June into July

We started our week with Emily's 45th birthday!  Noah was away at a youth conference so Emily and Lucy, Quinn, and Larkin met us at Treasure Aisles on Big Bend Boulevard and we wandered around finding treasures.  Larkin loved everything but, of course, couldn't get it all.  In this photo, the cute little beaded purse is something she ended up getting while the furry kitty was something we just took a photo of.  Even though I don't need any more "things" around the house, I bought a cute little glass ink bottle and Steve bought a small Liberty Bell.

Afterwards, we drove up the street to Mr. Wizard's Frozen Custard for a chilly treat.  

After our frozen custard, we all went back to our place to relax. Emily took a nap downstairs and the kids hade screen time.  I love how Larkin made herself comfortable in our front room during her screen time!  Joe came after work and we enjoyed Emily's birthday dinner of cold BBQ chicken wings (not really BBQ but more like sweet and sour), coleslaw, 3 bean salad, pasta salad, fruit salad, and cake and ice cream.  Temperatures were so nice we ate outside.

The pleasant temperatures continued into Wednesday so Steve and I took advantage of that and went camping at Meramec State Park Tuesday night.  This campground is on the Meramec River which is very popular for float trips so it was not as wooded and private as Robertsville where we camped earlier in the summer.  I'm not sure we'll camp here again because of that.  We had a super easy supper of hotdogs and campfire pies.  Delicious!  I took a photo of mine (gluten-free, of course) just as I was having my last bite (that white stuff is powdered sugar).  With our air mattresses, sleeping is quite comfortable.  The only difficult part of camping at my age is getting my shoes on in the middle of the night and walking to the bathroom.  It is SO far away!  You can see it in the background of the photo of Steve with Sally.  

 

We got back home mid-day on Wednesday.  While Steve had youth activities that evening, I had a two-hour Zoom meeting with members of the Saint Louis Civic Orchestra and our four conducting candidates to discuss repertoire for each of our four concerts this coming year.  One conductor per concert and then it will be decided who the orchestra hires to be the permanent conductor going forward.  It should be an exciting year.

Beckie came over for lunch on Thursday.  We had leftover salads from Monday and she brought some delicious Costco smoked pulled pork.  YUM!  Little Fox was closed this week so she actually had a bona fide vacation!  She spend the first part of her week in a cabin in southern Missouri and she was heading to Kyle and Micah's in Springfield for the last part of the week.  

Steve and I re-watched Interstellar Friday night and boy, that is an intense movie that really boggles the mind.  I think it infiltrated my dreams all that night.  Saturday morning was our temple baptistry shift and we just came straight home afterwards rather than doing piano lessons at the Southerlands (we just had lessons last week and Noah had not practiced since he was gone).  That evening, we did another dinner and movie night at Mona and Ed's.  We always have gluten-free Costco pizza which they enhance with veggies and olives.  I brought chocolate cupcakes.  And it was Mona's turn to choose the movie and, even though I said "No rated R", that is what she ended up picking!  A film from 1995 called The Perez Family.  I had never heard of it so I didn't raise an objection when we started watching it.  Thankfully, on a raunchiness scale, it tipped more towards the PG-13 rather than the X.  However, as a movie in general, it was pretty meh.  Oh, well.  It was fun to visit with them and to get loves from their four little dogs throughout the evening.  

Our area has been in somewhat of a drought for most of June but happily, we got rain all day Saturday.  Yay!