The Big #3

The week has been CRAZY! It can be summed up in two words: Saint Louis. :-) Last Saturday I had my nice trip to St. Louis with our fun ward Young Women president, Laura, then on Sunday evening the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers to send themselves to the World Series! On Tuesday Greg and I went to St. Louis so we could go to the temple for our big #3 anniversary! I had actually never been to the St. Louis Temple before, which is weird since we are in the St. Louis Temple district, but we usually go to Nauvoo when we go to the temple. So we had a very nice day at the temple. Then, we ended up going BACK to St. Louis on Thursday for a World Series game (a World Series post is soon to come), and Greg will once again be going to St. Louis on Sunday to pick up someone who passed away out-of-state. We've been burning up the road between here and St. Louie!

But out of all the things that happened this week, the most important was our anniversary. The St. Louis Temple is so beautiful! It was nice to go there and be reminded of the importance of our temple marriage and to feel the spirit of such a special place. It's hard to believe that it has already been three years since we got married! Tuesday was kind of a gray, cold, dreary day in St. Louis, but it made us appreciate the beautiful, Utah fall weather we had on our wedding day. What a week it has been!

Sister Dalton in St. Louis

Yesterday I had a really neat opportunity! At church I am currently the first counselor in the Young Women presidency, which means I get to work with the 12-18 year old girls in our ward. It has been a lot of fun so far, but I still have a lot to learn. Yesterday Sister Elaine S. Dalton, the General Young Women President for the entire LDS Church, was in St. Louis to offer some training for Young Women presidencies in the area. I got to go to St. Louis with our ward Young Women president, and we had a great time. I even got to shake Sister Dalton's hand! She shared some neat experiences and advice with us. Later in the evening she had a special meeting where she spoke to all of the young women from the area. (Only six of our girls were able to make it, but they sure had a great time.) She talked about making good choices in our lives and reminded us that Heavenly Father knows each of us personally. It was a wonderful talk and a wonderful day! Sister Dalton recently spoke in General Conference. You can read or listen to her talk by clicking here. She is a really neat lady, and I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to listen to her words yesterday. Also at the meeting yesterday, I ran into my fun friends the Stowells from Charleston! They were my family away from home while I was at graduate school, and it was wonderful to see them again.

In other news, the Cardinals lost the other night, but then they won a game, so now they just have to win one more game to go to the World Series! We'll be cheering for them tonight!

Legends of October

This has been an exciting October with the St. Louis Cardinals playing in the postseason! They are up two games to one over the Milwaukee Brewers, although they are behind in their game this evening. Hopefully they can come back and pull out a win--they just need to win two more games to go to the World Series! Let's go Cardinals!!

Fall Photo Shoot

Since it was such a beautiful fall day, we decided to get some pictures of the animal children. Here they are!

October Baseball

Last week at this time, we didn't even know if the St. Louis Cardinals would make it to the Major League Baseball playoffs--they started out September eight-and-a-half games behind the Atlanta Braves for the Wild Card playoff spot, and it seemed impossible that they would even have a chance. It came right down to the wire, but with the Atlanta Braves' loss to the Philadelphia Phillies and the Cardinals' win over the Houston Astros last week, the Cardinals made it to the playoffs! Greg and I were so excited that we decided to head to St. Louis on Tuesday for game #3 of the Cardinals vs. Phillies playoff series. The teams were tied 1-1 in the best of five series, and we were hoping to see the Cards gain a game on the Phillies.

We had never been to a playoff baseball game before, and the atmosphere was quite electric! The afternoon started with the Budweiser Clydesdales making a couple of laps around the field. They were so cool to see! The stadium was absolutely packed, and people were cheering about everything.

Here are the two teams lined up at the beginning of the game.






It was a perfect afternoon and evening for baseball, and the game was very exciting. They handed out Cardinals towels to everyone when we entered the stadium, so it was like a sea of white every time someone made a big play with everyone waving their towels. Unfortunately the Phillies had the biggest play of the night when one of their players hit a 3-run home run, but the fans stuck by the Cardinals until the very end. A squirrel actually ended up stealing the show by running out onto the field. It turns out that he even showed up again the next night! Unfortunately the Cardinals lost the game 3-2, but at least it was very exciting. And they ended up winning the next evening to again tie up the series. They'll be going back to Philadelphia for game 5 tomorrow, and we hope that they win! Our first playoff game was so much fun!

In other news, the leaves have started changing colors here, and it looks so pretty! Here is a picture of our condo from down the street with the beautiful yellow tree that we get to see every time we come and go. I love fall!