about my trip...

Well, first off it was COLD! Got into St. Louis on Thursday the 15th. When we left here it was chilly, but not cold. I did take plenty of warm clothes since Kelly had let us know the forecast. It was nice and sunny when we landed around 2pm but about 20 degrees. Kelly was waiting for us when we (Suzanne & I) got off the plane. Thank goodness she lucked out and got a front row parking spot! We then went to the hotel to check in and get rid of some bags since we had to pick up Jan a bit later. We stayed at the Sheraton Westport Chalet. It was on a lake and it was mostly frozen. There were little bridges across a frozen stream all around. We had a great view, but kept the curtains closed most of the time to help keep the cold out. We picked Jan up at the airport then went to Kelly's house in Illinois, (just across the river) for dinner. We got to meet the "boys," all four of them, her DH, her son and 2 furry boys, Scooby and Butter. She made lasagna, salad and bread for us and it was yum! We then made a trek to WallyWorld for scrappin snacks and scarves, gloves and hats! It was really cold! Then back to the hotel. Speaking of cold...We sat a case of water out on the balcony since we didn't have a mini fridge and got up to 12 blocks of ice in water bottles! Frozen solid!

Friday morning we couldn't really unload in the crop room until later so we had a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I had a croissant with poached eggs, cheese, canadian bacon and asparagus, oh man was it yummy! We then went to St. Charles where Lewis and Clark first left the shores of the Missouri River to look for the route to the Pacific. It was a great little town with brick streets and historic buildings, but did I mention it was COLD?? It was hovering around 12 degrees and spitting icy bits everywhere. We had the clothes piled on and each time we'd go into a store we were sweating! I think we were the only "tourists" on the street that day, no one else was dumb enough! Most of the shops were closed! The schools had been cancelled too! Can I tell you, when your face is so frozen, you can't feel your nose run or your eyes water? Just say, it's not pretty! ;)

Later when we got thawed out, we unloaded all our scrap stuff and got busy. I got so much done! Nick had mentioned I never make him anything, so that was first on my agenda! I made him a book:

I'll post all the pages on my Scrapbook.com home page if you want to see.

Then I started a Basic Grey calendar. Man what a PITA! It was tough, lots of rub-ons and lots of chipboard that was supposed to be self adhesive, but wouldn't stick! It turned out great, but I wanted to quit many times!! It'll be posted on my scrapbook site too. Here's one page:

We took a class, me, Jan, Lynn and Suzanne, to make a mini book and it was so cool! Learned lots of new techniques. It is a small Valentine themed book:

There were almost 200 croppers that attended and we all had a blast! Saturday was an all day Crop in PJ's. That was awesome!

Sunday we took off and went to the arch. It had gotten warm, 30 degrees that morning! WOOHOO! I was a bad scrapbooker and never took my camera anywhere. If you know about "us" we usually have the same 500 pictures, so we designated Suzanne the official photographer! So.... I have no pics of any of the touristy stuff! Let me tell you, the arch was amazing! We watched the movie about how it was built and those guys, man, it was unreal! None of them wore safety harnesses! They were walking along at 500 and 600 feet up and just watching it made my knees weak! There were no deaths during the building of the arch either! Simply amazing! OK, so you go thru security, and get in line... the tram cars are tiny! TINY!!!! 5 people cram into this thing for a 4 minute trip up. Thank goodness it was cold, because I can't imagine being crammed in there and as rickety as it felt....in hot weather... barf! It wasn't a very pretty day, but you could see a ways. It was very cool! I'll post some pics when I get them!

Then it was time to go.... always a sad time since it'll be months til I see my girls again!

My guys sure were glad to see me though! They had done well while I was gone! Trey had a Lock In at church and had a ball. My Mom had a birthday on Sunday, I did remember to call her that morning! I had freaked them all out since my plane was in the air when the one went down in NY. Just hearing a plane is down before you hear the info is heart stopping! Believe me when I got on the flight home, I prayed all the way!!

All in all it was a great trip and I'm looking forward to the next one!

I think I can feel my toes now!! ;)

til next post!