Friday Musings

Happy July 4th! I hope you have a great day with your family and friends. For our first July 4th in St. Louis we are going to go explore our new city, check out some houses that we're interested in, do a little shopping to pick up a few things we need for the apartment and go to a cookout that someone I work with is throwing for those of us who are new to St. Louis and don't have family here! It should be a nice way to spend the day. And, of course, we'll watch the fireworks - we have a pretty good view of the city from our balcony and should be able to catch lots of beautiful fireworks tonight even if we don't go downtown to see them!

Here's a brief overview of what we've been up to recently -

This is a picture that my friend Sarah took of us with my Mom and Dave at the dinner that she and Peggy threw for us before we left for St. Louis.

And here is Peggy, Sarah and Courtney - my friends from Family Lifeline! I'm going to miss them all so much!

And just before we moved, I 'found' my friend Jennifer and we got together for ice cream before we left so she could meet the family. Jennifer was my best friend all through high school and knows all my deep dark secrets lol. I'm so glad that we were able to reconnect! I've missed her!

And here's a photo from our 3 day trek to St. Louis. I have to tell you that spending 3 days in a car with 3 year olds can be challenging! We broke the 12 hour trip up so that the drive wouldn't be as difficult for the kids. They are very unusual kids in that they HATE the car and never sleep in the car. Road trips can be quite difficult. So, we drove 4 hours on Saturday, Sunday and then Monday with overnight stops in West Virginia and Indiana. It was the best that it could be considering everthing.

We arrived in St. Louis late in the day on Monday and found our new, temporary home - a corporate apartment. It's really very nice although its not really my style - a little too sparse and modern for my tastes. But, it's spacious and has everything we will need for the next 2 months until we find something else. And it has under the buidling parking for residents as well as a gym, a coffee bar, a grill area, a room with a pool table and a whirlpool spa! It's really quite nice. Here's a picture of the building -

On Tuesday, we headed to the zoo which is literally less than a mile from our new apartment. It's a wonderful zoo and we barely saw a corner of it in the 4 hours we spent there. We'll definately be going back. The kids loved it. I got one photo before my camera battery died on me and I realized that I'd forgotten to bring extras. Here it is ...

On Wednesday, I had to head into work and get my new space all set up and catch up on everything I'd been missing while I was moving. I like the office here and its nice being in the same city as the rest of our team! When I came home, Dave and I took the kids outside to paint. They LOVE to paint and had a great time painting in the books that Grandma and Grandpa bought them.

Yesterday, my mom and Dave headed out to go back home to Virginia. We've really enjoyed having them here with us and we'll miss them so much. It'll be hard for me to be so far from my mom but we'll make it work!

Overall, we're really enjoying our new adventure in the midwest. We like the city so far but will feel better when we're in a permanent home with our own stuff. Then, we can find a daycare and get the kids permanently settled in and Paul can either find a job or go back to school (depending on what he decides to do!) So, that's what we've been up to since we arrived on Monday. It's been overwhelming yet exciting. I am feeling like this was definately a good decision for us and I'm happy to be here! More soon ...