St. Louis Trip

We went to our Leadership Convention that we attend 3 times a year and this time it happened to be in St. Louis, MO at the Edward Jones Dome. I don't know how many people were there, but it was at least 20 or 30,000 I think. It was so much fun. We took so many notes from all the great speakers and learned so much.

But it was so cold. When we landed on Wednesday, it was 18 degrees out. The shuttle driver taking us to pick up the rental car warned us of the snow storm that was to hit that night and held up an ice scraper. He said to make sure we had one in our rental. I joked around and said "what's that, we don't have those in AZ".

Here is Kurt and I all bundled up in the snow. I had to get a new coat before we left so I wouldn't freeze. My mom lent me her new snow boots to keep my feet warm. I wore them every day, even with my skirt to the convention. I didn't care what I looked like as long as I was warm.

Everything was so beautiful and white. Here is a pond starting to freeze over.

This is the famous Gateway Arch. It was definitely not what I was expecting. 630 feet tall!

This is from the bottom looking up. The picture doesn't even do it justice. We did the tour to the top. You ride up in a little pod thing. It was neat... not for the chlostrophobic though!

Here we are with some friends at the top. Not our whole group, but just who we grabbed at the moment.

This is looking down from the top. It was so high up there! So neat.

We also went to the City Museum that was a few blocks from the arch. When we got there, one of the greeters told us that it was a requirement to leave our "adult" faces at the coat check and act like a kid again. And let me tell you, we did. It was 3 stories and everything was made out of recycled materials. The outdoor adventure and the caves were closed due to weather. We were there for hours and didn't even get to see everything.

Here we are being funny. There was also a monster slide that brought you from the 3rd floor down to the first. That beat the stairs anyday. We went with our friends Robert and Erika and I think we all had a blast. There were ropes to swing from, a snowflake cutting area where we got to cut out snowflakes that are in the shapes of animals while the lady told us a story. There was an aquarium where we could touch the sting rays and other creatures.

Here is the world's largest underwear. Ewwww, I don't want to do his laundry.


And here's a little video we took. Cracked me up. There were a ton of skateboarding ramps and things like that, but no skateboards, so we ran on them by foot. It was hard to keep your balance in this circle, especially while trying to run in boots. I guess I was going too slow because I got ran over by my husband! :) Being a kid again was a good workout too... All that running around and goofing off was just wonderful for the soul! I wish we could have seen what else this museum had to offer, but we ran out of time. If we're ever in St. Louis again, we'll definitely go back.

It is good to be home though. Makes me appreciate our weather a tad bit more. I don't think I could deal with the snow every day. It was a nice break though. We took so many more photos, but you get the idea!

LINAE, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU!!!!

Live from St. Louis, MO - Edward Jones Dome
The girls and I just wanted to say hello.

We miss you, we love you and we wish you were here!

Oh, and Heather... We're missing you too.
Give Baby Kathryn a hug and kiss from all of us!

Lots of Love,
Shannon, Rachel, Erika, Lindsay and Melissa

The first day of the convention has been amazing! It's definitely cold here though. Us Arizonan's aren't used to cold and wind and snow! But we're surviving :) We've seen lots of sites, went to the top of the St. Louis Arch (which was awesome), and heard lots of great speakers during the first session of the conference. Can't wait to see who's up in the morning!

I have a ton of photos to post later. Just wanted to give you a sneak peek. We love you!!!!

"Hey Baby!"
(And Linae, your husband says hello too - he misses you)

Our first "Married" Valentines

It was a pretty busy week since I had to go to CA for work again (with last minute notice of course) and we hadn't really planned what we wanted to do for Valentine's Day. Kurt said to leave it up to him.

I came home from work to this... Roses on the table... steaks, portabello mushrooms and asparagas on the grill... and I'm not even joking, about 40 candles lit downstairs. It was so beautiful! He is just amazing and spoils the heck out of me.

This picture is really dark, but here are a few of the candles... you get the idea. It was so romantic. We've never had that many candles going at once, and now I know why... we set off the smoke detectors, and boy are they loud. The dog was freaking out and running circles around the house while Kurt was going through pulling them all off the ceiling. Once one goes off, it triggers the rest and they're in EVERY room of the house. I was cracking up!

I had wanted choc covered strawberries for dessert, but Kurt took it up a notch and got a fondue pot and godiva chocolate so we could dip our own, along w/ some bananas and pineapple. It was perfect! Thanks honey for making it so memorable!

Is this what tired looks like?

Bailee must have had a loooong day. Here's the BIG YAWN....

Followed by the snaggle-tooth chompin of the gums...

And then completely passed out! How cute is that?

She doesn't usually sit still long enough for me to get a picture so she must have been tired. And the funny part... She's TOTALLY snoring! She cracks me up. This is her new bed downstairs, but at night she sleeps upstairs in the hallway outside our room (she loves to be close to us). Anyway, we laugh at her all the time. When the house gets quiet and we're winding down for bed... all we hear is HGHWA-CHOOO (that's the snoring noise by the way). Hee hee.....

London's Run

This was after the race when we were all nice and sweaty! My hair looks like a boy when it's all slicked back in my ponytail :)

It was such a beautiful day! The weather was perfect! There were so many people here. And for such a good cause, why wouldn't they be?

Today I participated in London's Run in Queen Creek. London's Run benefits the Phoenix Children's Hospital Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. It is held in honor of London Solomon, a courageous six year old who lost the fight against Leukemia in 2005. Today's event helped out Troy Wendt, a two year old undergoing treatment for leukemia and Tucker McElhaney who was diagnosed with lymphoma.

Thanks to Kenyon for doing a wonderful job promoting this to her friends and getting us all motivated!! I'm not in enough shape YET to do the 10K, so I went for the 2 mile fun run. I didn't finish first, I didn't finish last, but I FINISHED!!!! My time was 25 minutes. This has inspired me to try for a bigger challenge next year!

After the races were through we had a nice BBQ lunch and then I decided to donate blood. Rather than doing the regular way, I donated whole red cells so they drew blood for a full 30 minutes. I was in the blood van for over an hour total. I felt a little dizzy in the middle of it all, and was beat after that. But it was worth it knowing that my blood can help somebody who needs it!

All in all, today was a great day!