World Series Trophy

Since St. Louis is a baseball town with a drinking problem, it's only right that in the middle of winter we are still thinking about our amazing title run last October.  I saw on the news that the World Series Trophy was going to start touring the St. Louis area and I wanted to jump on that. 

Thankfully we were lucky enough to have the trophy very close to our house at the beinging of the tour.  After a work out we headed over to US Cellular to get in line and get our picture.  Amazingly enough there wasn't much of a line for us to wait in!

History

We finally made a long anticipated trip to the History Museum this past weekend.  After a great brunch with Kristin and Tom at Benton Park Cafe.  We ventured over to Forest Park and the History Museum.  We had planned on going to check out the Mammoth and Mastadon exhibit but it was a little price.  So we are saving that for a free day (a random Tuesday).  Instead we checked out the "Civil War in Missouri." 

From history classes I knew that the state was divided, but reading more and seeing the exhibit I saw how divided it was.  We saw the different areas of the state that was divided and even got to create a battle ship that made it's way up the Mississippi River. 





After the exhibit we walked around the section that is all about the World's Fair in 1904 and then a quick walk through of the history of St. Louis.  I love when most of the museum is free and that we can just pop in whenever we want to.

New Years Day

We did spend New Years Day right! We woke up late and went to brunch at Scape in the Central West End. I had been wanting eggs benedict, since I did not get them Christmas morning, and Scott had a Mexican egg omlet. The food and  atmosphere was great!



Then we went over to the Art Museum to see the Monet's Water Lilies. It was the first time that all 3 panels were together in an exhibit.  I found that I really liked this one:



I kept going back to look at it and loved the yellows that were used. The whole exhibit was very cool. We like the art museum so much that we decided to become members. I'm excited that we get to go to more things for free. Next up for passes, Missouri Botanical Gardens, that will get us in the Spring.

[caption id="attachment_1772" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="New Years Day in Forest Park"][/caption]

After the musuem, we ventured out to Best Buy to just pick up a Blu Ray player. However, we ended up getting a great deal on a new TV. We are both very excited to start being able to really watch the hockey games. We got home and started setting up the new TV and Blu Ray player.

I ended up getting the worst migraine I've had in years. It lasted all through the night and next day. I sure don't miss those.

 

Happy 2012

Wow it's another year and I'm already slacking on my blog posts.  We had a very uneventful New Years Eve, which is what we planned. 

On New Years Eve day, I spent most of the day cleaning and continuing my basement organization.  Scott went in to the office and worked all day long.  I did go over to Scott's parents house for Christmas celebration without him.  I got a great fleece blanket that has Huskers on one side and Rams on the other.  Perfect for Satuday and Sunday games.  Since the Huskers have faired a little better this season, they are winning the rotation.  We received a nice picture frame, small fountain and some goodies. 

Later that night, after Scott got home from work we laid on the couch and tried to stay awake till midnight.  We caught up on some TiVo and then when it was close to 11 Central we watched the Ball drop in Time Square and decided that was enough.  No use forcing ourselves to stay awake and rewatch the same thing. 

 Even though we didn't do anything crazy for  NYE, it was a great night of relaxing.  I do love NYE.

Blues Game

We have finally attended our first Blues game!  I gave Scott hockey tickets for Christmas and we went the last Friday of 2011.  Our seats were pretty good.  When I was looking to buy them I wanted to get as close to the "Towel Guys" seats as possible.  I had remember from the game we took Catherine to that he was in 314. 



The game wasn't as good as we had hoped.  Nashville had scored before we even made it to our seats, never a good way to start the game.  The Blues looked sloppy and not together on their power plays.  But they managed to get a goal and we saw the Towel Guy in action.

They ended up losing in shoot outs.  They went to the 4th and 5th shooter before there was even a goal!  It was just so sloppy.  But we can't wait to go again!

Christmas Vacation

We have survived our crazy and fast road trip to San Antonio for Christmas!  We left work early on December 21 to try to get some daylight driving in.  That did not happen, we didn't get on the road till 4:30 and then we were stuck in St. Louis rush hour traffic for 40 minutes.  But once we got past St . Louis we had a lot of open road, stopping in Rolla and Joplin for food and gas.  We made great time getting into Oklahoma City around 11:30. 

After a restless night's sleep, we met up with Kelly at her hotel in OKC.  We went to the only Starbucks in Oklahoma City, in Bricktown.  It was a short but fun visit.  We dropped Kelly off at work, aka the tallest building in OKC. 

[caption id="attachment_1787" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="At Kelly's work"][/caption]

We then stopped at the Oklahome City bombing memorial. 

[caption id="attachment_1788" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="OKC Memorial EntranceInside OKC MemorialA chair for each victim"][/caption]

Even at 8:30 in the morning, it was beautiful to see and chilling to walk around and see the pictures of the victims still up, 14 years later.  We then went to the Oklahoma State Capital building.  We walked around the inside, which was fairly new and took our capital pictures with Reily. 

 

[caption id="attachment_1791" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Outside OK Capital"][/caption]

And then we were on the road to San Antonio.  We arrived Thursday evening around 6.  On Friday, Scott and I decided to take a little drive around the Hill Country.  We started in Johnson City, TX and saw Lynden Johnson's boyhood home and visitor center.  We then drove 15 miles to the Texas White House and took a tour of the LBJ Ranch and House. Cows on LBJ Ranch 

We left Johnson City and headed towards Luckenbach, Texas.  This was the coolest, smallest town I've ever been to.  The population is 3.  It has 3 buildings, a hat store, outside diner, and the Post Office/bar.  We got some hot chocolate and then wandered through the Post Office and listened to some live music.  There were about 4 guys with guitars and a woman singing.  It was the best stop of the day. 

[caption id="attachment_1795" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Everybody's Somebody"][/caption]

We started heading back to San Antonio with a quick drive through of Fredericksburg, Texas.  The town was pretty busy with shoppers in and out of all the little antique stores on Main Street.  I really want to go back there when we have more time to check things out.  After Fredricksburg, TX we went back to San Antonio for dinner at Alamo Cafe.

Saturday we woke up to rain.  We still were determined to go to the outlet mall.  I know, it was a crazy idea to go up there on the day before Christmas but we lucked out.  There was hardly anyone there because of the rain.  We managed to get a few good deals while we were up there.  We had lunch with the Holtzinger girls at Rudy's.  The BBQ and visit was a great way to spend the afternoon.  I can't believe how big the girls are getting.



Christmas day was still chilly, for San Antonio.  We opened presents and left to get our movie tickets.  Scott and I drove around a little bit to show off some of San Antonio and places I have lived while down there.  We ate our dinner/lunch and then left to go see Mission Impossible.  The movie was decent, a lot of action.

The day after Christmas we were on the road very early to beat the other drivers.  We made it through Austin by 8:30 and through the state of Texas by 12.  In the middle of Oklahoma we saw a man riding a horse down the sidewalk.  We couldn't believe what we saw.  We hit more rain East of Springfield, MO and then

Last weekend before Christmas

What a busy time of year it is!  I always want to do more than time will allow.  I wanted to go look at Christmas lights and have a Christmas Brunch, those didn't happen.  What did happen was we finally got our friends together for the First Annual Allender (yes, I used the last name) Christmas Dinner, this past Sunday.

On Friday night, Scott and I went to see the Nutcracker Ballet at the Touhill on University of Missouri - St. Louis's campus.  It was my first ballet to see and I wasn't completely sold on it during the first act.  Although, Scott was convinced that intermission was the end of the ballet, we hung around and what do you know, a second act.  The second act had more music that I was familiar with and the dancing was a little more  exciting.  Overall, I'm glad we went and I was able to see the ballet.  Who knows, we might even see Swan Lake in the spring.

Saturday was a busy day for me.  I was getting groceries at Soulard, Schnucks, pricing ovens at my old high school job (Slyman Brothers) and last-minute gifts.  All this was done while Scott was working on Clubvision.  I got home and we decided that we needed to get gifts for the Birch kids and then it was dinner and a movie.  We went to Bar Louie for dinner, it was great!  We hadn't been there in a while and the buffalo calamari was calling us!  After dinner, we watched a little of the Blues game before the movie.  We walked to the Chase and watched the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  The movie was great, even with the iffy reviews it seems to be getting.  These are the only Guy Ritchie movies that I seem to like.

Another insane day was Sunday!  I was up by 7:30, cooking, cleaning and more grocery shopping.  I had everything prepped and ready to go by 2.  I'm really impressed with myself on this one.  The roast took a little longer to cook that I had expected but I managed to have dips, stuffed mushrooms and jalapeno poppers for appetizers.  They all turned out great!  I'm super critical of my cooking so I thought the roast was a little dry and the potatoes cooked a little too long.  But it was just a fun night having our friends over and all hanging out together. 

I can't wait to have this party again next year!  Now we work a couple of days and it's off to San Antonio for Christmas!