Boy the heat and humidity of St. Louis was quite staggering coming from a dry desert like Salt Lake City. We were sweating instantly off the plane! Yuk. I’ll take my dry heat anyday. And we had tons of mosquito bites by the end of the 3 days there. At our hotel the McCains had left red St. Louis Cardinals tote bags full of yummy treats, chips, nuts and sodas. What great hosts they were! We loved it!
One of our favorite places to eat on vacations is IHOP. I love that place. It is a wonderland of breakfast food selections. I love all the little syrup pots and jelly packets to choose from. I remember being awed by them as a kid and I still love to have a pancake full of 3 kinds of syrups. But nothing really compares to the stuffed french toast I had covered with whip cream and strawberries. Heavenly! We tried a different breakfast place every morning but everybody loves IHOP the best. Here’s Gary in his hot rental car. It’s a Chevy man!
We had a rehearsal dinner at the pizza parlor and we all sang “Forever, forever you’ll stay in my heart and I will love you forever forever, we never will part, oh how I’ll love you forever, forever, that’s how it will be, to live without you would only be heartbreak for me……” just like in the movie My Best Friend’s Wedding with Julia Roberts. It was really fun and we were obnoxiously boisterous. We kept telling the other diners, “those 2 are gettin married tomorrow!” and everybody would smile and stare. So cute. Megan (2 years) started dancing around with these 2 straws and we all swore she looked like she was directing a symphony orchestra. It was too funny. Tiffany and Gary went with John and I to see the museum and the St. Louis Arch and got some cute pictures.
It’s amazing how tiny that thing looked from the airplane coming into town and how massive it is standing underneath it. An amazing engineering feat in truth.
Jeff and Wendy waited, were delayed, got up in the air finally and had to turn around 45 minutes into the flight, then waited all day in the airport while they tried to fix the plane. Their 1:30 afternoon flight finally got in after 8:30 p.m. and they missed a lot of fun being together with us. Josie, it turns out, the newest baby of the family (7 weeks) doesn’t like traveling. Go figure!

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Dylan Feik & Devin (missionary companions) |

Many of Devin and Caitlin’s college buddies from BYU and Devin’s missionary friends drove 24 hours to be with them and help celebrate. They were super fun and crazy and they made watching the dancing and of course the BYU fight song hysterically funny. We have it all on video. Good for some laughs later. I’m so glad they have such great people as friends and I was impressed with the bonds of friendship they all share. I hope they will continue to all be close friends throughout their lives. Elder Dylan Feik drove all day with his wife to help Devin celebrate. He and Devin were 1st companions to each other in the MTC and were both assistants to the president twice on their missions. We loved seeing him and grilling him on Armenian words and remembering their time in Aremenia and Georgia a few years ago. Caitlin’s cousin Brendan was so cute I’ll have to fix him up with one of my nieces who goes to BYU. He’d be a real catch too. Super cute and funny!
The next day we all went out to breakfast again and then packed up to go back home. Megan and Marisa are quite the jet setters now. We had to take a picture of them sitting in the baggage size checker like they were a pair of luggage.
Megan fell asleep on my lap and slept the whole 3 hours home. Boy were my legs stiff after that. Tiff loaned me her Kindle on the flight out and I got through the whole book of Hunger Games by the time we reached the Salt Lake Airport coming back in. Now I’m super hooked on kindle reading. I found a free application to use my laptop with Kindle so almost as good and hey, FREE! Books are cheaper too.
Well, I only have one more week and it’s back to school for me. Devin and Caitlin are off to the Cayman Islands for their honeymoon. I hope they don’t get stuck in an airport or on a tarmac like the rest of us.
yay! i am so glad that you are blogging so that we can see what's going on with you guys. poor jeff and wendy, having an extra long flight with a newborn…i can't imagine. everybody looks awesome, and it looks like it was a lot of fun. we'll see you in a couple of weeks.
casey