St. Louis

This past weekend we made a quick trip east to St. Louis. We left Friday after work and made the 4 hour trip that night. We got in town just in time to see the blimp flying over Busch Stadium during game 7 of the World Series. We wanted to go to the game so bad but the tickets were crazy expensive. We ended up going to a restaurant called the Shaved Duck where we watched some of the game. After dinner we went to our hotel and watched the Cardinals win game 7. On Saturday we got up and headed to the St. Louis temple, which was the purpose of the trip. It will sure be nice when the KC temple is done and we don't have to drive so far. After the temple we went to The Hill neighborhood which we heard has a lot of good Italian places to eat and is famous for their hand made toasted ravioli. It was delish! After lunch we headed downtown to the arch. The arch is crazy! I was surprised at how big it is. We got tickets to watch a movie on how it was built and Jeremy tells me it was really interesting as I slept through the show. I needed a nap. After the movie/nap time we got to ride in these tiny little booths up to the top of the arch and take pictures of the view. It was really cool. After the arch we went to Union Station which was kind of run down, I would equate it to trolley square in SLC. And finally we hit up Ted Drewes frozen custard before the drive home. It is one of the famous stops along route 66 and very popular. It was a quick but good trip to St. Louis.

Flies!

I don't know what it is about this place but I swear it is infested with flies! We get flies in our house all the time and I am going crazy. Literally. I sit and watch the windows for large chunks of time trying to understand how they get in. I think they are coming through a little slit in the window. Jer says it is for venting. I don't care what it is for I hate flies and will do anything to get rid of them. So, I am duct taping the windows.

The Country Club Plaza

We had an enjoyable Saturday riding our bikes to The Country Club Plaza in KC. It is about 7 miles away. It is a really trendy area with a lot of stores and shops. There was also a park we rode around that had this random playground like work out equipment. It was pretty funny to see people seriously acting like they were working out on it. And yes I did take a picture of the little person we saw because I love little people! I also took a picture for my friend Melissa of the wedding party we ran into because whenever her and I would be out on an adventure we would always run into weddings. But it didn't really work cause I was far away and the picture came out dark. Sorry Meloose! On our ride home we rode through the most amazing neighborhoods. I think we saw three country clubs so you can imagine the houses. They were like plantations. They were so huge and had huge lawns. We decided we will live there some day. Also, did you know the KC area has more fountains than any city in the world except Rome? Well, we do. And we saw a lot of those today but I didn't take pictures of many as it is not safe to camera phone and ride your bike at the same time. Another fun fact about KC is that it is NOT flat. I repeat, not flat at all. Very hilly. So yeah, don't be thinking our bike rides involve no effort. These are some of the great things you'll get to see when you come visit! Oh and the homeless people, there were lots of those too.

Austin Anniversary

We recently celebrated two years of marital bliss. I can't believe it's been two years already. Luckily for us, my cousin decided she too wanted to be married on the 14th so we made a quick trip to Austin, TX.

We met up with my family at the airport on Thursday night and headed out to The Salt Lick for some change your life BBQ. It was seriously, really really good food. You should all be jealous. If you haven't heard of this place look it up on man vs. food or one of those shows so you can be properly introduced and become even more jealous of us. They cook everything on a large open pit and it has a really good smoke flavor. We did the all you can eat group buffet and so we got to try everything. Again, you should be really mad you aren't me. Jeremy was in heaven. Literally. I believe if Jer were to choose his heaven it would involve him spending eternity at this restaurant and never getting full.

Friday was our actual anniversary and my awesome cousin bought us groupons for a local bike shop so we rented a tandem bike and rode around Austin. It was so much fun/could have potentially been a terrible way to spend an anniversary. A tandem bike requires a lot of trust and a lot of communication. So really we had a therapy session for our anniversary and called it biking. There were a few moments of frustration i.e. Jeremy wrongly accusing me of not pedaling, or me accusing Jeremy of trying to kill us because he turned the bike and I couldn't see where we were going. Overall though we had a lot of fun and our relationship is now stronger due to our therapy session.

Austin has tons of food trucks everywhere. It was so cool. We rode our bike downtown and ate lunch at a couple of food trucks. I got Korean BBQ mexican food and Jeremy got kielbasas. It was super good. After lunch we rode to another food truck that makes really unique donuts. My dad had one with maple frosting and bacon. I had the son of a peach donut that I shared with my mom. Jeremy had nothing because he felt like puking after biking up the hill to get there. I didn't think the hill was that bad and thought it was strange that he kept thinking I wasn't pedaling :).

Friday night was the wedding festivities. The reception was right downtown and we were on a balcony overlooking the very hipster nightlife. Austin is super hipster and I don't think I would be cool enough to live there but I really want to be.

Saturday we had to fly home but not before a quick trip to the Waffle House. Who doesn't love a good Waffle House breakfast?

Overall it was a great way to spend our anniversary and we had so much fun seeing my family and extended family that I haven't seen for a few years.

I'm posting this from the blogger app on my phone so we'll see how the pictures turn out.

Louisburg Bike Ride

We went out to the Louisburg Cider Mill on Saturday and watched them make some cider and bought some cider donuts and fresh cider. It was pretty fun. After the cider fest we drove out to Hillsdale State Park and rode our bikes around for awhile. It was fun to get out and see the countryside.

I love cheese

I love cheese and could never find these in Utah but I found them in Kansas

I don't care how much supposed MSG or cancer causing artificial flavoring and colorants they have, I love and respect my cheese balls

New Car

After living the dream of being unemployed for about a week I was pretty much done with that and in need a job ASAP to keep my sanity. Luckily I found one pretty quick and started last Monday. However, because Jeremy is working downtown and at client offices all over the place and I will be in Lenexa we needed to finally get a second car. When we were in Miami this was our rental car:

I thought it was very hipster and I really like their commercial so I told Jer that I wanted to get one. He didn't believe me. Then Kia came out with this gem: And I really, really, REALLY wanted one. I LOVE this commercial. Sometimes I just play it on repeat on the computer and wish I had those moves. But, in the end Jer said no, we would not be buying a hipster Kia. So we bought this instead:

Yeah, it's kinda purple. Whatever.

Dominican Republic

After a week of being in Kansas we left for our last big hoorah before becoming recommitted to employment. We went to Puerta Plata, Dominican Republic for a week. We flew from Kansas City to Miami and then from Miami to the D.R. We had a great time and the weather and beach was amazing. We stayed at an ok resort. It wasn't nearly as nice as the place we stayed for our honeymoon and was kind of a disappointment. Our first day there we used as a beach relax day. Unfortunately we were temporarily brain dead that day and didn't think to put on sunscreen until it was too late and I got fried like a lobster. Like really, it was super bad. The next day we went on this amazing hike called 27 Waterfalls. We couldn't take our camera with us because we couldn't keep it dry. Basically you hike through the jungle up this river and then when you come down you get to jump off of a bunch of water falls and cliffs and slide down natural slides. It was so much fun. It was definitely the highlight of our trip. The next day we went on a dune buggy adventure which was really just driving crappy go karts through a field. It was fun at first but after about 30 minutes my back was starting to hurt really bad and it just wasn't that much fun. They kept taking us to these spots where they would just try to sell you crap. They did take us to an amazing beach where we got to jump in the ocean and clean off the mud.

We also went to Ocean World which is their version of a small Sea World. It was pretty fun because there were very few people there. We got to go through these bird exhibits where the birds actually sat on our heads and shoulder. We also went snorkeling in a little kiddie pool and saw the dolphin and sea lion shows. It was very touristy but it was fun. We didn't get any pictures, which is a theme for the trip because we were too worried about our camera being stolen. The other days we pretty much just hung out at the beach and ate the average food they had at the resort.