Arrival in St. Louis

Well, we finally checked out of the Towneplace Suites after 7 weeks! We promptly jumped into the car and drove 13 hours to St. Louis and our new home (yikes!).

The trip actually went quite well. Cath's mom & dad met us in Denver and drove the Suburban over while we drove the other car. We separated the Twins (great plan!!) and that certainly made the trip less contentious.

We left at 2:30am MDT so we could take our time and still get to St. Louis before dark. We ended up stopping in Junction City (home of Fort Riley) where Cath & her family lived when her dad was stationed there. We found their old house and met the current "owners". They were kind enough to allow us to tour the home. Cath remembered a lot about the house and our kids seemed to have a good time seeing where their mom spent a few years when she was 10-12 years old. I saw for myself the "scary" hallway and room that Cath has talked about for the 21 years we have been married. I have to say, I can understand her points!

We had great weather on the drive over. It was a bit warm and at our lunch stop, Hildi made sure she found the shade!

Danika was a big helper with Hildi (but not driving, whew!).

Right before we left for St. Louis, Connor had his Eagle Court of Honor. We are very proud of him! He had a goal to finish his Eagle before he turned 14 and he beat that goal by 2 months! It was great to have a nice turn out from the Ward and we received a great amount of support from the Committee to make this happen quickly! We are sorry to leave great friends that did so much for Connor and our family.

The twins also had their "continuation" from 5th grade. I don't quite understand the process, but they made us proud by graduating from elementary school!

We were visited this weekend by our friends, the Howard's. The house is not quite put together, but it is great to have friends visit. We extend the invitation to our other friends and family...if you are passing through St. Louis, stop by...we have a place for you to stay.

We have lots of work to do still in the house. We have painted one room and a bathroom and spent all last week emptying boxes and cleaning. I shared some of the work that we had done in the bathrooms...let me just say that we had to do similar work in other rooms of the house. Things are coming along, however. I will attach other pictures later.

It is great to be together as a family in a house again. My travel schedule will drastically reduce, so we are very excited about that (at least for now). I may drive everyone crazy so they ask me if I can travel more :)

That's all for now...

Aaron