4th of July Fun

We hope that everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! We certainly did here. Our festivities began on Friday when our friends Crystal and John came over for a BBQ. We had a great time catching up on things, and the Cardonis told us about their amazing trip to England in June. Greg and I are sad because Crystal and John will be moving to Nashville next month, but we are also excited for the new opportunities they will have (and it will give us an excuse to visit Nashville). We had a really fun evening, and it was a great way to start the 4th of July weekend.

Saturday, of course, was the parade, and then on Sunday we just went to church and relaxed around here. Then yesterday the Andreasens (their dad is the bishop of our ward) invited us over for a fun evening. We swam in their pool, had a BBQ, played croquet (the croquet course ended up being pretty extreme and even involved hitting the ball through a tree house), and set off some fireworks. One of my favorite parts of the evening was when Sister Andreasen, Greg, and I climbed into their little row boat and headed out on the lake behind their house to look for blackberries. My job was to bail water out of the boat since it sometimes leaks--but only a little bit of water came in. Unfortunately the blackberries weren't quite ripe, but it was still fun to go hunting for them. So, we had a fun evening with the Andreasens and the missionaries (who came over for dinner), and then on our way home we got to see the fireworks being set off in Springfield. It was a great day, and I am grateful to live in this country!

4th of July Parade

Yesterday was the annual 4th of July parade in the Village of Jerome (part of Springfield), and the museum got to participate in the parade. It was so much fun! I can't figure out why Springfield itself doesn't have a 4th of July parade downtown--they have parades for everything else, but at least someone around here has a parade celebrating Independence Day. We all got to the museum bright and early where all of the historic Jeeps and other military vehicles were lined up and ready to go.

Here I am in my woodland camo outfit that "the guys" put together for me. And, there is the awesome Jeep I got to ride in--with the HUGE gun! The man driving the Jeep I was in was one of our volunteers, Glen. He is a really neat man and a WWII veteran, so he has a lot of good stories. We sure turned quite a few heads driving over to Jerome with our line of about three Jeeps, a troop transport truck, and a Humvee.

Here we are getting ready for the parade to start. We had people dressed as soldiers from all different eras--French and Indian War, Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, and present-day. It was really cool! The parade was about two miles long and went through the neighborhoods of Jerome. It was so neat--people were lined up along the streets or sitting on their porches. It was all very patriotic and a great way to begin the 4th of July weekend. Happy 4th of July tomorrow!

27 in 2011

It's not every day that you get to turn 27 in 20-11, so when it happens you might as well celebrate! Although yesterday I was pretty worried all day because poor dad had to have his gallbladder removed. He has been in a lot of pain lately (really on-and-off since his surgery last fall), and he ended up in the ER last weekend. The doctors found some gallstones, so they decided to operate. Hopefully having the gallbladder removed will do the trick. Thankfully the surgery went well, and by yesterday evening I was able to talk with Dad on the phone. He sounded pretty happy to be having some dinner, after not being able to eat anything since Friday or drink anything since Sunday. So the best birthday present of the day was that Dad pulled through and the surgery was a success. Now we just need him to get feeling better!

I had a really nice day yesterday. It all started at work when "the guys"--I work with mostly men, but at least they're nice--took me to lunch. It's so nice to work at a place where the people are not lunch nazis (like Jason Boyd at the Lincoln Home). In the afternoon, we had a group called the "Buick Club" show up at the museum. They are on a Route 66 tour and all drive really cool cars. Here are some of the cars parked in front of the museum. By the end of the day, we'd had 78 visitors in the museum--that has to be some kind of record! It was nice though because it wasn't crazy busy like the Lincoln Home, but it was busy enough that the afternoon went by quickly.

After work, Greg and I went out for a nice dinner at Dublin Pub where we ate our favorite Irish beer battered mushrooms--they are SO good!! We also had some yummy sandwiches for dinner. Then it was miniature golf time. It was the perfect evening outside for some mini golf. Here is Greg taking a big swing :-) It was a pretty tricky mini golf course--one of the holes even had a little pond on it, which of course I hit the ball into. But we had a great time.

After mini golf we headed home to open presents and have ice cream cake and birthday cake ice cream! Greg gave me some cool baseball cards for my birthday--I even pulled a card with a Ryne Sandberg autograph on it from one of the card packs! Doesn't this ice cream cake look delicious? Our only dilemma is, how are we going to eat it all? Luckily we have some friends coming over for a BBQ tomorrow, so maybe they will help us eat it :-) It turned out to be larger than Greg had expected. All-in-all it was a good birthday.

In other news, you may remember our recent adventures with our raccoon-killing neighbor, Dick. Because of the e-mail Dick sent to Greg threatening to come to the funeral home to confront him, and just because Dick was acting so strange (putting his fists in Greg's face in front of the police officers, etc.), Greg filed a temporary "no contact" order against Dick which ended today. Greg and Dick were both asked to show up at court this morning where a judge would decide what the next step should be. Since we hadn't had any problems with Dick since the order was filed a couple of weeks ago, Greg had planned to just drop everything and not ask the judge for an extension of the no contact order (we figured that everything had just kind of blown over). However, Dick's attitude and that of his lawyer prompted the judge to slap a two-year extension onto the no contact order without Greg even asking for it. Dick was really belligerent and told the judge several lies, which didn't help his case. The judge had a copy of the police report in front of him, so when Dick said that Greg was the one who had told him to put out the raccoon poison, the judge didn't buy it. Dick's lawyer claimed that Dick hadn't sent Greg any e-mails, so when Greg produced the threatening e-mail, that didn't look good for Dick either. It was just a bizarre situation, and when all was said and done Dick once again threatened Greg--so now another police report is being filed, and it is just a big mess. The moral of the story is: don't poison raccoons and act all crazy about it.

The Riot

Yesterday Greg and I went down to St. Louis to meet Ryan Theriot (pronounced Terry-o), the starting shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals! It was so much fun. Because of how his name is spelled, he is nicknamed "The Riot." :-) He used to play for the Chicago Cubs, but we're happy that he plays for the Cardinals because he is awesome! He also is not bad-looking (Greg agrees with me on that one) :-) He is a lot smaller in real-life than he looks on TV or even just out on the field playing. He was really nice!

Our main reason for going to the Ryan Theriot autograph signing was to have him sign a jersey we got at the May 30 game at Busch Stadium. It is a game-used jersey from the March 17, 2011 spring training game--so it is green, which makes it pretty unusual. We knew that the only thing that would make the jersey cooler than it was would be if we could get it signed. So we were really excited! All of the people at the store where he was signing autographs were very impressed by the jersey. When we took the jersey up to him to sign, Greg said, "This is one of yours." He looked at it and said, "Why, yes, it is!" So now the jersey is even cooler than it was before. Unfortunately the Cardinals aren't playing very well lately--it doesn't help that poor Albert Pujols broke his arm in the game right after we saw them play against the Royals. He is going to be out for 4-6 weeks, which is not good. But hopefully Ryan Theriot and the rest of the team can get back on track!

Hannibal Adventures

Yesterday Greg and I drove over to Hannibal, Missouri for the day, and we had a great time! Everything in Hannibal is always an adventure, being the birthplace of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hannibal is Mark Twain's (Sam Clemens') birthplace and is often called "America's Hometown." It truly doesn't get more Americana than Hannibal. To start off the day we went on a fun riverboat cruise on the appropriately named "Mark Twain" Riverboat. Here is a picture of Hannibal's riverfront, which is currently closed due to flooding--you can see the floodgates on the road there. They had to move the riverboat landing upstream a little bit because of the flooding, but luckily the river is receding almost two feet per day.

It was kind of a cloudy day, but it still felt really good out on the water. There was a nice river breeze blowing, and it even got a little cool--unusual for Missouri in June. I love the Mississippi River! It is so big and powerful. I first saw the Mississippi when Mom, Dad, and I drove from St. Louis to Nauvoo in 2001, and I haven't been able to get enough of it since. 2001 was the first time I visited Hannibal too. Since then Mom and I have visited Hannibal several times--one of my favorites was when we stayed at Reagan's Queen Anne Bed & Breakfast. Most recently the whole family had a fun little visit to Hannibal on our way back to Utah (via the St. Louis airport) from Nauvoo in 2008. So it was a lot of fun to be back yesterday!

After the riverboat ride, we had a fun lunch at the River View Cafe. The best part about lunch there is that you do have a really nice view of the river. The food was tasty too. After lunch we went around to a few of the antique shops downtown, and then we tried something new and went on the Haunted Hannibal ghost tour! We didn't see any ghosts, but we did hear some fun/crazy stories as we toured the town. Here is Samuel Clemens' dad's grave at the Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Also in the Mount Olivet Cemetery is the real Injun Joe's grave. You may remember him from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The real Injun Joe was known as a very nice person though, unlike his character in the book. Our ghost tour took us through town and to several small cemeteries. It was a lot of fun and not too scary.

Greg and I were so inspired by our ghost tour that we stopped at one other little cemetery we had seen on our way out to the River View Cafe. It was called the . . . River View Cemetery, and it too had a really nice view of the river. At the River View Cemetery we found Robert E. Lee's grave :-) He was born a little late to be the real Robert E. Lee--I mean, he was obviously real, but not THE Robert E. Lee. So, we had a great day in Hannibal and made it home just in time to see the NBA draft. I was sad that Jimmer Fredette didn't go to the Utah Jazz, but happy for him that he was drafted in the top 10.

The trip to Hannibal was just the beginning of a week of birthday celebrations! :-) Actually, we would have gone next week, closer to my b-day, but Greg has a conference he needs to be at all next week, and his boss' wife is also having a baby, so he'll be pretty busy. At least it makes the birthday celebrations last longer.

In other news, for those of you who receive the Ensign magazine (an LDS publication), if you flip to the "Latter-day Saint Voices" section, you'll see a little article that I wrote. You can also see it online by clicking here and scrolling down to the "Two Cities and a Tender Mercy" article. I still haven't seen the actual magazine article, and unfortunately the illustration is not included online, but I hear that the magazine includes a drawing of someone who is supposed to be me--only they have long hair :-) I wrote the article and sent it to the Ensign five years ago, so it's nice to finally see it in print!