Pics of St Louis

As seen in previous posts, Katie, David, and I spent Tuesday in St Louis. I thought I'd post a few of the "non-David" pictures that I took that day. Some of them were a stab at capturing things in an artistic light, and others were simply snapshots that I liked--and I'm not telling you which are which! :)

The St. Louis Arch and the Old Cathedral

My attempt at an artistic shot of the St Louis arch

Another view of the Arch

side view of the bridge

some bridge over the Mississippi river

under the bridge

lunch break

Leaving St. Louis

" 'a PUs 'a bu-TON"

David loves to push buttons! Here are several pictures of him in action--some of him and some by him:

In these pics, good ole' 'Aunt Beff' (ah, doomed to be forever known as 'Beff' by two-year olds and my Uncle Donald!)has let David push the button on her camera...sorry if I started anything! ;)

A bunch of pictures of David

You see the title, so consider yourself warned! These are several random pics of David taken during my stay. He didn't exactly wait for the shutter to click, so I have plenty of pictures of him looking away...but these are some of my favorites. And not to worry, there are plenty more to come! Like I said earlier--I'm developing themes, so watch out! :)

Lovin' life!

Reaching the summit!

Just hangin' around

Wow

hmmmm, wonder what he's thinking???

Gotta love those big brown eyes!

"Cheeeeese"

playing in the sandbox

gotta love 'naptime' hair

So stinkin' cute!

Home

As I woke up this morning, I realized that it was MUCH more fun to wake up knowing a 22-month old was waiting on you. It’s just not the same now. I’m back from my trip to visit Kyle, Katie, and David and I’ve already looked through all of my pictures and watched all of the videos I took. I had SO much fun! It was neat to see the new house and all of the work Kyle and Katie have done on it. It was also a lot of fun to hang out with David…and not to worry—I have PLENTY of pictures! I will be posting several soon. I’m grouping themes at the moment. For the time being, I will leave you with this one. This is the first picture that I took of David after they picked me up at the airport. We stopped at a St. Louis mall to eat dinner and let David run around at the indoor playground before the drive to Perryville. He's a little boy now! Boy, time does fly, doesn't it?!

Meet Me In St. Louis, Louis...

meet me at the fair.
Don't tell me the lights are shining
anywhere but there.
We will dance the hoochie-coochie,
you will be my tootsie-wootsie,
if you will
Meet me in St Louis, Louis
meet me at the fair!

oh, sorry...I'm in Missouri--about an hour south of St. Louis--and everytime I think of being here, I start singing that song--it's from the musical Meet Me In St Louis--one of my favorites!

I am currently visiting my brother and sister-in-law Kyle and Katie, and my AMAZING, ADORABLE nephew David. I'll be sure to post PLENTY of pics when I get home! I wish I could post video...hmmm, I'll have to work on that! Anyway, just wanted to check in and let anyone know where I am since I'll not be posting very regularly right now. I'm having a wonderful time...see ya soon!

Random Pics from my trip to New Orleans

These are just some random pics from when I went with Jen to New Orleans a few weeks ago. It was a beautiful day, so the quarter was very picturesque. There's no rhyme or reason to them...just shots I liked!

Behind St. Louis Cathedral

A look down Royal Street with buildings on Canal in the distance

A pedestrian mall somewhere in the quarter

A side entrance at the LA Supreme Court Bldg

I just thought this building looked neat

Just thought you'd like to know...

I am worth $1,792,564.00 on HumanForSale.com

This summer at camp, one of our weekly activities was a prayer experience that at first seemed bizarre, but quickly became one of the most memorable and experiential parts of camp for both our staff as well as the students and adults who came. It's funny how God will bring things to mind that you have completely forgotten about. Just today, I got an email from Amy--a fellow staffer from the summer--asking if I had a copy of that prayer experience--it was a series of quotes and verses and statements to ponder. I'd written several of those passages in my journal, and was searching out those entries when I read Jen's latest post and realized that the prayer that she's quoting by Thomas Merton was one of my favorite passages from that prayer experience. I hope Jen doesn't mind, but I'm including that prayer here along with a few others that I found particularly touching.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust in You always. Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

~Thomas Merton

O Divine Love, conceal yourself; leap over our suffering, make us obedient! Mystify us, arouse and confuse us. Shatter all our illusions and plans so that we lose our way, and see neither path nor light until we have found you, where you are to be found and in your true form--in the peace of solitude, in prayer, in submission, in suffering, and in flight from idle talk and worldly affairs.

~Jean-Pierre DeCaussade

'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back from captivity.'

~Jeremiah 29:11-14a

Dear Jesus, send your Spirit on us so that we will be taught to pray. Prayer is hard, requiring great effort, but when done, effortless. I confess I have never liked to pray. Prayer is too much like begging. So I have to pray that your generous Spirit will teach me to beg. I beg you to help all of us discover that our lives are constituted by prayer, so that we may be in your world one mighty, joyous prayer. Make us so rested by such prayer, so content to be Your people, that we will kill no more. Amen.

~Stanley Hauerwas

Find me here. Speak to me. I want to feel you. I need to hear you. You are the light that is leading me to the place where I find peace again. You are the strength that keeps me walking. You are the hope that keeps me trusting. You are the life to my soul. You are my purpose. You are everything. And how can I stand here with you, and not be moved by you? Would you tell me how could it be any better than this? You calm the storms and you give me rest. You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall. You still my heart and you take my breath away. Would you take me in? Would you take me deeper now? And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you? Would you tell me how could it be any better than this? Because you're all I want, you're all I need. You are everything. Everything.

~"Everything" by Lifehouse, from the album No Name Faces

The things I find in boxes...

I'm having a wonderful time unpacking boxes that were packed about 10 months ago. Last week I found my Calvin and Hobbes books. I absolutely LOVE Calvin and Hobbes. I can't tell you how upset I still am that Bill Watterson stopped writing. These are a few sites that I found by googling Calvin & Hobbes:

• 25 great Calvin & Hobbes strips--along with commentary
• uComics currently posts "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoons on their 11th anniversary date. Today's rerun, as seen in newspapers, is available along with a one-month archive.
• A good article on Calvin & Hobbes in The San Francisco Chronicle from Dec 30, 1995.

I can't believe the strip has been gone for almost ten years now! Boy, time flies! Well I will probably be posting others as I re-read them yet again, so stay tuned...

The following strip is one of my favorite of the school-themed strips...my, how perceptive ole' Bill truly is! :) (you can double-click on the strip for a larger view)

Saturday, glorious Saturday!

I awoke after a 13 hour rest (yeah, I was really tired) to the realization that I have NOTHING planned for today! It's a wonderful feeling, as I feel like I've been running around like mad for the last month. I have plenty that I need to do--clean the apartment, hang pictures/decorate the apt (which always takes me forever to do), grocery shopping, work on camp stuff (I AM the director, for crying out loud!), read one of the six books I keep saying I'm going to read, etc, etc, etc...but I don't have any commitments...no 10th grade fundraising events (did that last night), no papers to grade (grades were due yesterday so I stayed up late on Thursday night getting that done...ever the procrastinator), no camp planning retreats, no Josh Groban concerts (*sigh*), nothing! So what did I do first--well, first I made coffee ;)--I called my sister to see what she was doing because I can't just sit around here all day! :) And now I'm blogging...I wonder what the rest of the day will hold?! If I'm lucky, not much of consequence! ha!! Happy Saturday!

Holy Cereal, Batman!

Just got home from a spiritually fulfilling (ha!) day at school and was hungry but not quite ready for dinner, so I poured myself a bowl of Ezekiel 4:9. “Ezekiel 4:9?”--you say? Yeah, ALL the spiritual kids are eating it!! It is “The Original Flourless Sprouted Grain Cereal.” As described in the Holy Scriptures, “Take also unto thee Wheat and Barley and Beans and Lentils and Millet and Spelt and put them in one vessel and make bread of it…” Ezekiel 4:9—A Complete Protein Cereal . “The Live Grain Difference!” Here’s a pic:


A close-up of the cereal

Yeah, I was shopping in the healthy food section of Drug Emporium the other day and ran across this and my curiosity got the better of me. I read the entire box (which gives a good little background into live grains and unlocking dormant food energy and such) and just had to buy it and see what it was all about. I was prepared to hate it but it’s actually pretty good. Not anything I’d ever feed a young child or anything, but I like it. And I feel more holy already! ;)

A Trip and a Plan
This romp through the healthy food section was not some flash in the pan, folks. I began a new campaign on Monday that I have lovingly deemed the IDWTGTNYCLLAFC Campaign—or SC in NY for short (for those of you who aren’t good at figuring out my cryptic codes, this one is: I Don’t Want To Go To New York City Looking Like A Fat Cow. SC in NY is simply Skinny Cow in New York—you should see the codes on some of my stored boxes!! ) Day three and I’ve decided that I’m just sorta easing into it. I’m doing great on eating healthy—it’s just all of the junk that I pick up in between! People shoving chocolate birthday cake and benigets into my (albeit open) hands! Ugh, where has all of my willpower gone? I’m hoping this trip will begin to provide some inspiration soon—at the very least it’s inspiring me to eat at home to save $$$!

For those of you whom I have not told, I am going to New York in May with my friends Bonny and Jen. We are leaving the day school lets out and getting back three days before I have to be in Nashville to leave for camp! Yeah, I like filling EVERY last minute of free time! I’m so excited!! I love being a tourist. I hate tourists if I’m living somewhere, but I love being one!! We’re going to see a few shows (Julius Caesar—staring Denzel Washington; Wicked (which a pre-story to the Wizard of Oz); and The Phantom of the Opera). I also want to go to a baseball game and the Yankees are playing the Red Sox at home while we’re there, but the games are all sold out, so if anyone has some tickets lying around, let me know!! And we’re still making plans…so if you have any suggestions as to where we should go or what we should see, drop me a line because I’m looking for all of the advice I can get. I just can't wait! Bring on the Ezekiel 4:9!!

The Bad Weed (Another look at THE most amazing child in all of the world!)

These are some new pictures of David that Katie just posted this weekend. I thought y'all would want to see--actually, I just wanted to gush over him! ;) He's growing up so quickly! He looks like a little boy now...*sniff, sniff.* I'm going to visit them for Easter and I just can't wait!!

Ready for Easter!

Smelling the lilies!

caught one!

I see you!

concentration

reeling it in

fishin' in the new "boat"

It's hard work being this cute!

Josh and our New Orleans Rendezvous

No, I didn't fall off of the face of the earth! Last week was just a little bit crazy, but it was all worth it...Jen and I went to the Josh Groban concert in New Orleans on Friday. It was wonderful! Josh Groban is one of my all time favorite musicians and we had GREAT seats. When we got there, we found out that we were in Club seats and had access to the club.

This is a pic of me and Jen in da' club...yeah, we had a lot of fun with that one!

The concert was at the New Orleans Arena and Chris Botti was the opening act. I didn't get any pics while he was on stage, but he's a great musician as well. This picture is of Josh onstage. Most of my pictures didn't come out very well--gotta love concert lighting--but I thought that this one was at least proof that we were at the concert! :)

A shot from out seats--we had GREAT seats!!

This is where I would have put the pics of Josh serenading me. I'm sorry to say I don't have any...Jen was being stubborn and wouldn't take the pictures! ok, just kidding, but a girl can dream, can't she...?

The next day Jen and I spent a little time wandering around the French Quarter.

A beautiful day to be in New Orleans! This is a shot of Jackson Square and Saint Louis Cathedral at the heart of the Vieux Carre

One of the booths in the farmer's market...this one reminded me and Jen of our friend Abe who is slightly obsessed with tea! :)

one of my favorite galleries on Royal Street

Jen spent a little time catching up with a friend while we strolled about in the quarter