Trip Wrap Up

I had every intention of making a wonderful day by day description of our journey. I can remember the days in which I had the time and space to seriously journal write and document this life that I'm living! I was going to relive that!

With what extra time did I think I was going to do this writing? A person can not go boating and hiking and gardening and visiting and keep their blog up to date. Not possible!

Therefore, I am going to wrap up the trip and move on...


We said farewell to Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Jean and took off for St. Louis. Grandpa Tom loaned us a car and in that car were a dozen sunglasses. Willie was amazed and the long straight road and the corn. Miles and miles of corn. Miles and miles of corn. No mountains, no lakes, just corn... In St. Louis we met with Mema and my brother Mike and his two kids. It was at this time that I decided I had better blog something as I was quite sure my father would become suspicious when there was nothing new happening in our family. Yikee! Thank you Glenn for the fresh Homer picture!

St.Louis was fun! Our cousins came from Arkansas to see us. We had great meals and conversations and took the kids to some amazing sights. Our family chose to go to the City Museum, which is not a museum at all really but an eccentric artists super wild manifestation of a fun place for kids to play. It was amazing and I would recommend it to any family with active kids over 5.

We also visited Wadlow's memorial. The worlds tallest man! Visiting this memorial is a family tradition that goes back two generations, now three!

Thank you Lynn and Carolyn for making our days in St. Louis exceptional! On our way out of town we stopped by the family farm and showed the kids the creek that Mike and I spent most of our childhood vacations in. It had been raining so the water was not clear, but I am thrilled to have a picture of the kids playing in the water.
Off to Lewistown. This is the picture of Kathy and Larry when they saw us for the first time and realized that we were there. This is a very surprised expression!

As a group we were able to surprise them, and that was no small fete. "The best present you could have given us is having all of our children together!" they said, and they showed us their elation for the rest of the weekend.Kathy made fabulous meals and pies for Vince. The kids played around and swam in the Spotlow's pool. My Dad managed to keep his temper in check when the children were going bizerk. It was a fantastic visit! We took the kids to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield and New Salem. I think they learned something. Falcom found that the dress up area had not changed a bit!

By Monday morning we were able to extract ourselves and get back on the road to Ohio. The kids were sad to go as they were really enjoying the things small town life in the Midwest had to offer and they will really miss their Grandparents. It is hard to say goodbye when you are not sure when the paths will cross again. Thank you Dad and Kathy for giving us all a full rack of happy memories!

On the way to Ohio I told Vince about my dream of eating Brazilian food. One quick text to Tommy and we were headed toward Braza in down town Cleveland. For those of you who have never experienced Brazilian Bar-B-Q it is where the waiters stroll the tables with spits of meat from the different meat groups. It is an all you can eat meat experience. Do not attempt this if you have eaten 24 hours prior to your arrival at Braza. It is a fun meat filled experience!

This is when the battery on my camera went dead. It was during a fabulous dinner with our cousin Mark and his family. These photos are on the other camera which Vince has with him today on the boat where he is fishing with Marks brother Matt. ARG!!! Here I thought I would be done blogging about the trip! Alas... Sorry Mark, I took some great pictures of you and your family and food. You will have to wait until tomorrow!