Christmas Vacation part 1

The best part about flying from St. Louis to DC is getting to see the Arch and the Washington Monument all in the same day. My flight landed in Reagan Naitonal Airport (Is that a new statue of Reagan outside? Yes!) so we got a great view upon landing and taking the GW parkway home.

I arrived Christmas eve. Per our new tradition, we had Chinese take-out for dinner. Jeila had a solo at the Christmas Eve 10:30pm service at St. Dunstan's so I went to that. We opened presents Christmas morning at Mom's. Then we headed over to Baba's house. Coda was waiting! He has a new trick:

Pirate Shoulder Cat!

I finally got to indulge in an Iranian feast!

 Naturally, tadig was the best part.

To be continued...

Mo'Fun

Almost done with my B&B weekend recap...

Sunday morning we awoke to a knock on our door. Special delivery:

Breakfast!!! More pretty blue dishes (so tempted to steal). I ordered the quiche and Brandon had pancakes. The innkeeper's bread was a cranberry orange cake (I think) and the fruit dish was a pear with preserves. Very tasty and a great way to wake up. Then it was time to check out and head on up to St. Louis.

 

Our first stop was the Sandy Creek Covered Bridge. (Major props to Missouri State Parks website, it rocks! Seriously, it leaves the Illinois State Parks website in the dust.) The bridge was pretty, and surprising similar to the one in Illinois.

Next up was Laumeier Sculpure Park. Now this was a Mitra destination. I loved it! It is a park with giant sculptures. (Little known fact, in college I took a 3-D art class. One of our projects was Christo and Jeanne-Claude inspired and we built our own giant inflatable sculptures). By far, the two most fun works were:

Ricardo Cat

The cat.

Eye

The eyeball. It was cold and drizzly so we only saw a small portion of the park. But I will definitely make another trip back in warmer weather.

Our next destination was a real big city museum. We went to the Missouri History Museum. Best part, free admission! The World's Fair exhibit was really interesting. And totally devastating to know that the magical city that they built in 1904 was promptly destroyed after the festivities. Brandon decided that if he ever becomes Governor of Missouri he will rebuilt the fairgrounds. I stand behind his platform, haha.

Ye Olde 3-D Glasses

We have a thing for silly cut-outs:

Devil Child

The last treat of the day was lunch. Brandon took me to Mama's on the Hill. This was my first time eating Italian food on "The Hill", St. Louis's Little Italy. The reason he chose Mama's was because it claims to be the, "Home of the toasted ravioli!" Being the good foodies we are we ordered them right away:

The Verdict: tasty, meatier than Cummare's in a good way. We then split Fettuccine Alfredo - yum! They have a Mama's challenge which is a "hill" of spaghetti topped with a giant meatball (I mean meatloaf size). Crazy! Maybe someday ...

STL Weekend

Last weekend Brandon and I had another St. Louis adventure. On Saturday we drove up to Jefferson Barracks Park for a vintage base ball game. The park was nice but it was in the 90s and there were only a few trees surrounding the field. I spent the majority of the game chatting to another player's wife. Telling your life story makes the time pass very quickly! The Clarkes won one and lost one.

The games were over at 4 and we headed into the city. Hunger pangs hit us in the car and a billboard caught our eyes. That is how we ended up at Gus' Pretzels. Being the foodies that we are, we just had to experience "a St. Louis tradition."

The pretzels were 55 cents each! They had a classic soft pretzel taste, obvious more fresh than those sold at a ball park but were sadly missing the Auntie Anne's  grease.

We spent the night at the Casino Queen (in another comped room!). Gotta love the view at this hotel:

That night we went to the last Fair St. Louis concert of the summer - Barenaked Ladies. So good! The concert (not rained out like last time) was in a park next to the Soldier's Memorial Military Museum. The band sounded really good live and the lead singer was so goofy. We loved when they played the Big Bang Theory theme song.

Our Sunday was spent at Six Flags. Mary Jo's dad's company - Illinois Electric - had a day at the park. Our tickets were discounted to $20 and including a buffet lunch. I'm afraid of roller coasters but Brandon always makes me go. I still don't have fun on them yet!

Lewis & Clark

On July 3rd we went up to St. Louis in hopes of catching the free Maroon 5 concert under the arch and fireworks. Unfortunately, just as we pulled into town a storm blew in and the concert was cancelled. WAHH. Brandon's parents had hooked us up with a hotel room at the Casino Queen so we decided to gamble the night away instead. Well, I gave the slots a chance and ended up liking them (because I was winning). Brandon played blackjack and won some money too. Not too shabby, but I think we really missed out on a good show.

The next day we were invited to Bethalto to visit Seth and Mary Jo. Since we had some time to kill, Brandon made us take a detour at the Lewis & Clark State Historic Site in Hartford, IL. The main draw here is the Lewis & Clark Confluence Tower but it was closed due to firework viewing later that night. So instead we headed over to the museum.

It was small but informative. I'm sure lots of school groups come through because it is very interactive.

Here's Brandon with one of the boats. Outside they had a little camp set up so you could see what it was like for Lewis and Clark... but it was still raining a bit so we skipped it. We were happy to strike this place off our list - you only need to come here once :)

First Cardinals Game of the Season

I'm currently visiting my hometown - McLean, VA. But, I'm still behind on posting so back to Illinois we go... enjoy!
 
On Wednesday night, the Murphy guys and I headed to downtown St. Louis to attend our first Cardinals game of the season. We left town around 4:30pm and stopped at St. Clair Square in Fairview Heights, IL for dinner. Brandon spotted Five Guys and we ate some delicious burgers. We didn't know the chain had made it this far west. This location just opened in September.

The other reason we stopped here was to park and ride the Redbird Express to the stadium. The ticket was $5 for a round-trip. The last time I went to the stadium we parked at the casino and took the subway to the field.

Bumpy ride

We got to the park just in time to hear the national anthem as we passed through the entrance gates at 7pm.

Check out the view from our seats:

My Murphy guys:

Brandon, Jaime, Garrett, Kie, Adam and Jarrod

The Cards won against the Houston Astros 5-1  and we got to see some fireworks!