluding us, the pastor and his wife, there were five other couples in attendance, all with at least one child. We watched a video lesson by Rick Warren on parenting, and had a group discussion following. I was thoroughly impressed with how it went, and with how warm and welcoming this group is. I have a feeling we’re going to fit in and stay here. We’ll see.

We plan on doing a little touring tomorrow! The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis is on our list, along with either the Anheuser-Busch brewery or Grant Farm. We’ll see what we fancy more when we wake up in the morning….

xo | cmd

Edwardsville, Express, Edwards

I’m glad that I scoped out the Express office in Glen Carbon/Edwardsville prior to the meeting I had scheduled there today; I am almost positive I would’ve gotten lost if not. I met there this morning for a meeting with the owners, a married couple whom I immediately liked. There were scripture verses posted in their office and their first rule of thumb is God first. If anything else, I’d say there’s no other place I’d rather start. After two hours sitting in with the owners, I would say I left feeling rather optimistic about the entire thing.

Following that meeting, I GPS’d my way back homeward and posted up at a Starbuck’s for a few hours to update our blog [this guy!] before heading back to the Dills Digs.

Joe had met Eric at the St. Louis airport and the two of them drove back here for a weekend stay. Of course the first order of business for those two when they get together is intense Wii & NES battling:

remember this one?

*Sigh. It’s a beautiful thing, watching that. Haha. What's even more beautiful is this little frozen custard joing we found driving around, too.



"mango dango"
custard | fresh mango | walnuts



We didn’t do a whole lot other than dinner and relaxing for his first night in. Tomorrow’s Friday and from what I hear, a pretty busy day is ahead of us!

xo | cmd

Wisdom Teeth, Be Gone!

I remember back a few years ago when I had all four of my wisdom teeth removed. I ended up with the dry socket from Hades and lost about 14 lbs. It was not a good time. I am just hoping against hope that Joe doesn’t have to endure any of that nonsense after his healing is said and done.

We dropped Sydni off for what we’ll say was both a test run and a huge favor done by the Sandven’s so that we could go to the med building for Joe’s surgery. I was prepared to be waiting for no less than 2+ hours for all of it to be complete, but just a little over 50 minutes in, he was rolling out in a wheelchair with pink gauze tape over his IV mark.

As is the case with wisdom teeth, this is the first thing most of us do after surgery: SLEEP! After unloading a passed out Sydni and a groggy Joe into the house and to their beds, I ran out to pick up some Jello, soup, and other non-clumping foods as the oral surgeon had suggested. As soon as he’s up, it’s soup for dinner and a new gauze.

Yep, so that’s that.

Tomorrow =

.: Express meeting in Edwardsville

.: Eric coming for a visit!

.: Joe recovering from both wisdom teeth and softball flesh wound. Hah.

Also, the house is coming together finally!

Not a bad Wednesday! J

Exploring Edwardsville

We woke up today to find that Joe’s wound hadn’t really started healing yet, so he resigned himself to an earned day of R&R here at the house. I would dare anyone after today to challenge him at Wii cornhole [because we don’t play enough of that in real life] or any of the games on the original Wii Sports. He invested himself in going pro at all of them today.

wii sports :)  

I decided to run some errands and then do some exploring. I dropped off yet another bin of random stuff at the Salvation Army and then headed north a bit towards Edwardsville, IL. I have a meeting later this week with the owners of that Express office; I wanted to be sure I could manage finding it via GPS. I was successful on the first attempt, which was reassuring, so I headed back towards home.

scoping out this familiar dig, Edwardsville location...



stinkin' ice cube trays!



One more stop and I was done. Or so I thought. What I hadn’t counted on is that apparently either nobody uses standard ice cube trays anymore, or I and the 6 combined sales associates I asked are all blind, because it took 4 different stops before I could track them down. It’s funny how we found ourselves with about 9 of these things at our old house, and now hunting like fools for just 2.

Mission accomplished. I headed back home to find Joe perfecting his form at Wii Cornhole and joined in for a few rounds.

Tomorrow = Joe getting his last two wisdom teeth removed.

Let’s pray hard for no dry sockets!

xo | cmd