{My Family} Stan Musial Harmonica Night at the Ballpark

After several days of ah-mazing weather, we ended up with a freezing night at the Stan Musial Harmonica Night at Busch Stadium. We went with a rather large group but by the fifth inning we ended up with just two families. I meant to get a picture of the group, but when you're juggling a baby, food, a camera, blankets, and trying to stay warm, it can prove difficult to snap quality shots. It was a great winner even though we were half frozen by the end of the night! Looking forward to a great Cardinal season and hopefully warmer nights!

Thanks to Katie for getting us all the tickets! Fun times!

A Surprise Date for My Valentine

So I had decided I would surprise my husband for a Valentine's Date on Friday. I had it all strategically planned. I would drop my daughter off with Amber at 4 and be home in time to surprise Aaron when he came home at 5 (the time which he told me he would arrive home). It ended up to be a pretty romantic and lovely time, but things didn't go quite as planned.

First, I fell out of the shower while getting ready. I smacked my head on the toilet (just saying that really kind of grosses me out). The lid was closed, so no contact was made with bacteria-infected water. That slowed things down quite a bit. My head felt like it was going to explode. I had a golf-ball size knot protruding out of my head. Lucky (if one can use that word after being catapulted from a shower) for me, the knot was at the back of my head and covered by my hair. I some how managed to get myself together. Although, the smashing hair-do I was going to have was out of the question.

I wrote a romantic note that I had planned to hang on the door and punched out little red hearts to spread about the house. Everything was ready ...

The time was about 3:45 pm. I'm on my way to drop Audrie off when I get a call from Aaron, whom I am assuming is still in an appointment at this point.

Me: (Nervously) "Uh, hello."
Aaron: "Hey, what's up?"
Me: "Where are you?"
Aaron: Getting off of 55. Almost home.
Me: No, you're not!
Aaron: (Emphatically) Yes, I am!
Me: (panicked, with voice cracking and screeching) Well, you can't go home!!!

Aaron: (shocked) Why not?!

Me: (indignant) Because you just can't. You can't go home.

Aaron: Um ... OK. What am I supposed to do?

Me: I don't know. Go to Borders. I'll be home in 15 minutes or so

Then in a twist of events, I actually passed my husband going the other way. So much for my strategic plans, right?!

After I had dropped Audrie off, I called Aaron when I was 3 minutes from the house and told him he was allowed to come home now! Ha! You can imagine all the things that was going through his mind!

My note and one of the many hearts.

The original plan was to eat on the revitalized area of Washington Ave downtown. Here's a few shots from there.

But as we were walking down the street with snow swirling around us in the freezing cold, Aaron said, "Isn't Edmonds15 down here?" So he looked up the address on his handy-dandy phone. The restaurant in question was about 7 or so blocks away. We were already about 4 blocks away from the car. We were in a quandary. Go back and get the car and drive to the restaurant or walk there since we had already deposited $2 in the parking meter. Ultimately the freezing cold won out, and we went back to get the car.

But it was nice and cozy inside Edmonds15. We sat in the empty seat you see in the picture below.

We went all out!! Ribeye. Seasoned to perfection!! And the most yummy garlic whipped potatoes. Although my husband said that my garlic potatoes are just as good. (Mine are actually seasoned with onion salt. But it made me smile none-the-less.)


Aaron had a strip steak. After a few tastes of each other's steaks, we decided mine was the better of the two steaks.

We immensely enjoyed our evening at Edmonds15. It was very much different than all the other sports-themed restaurants we had been to in the St. Louis area. It was classy and modern, yet comfortable, affordable, and friendly.

We wrapped up the evening by treating ourselves to the taste of Starbucks.

It was our eighth Valentine's Day. Eight wonderful years with the best guy in the world, and I have no pictures of him!?!? That's right! I took one, but trust me it was not flattering. The lighting in the restaurant made it look like he had two black eyes (causing one to believe that maybe it was he who fell from the shower.) He would not approve of me posting such a photo. :0) But trust me, he looked REAL good!!

Granite City Steel

We have some really good friends that live not far from the Granite City Steel. It's not so pretty during the day, but it's pretty cool all lit up at night. Here are some pictures I took on a recent trip to our friends' home.

The following pictures were taken on a different day in the fog. It still looks pretty good even in the fog. Fog gives it a more mystic look.

Winter in the Lou

Last weekend my husband was gracious enough to drive me around the city to take some pictures of a very cold, snow-covered St. Louis. Our precious daughter was a trooper and allowed us to strap her in and tagged along for the ride. We bundled her up of course and put her "tuke" on her head. Her father has called her hat this forever. He listens to Bob and Doug McKenzie too much during the winter. At any rate, she's a cutie in her tuke, eh?! We began our photography taking in the ghetto. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was the ghetto. My husband assured me we were not in any danger. I comforted myself by telling myself that criminals were fairly smart and probably smart enough to not be out in negative degree temperatures.

I've never seen this view of the Arch. The longer I live in St. Louis, the more amazing I find it that the arch can be seen from so many different places, so many different angles. I love it.
Beauty can be found in the most broken of places.
The St. Louis Arch is pretty in all seasons, but it is especially magnificent in the winter.

It probably is an optical illusion, but it seems that airplanes fly awfully close to the Arch. If you have ever flown into or out of St. Louis, you've had the opportunity to see the monument from the skies. It reminds me of my first flight. When I was in high school, I took a flight out of Springfield to St. Louis in a little puddle jumper. I embarrassingly informed the whole plane, "Hey, look down there, that's the Arch!"

The Old Cathedral Basilica.

My husband and I have always talked about going into the Old Cathedral but have never done it. Today, we said, "Why not?" It's not so grandiose inside, if you compare it to the "new" Cathedral Basilica. Still, it's beautiful.This is a picture of one of the many chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. In the background is the beautiful pipe organ.

Hymn stand. I must say I love this photo for some goofy reason I can't readily explain.

A view of the pipe organ from between the pillars that stand inside the cathedral.

I love that you can view the Arch from the Cathedral windows.

A view of the Arch windows from the Cathedral windows.

The Cathedral was still decorated for Christmas.

Our daughter standing on a park bench with the Arch in the background. She was showing us how big the Arch is. Anyhow we think. :)

We made our way from downtown to Forest Park.

The Jewel Box wasn't open. It was closed for a wedding.

A park bench outside of the Jewel Box.

Art Hill, as we call it in St. Louis, was a bright wintery site. People were out braving the cold and sledding. Not me! I was the stupid one out taking pictures with frozen fingers. :)

It was so cold that the fountains which were still in operation had frozen chunks of ice at the base of them. My husband thought they looked like frozen lions. I would have to agree with him.

At this point, our little angel was getting tired of being strapped into the car and wanted "OUT!!!" So, being the fly-by-the-seats-of-our-pants type of people, we decided to take our little girl ice skating for the first time. And by we, I mean ... he ice skated ... I photographed.

This is quite possibly my favorite photo of the day.

And they're off!!!

She loved it ... and so did Daddy!

This melts my heart.

"Weeee!!" she said as her daddy pushed her around the ice.

She wasn't getting much traction with her skates on the ice. We discovered this was due to her skates being very dull. So we took them inside to get the skates sharpened. Her skates, of course, had to be removed. She was not at all happy about this. "Skates back on! Skates back on!" she cried over and over. In this picture below you can see the tears pooling in her eyes.

The zamboni came out to clear the ice while her skates were being sharpened. She referred to it as the "zamponi". She is watching it go around the ice in the photo below.

Her skates back on ... Our big girl showed us that she can sure walk in her skates. Just don't put her on the ice by herself!!

You lead, Daddy, I'll follow.

I think after skating around the ice in this position, Daddy will need to see the chiropractor.

While Daddy took a few laps around the rink by himself, she busied herself by playing in the snow. Here she is shaking the snow from her mittens. I like how you can see the bits of snow in the falling process.

This one just cracks me up. How is she supposed to learn how to skate when she can't even see where she's going!

Finally, we decided it was just too down right cold, and we really had to get her off the ice. The problem was. She did not want to go in, and she did not want to take her skates off. So we used a little trick called bribery. We told her if she took her skates off, she could have a pretzel. And to our surprise, it worked!!

We had such a great day, my two favorite people and I!