What We Did in September 2024

Welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday where I talk about something on my mind and invite you to link up and do the same.  Today I'm recapping what we did in September!

September was a month of non-stop fun for us!  The highlights were our vacation to London, attending the play Dial M for Murder, going to the Sting / Billy Joel concert, and hosting the second annual Putt Putt Golf Tournament.  During the month, I also shared a recipe for trending TikToc Cinnamon Rolls, what I read in August, and our fall mantel.

 

First up – our London vacation! It was amazing to share this experience with our son, Ian. He was able to join us for most of the days we were there, and we loved having him with us. We did miss his wife and hope she can join us next time. I've already shared Days 1 and 2, Day 3, Day 4, and Day 5. Days 6 and 7 are coming soon!

 

A group of friends and I have season tickets to the Repertory Theater in St. Louis. Our first play of the season, Dial M for Murder, was in September. We met for dinner before the show and then enjoyed the performance together. I can already tell I'm going to love having tickets with these ladies—it was such a fun night out!

Last January we purchased tickets to the outdoor Sting / Billy Joel concert for Friday, September 27.  Hurricane Helena decided to sweep through St. Louis and Friday was a raining, raining day.  The concert was moved to Sunday night.  Thankfully that day worked with our schedule!  The weather on Sunday was beautiful and it was a great evening to be outside listening to Sting and Billy sing their hits. 

That same weekend we hosted our 2^nd Annual Putt Putt Golf Tournament.  Our friends Logan and TW came in from Kansas City to join me, Eric, Ian, and Kayla for 4 rounds of putt-putt golf.  

We played three courses on Saturday and one on Sunday morning.  After each round, we crowned the winner for that course.  The winner of each round had to wear the medal through the next round.

TW made the coolest armband to hold the scorecard!  The clipboard was velcroed on the band so we weren't sitting it down and losing it.  He could easily pull it off to write down our scores.  Big improvement from last year!

Round 1 Winners were Eric and Kayla

Eric and Ian were the victors of Round 2

Logan pulled off the win in Round 3

Kayla returned to the winner's circle in Round 4

TW emerged as the big winner for 2024!  I finished dead last.  I have a lot of practicing to do if I want to do better next year!

Grand Champion of the 2nd Annual Putt Putt Golf Tournament - TW!

I think I should get a prize though for making the most adorable chocolate-covered Oreos!

September was an amazing month, filled with unforgettable memories! I’m so grateful to have such wonderful friends to share these experiences with!

Now it's your turn.  What are you thinking out loud about today?  Link up and share!

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What We Did in June 2024

Hello there!  It's been a hot minute since I wrote a Weekending post.  Frankly, it's just been too much to sit down on a Sunday night and put a post together.  But...I am sad that all the fun things we do on the weekends haven't been recorded.  So my thought is I'll put together a monthly post so we'll be able to look back at the fun things we did!  Here's what went down in June ~

On the first weekend of the month, we had dinner with some friends Eric knew from high school. It's always great to see them! We always promise to get together more often, but then it ends up being years before we reconnect. I really hope this time is different!

I've been working hard trying to get our new hydrangeas to be blue.  Keeping them alive and blooming was step 1.  Now it's on to their color!  I bought some fertilizer that is supposed to help turn the blooms blue.  I've also read that putting crushed egg shells and coffee grounds will help.  We will see!

James Taylor was in town, and we spent an evening with good friends listening to his performance. The weather was perfect for an outdoor concert! Despite his age, his voice is still good. It was so much fun singing along to all our favorite songs!

The second weekend we got together for dinner with some friends who had just returned from a fabulous trip to Italy.  We couldn't wait to see their pictures and hear their stories!  Gosh, I love Italy!  Someday we will definitely revisit, but until then it's fun living vicariously through our friends!  Their daughter put together an awesome charcuterie board for us to enjoy while we sipped a bottle of wine they had shipped home from their trip.  It was a lovely evening!

We celebrated Father's Day at our son and daughter-in-law's house.  It was a relaxing day spent staying cool in their pool.  Kayla made a wonderful sangria that I hope to blog about soon!  

Every year we try to make it to at least one of our nephew's baseball games.  I so wish we lived a little closer so we could make it more of the kids' activities!  But we were grateful to be able to see him play at least once!

My friend Sherri invited us to visit her to see her new-to-her home and we couldn't wait to get there!  Her new hometown, Monticello, is so charming!  Friday night we walked up to the square and had dinner outside.  

The weekend we visited was the annual rodeo, complete with a rodeo parade.  The parade went right be her house, which meant we got to sit on her porch and watch it go by.  Have you ever seen the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile?  It was in the parade!

After the parade, we ventured back up to the square to do a little retail therapy.  We bought enough that we had to send Eric for the car because we couldn't carry everything home!  

In the evening we headed for the rodeo, which proved to be quite captivating!  There is no way I could do half of what those cowboys do!  

The St. Louis Cardinals started the season pretty rocky this year, but they are making a comeback!  We caught a game and got to see a winner.  Even if they had lost, it was fun hanging out with our son and daughter-in-law!

I wrapped up the month by attending an author event at the new St. Louis County Library.  Have you heard of the Friends and Fiction group of authors?  It consists of Kristy Woodson Harvey, Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, and Patti Callahan Henry.  They host a weekly podcast and have a fabulous Facebook group.  I have gotten so many book recommendations from the Facebook group!

Kristy Woodson Harvey has a new book out titled A Happier Life.  My friend, Peggy, and I enjoyed listening to the ladies talk about the book and about themselves.  I got a copy of the book and I can't wait to dive in!

We topped off the evening by getting her new book signed!

And that's a wrap in June!  Half the year is over.  I'm ready to dig in and make the second half fantastic!

Weekending - November 17, 2023

Last weekend was about as perfect as a weekend could be!  Here's the summary ~

We got back from our cruise on Wednesday and Thursday was my actual birthday.  Eric sent me the most beautiful flower arrangement to work!  It was absolutely stunning.  

Friday night our small group from church met.  We have been studying The Ping Life:  How to Pick Up the Signal When God Is Calling book, which is written by our pastor Shane Bishop.  So glad we had the opportunity to explore this book with a wonderful group of people!

Saturday morning we had some errands to do to get ready for the final birthday celebration we were hosting in the evening.  Eric had a great idea for breakfast - American Kolache!  I'm a lover of the savory ones.  It was a great way to start the day!

Saturday evening we celebrated my turning 60 with a group of special friends at Boarding House Bistro.  I'll be sharing all the details from the party in a future post.  Huge thank you to Eric, Ian, and Kayla for pulling this party together.  It was wonderful spending the evening with some of my favorite people!  Can't wait to share all the details with you!

After church on Sunday, we had lunch with friends.  Then the ladies headed off to see The Nutcracker performed with the Belleville Philharmonic Orchestra.  The costumes and sets were magnificent!  What a great way to kick off the holiday season!  

Now we just have a few days of work before Thanksgiving is here!   My goal for this holiday season is going to be present and enjoy every minute.  We have some great plans already in the works!  Hope you do too.

Weekending - November 3, 2023

Birthday month was kicked off in style this weekend!  Eric's birthday was Saturday and mine is coming up in a few weeks.  This year is a milestone for me so we are celebrating big.  My friend Linda in Kansas City hosted us this weekend and planned a fantastic weekend!  Let's take a look ~

Friday afternoon Eric and I drove to Kansas City and were greeted with a house full of birthday decorations.  It was so fun pulling up in the driveway and seeing the happy birthday sign on the door!

Inside there were streamers hanging from the ceiling and birthday signs everywhere.  It really set the tone for a joyful and celebratory weekend!

Even our bedroom had special decorations!  It was so fun waking up to the birthday greeting!

We wasted no time getting the festivities started.  Soon after we arrived, we were off to dinner.  Linda had a reservation at a restaurant we hadn't been to before called Roots Seasonal Cuisine.  Great food and cocktails!  A few of my KC friends joined us and we had a wonderful evening!  

During dinner, Linda had brought some 80s trivia for us to play.  What great memories the questions brought back!

Saturday morning we leisurely got up and drove to get Starbucks and breakfast in our jammies.  Believe it or not, Eric and I had never had breakfast biscuits from Chick-Fil-A.  Oh my gosh!  Those little things are so scrumptious!  Can't believe we haven't discovered them until now!  I see a lot of morning trips to Chick-Fil-A in our future.

After finishing breakfast, we got ready and headed to the West Bottoms area to do a little shopping.  

Besides the shopping, we discovered two things that made our hearts happy - food and live music!  There was a food truck outside one of the shops called Fully Loaded.  They had loaded baked potatoes that were to die for!

As we were meandering around, we stopped to listen to a band that was set up under a bridge trellis called The Uproot.  They were good!  I would definitely seek them out to hear them again.

While we were listening to the band, I couldn't resist taking a picture on this road.  

Saturday night we had reservations at one of my favorite spots - J. Alexander's.  Linda had arranged for more friends to meet us for dinner.  During dinner there, Linda had questions for me to answer and all my friends answered too.  Questions like what's your favorite memories of each person at the table, what's the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you at work, and many others.  So fun!

The Chiefs were playing in Germany on Sunday, which meant the game was starting at 8:30 am.  This was the perfect weekend to have an extra hour on Sunday morning due to the time change!  We had reservations at a local bar, Lakewood Local, to watch the game.  Eric gave me an early birthday present and they were perfect for game day!

Watching the game with a room full of other KC fans was the way to go.  We munched on a loaded nachos platter and the loaded tater tots while the Chiefs beat the Dolphins.  

And we had to have a shot to celebrate the Chiefs' victory!  This was the best shot I'd had in a while (not that I've had a lot of shots lately).  They were called mini beers and they were made with Licor 43, topped with a little bit of heavy whipping cream.  Yum!

After the game, we packed up and drove home.  On the way, we stopped by my mom's house and had dinner.  When we got home, we watched the new movie on Prime that was filmed in Hermann, Missouri.  Hermann is a neighboring town to where I grew up and it was pretty cool seeing familiar sites on television.

This weekend was so magical.  Celebrating this weekend was an absolute blast!  We had a weekend full of joy, laughter, and a sense of appreciation for another year of life.  Linda did an amazing job gathering our friends and planning the locations for us to meet.  The whole experience was heartwarming and reminded me how much joy is in our lives.  I feel overwhelming gratitude for having friends and family who love me as much as they do!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend too!  I'm back to work for a few days before our next birthday celebration begins.  Stay tuned to see what adventure is next!