We are a family of three. Wade, Phil and our cat, Sammy. We live in Town and Country, Missouri a western suburb of St. Louis. Wade is a Web Program Manager with a large company and Phil is a dentist. Sammy is a Maine Coon cat that came into our lives while living out in Wildwood, Missouri (about 40 minutes west of St. Louis.)
Please click on any of the images in this blog to zoom in.  Jim, Wade, Phil and Helen This past weekend, Phil and I made a trip up to visit Jim and Helen Montague in Clio, Michigan. They are actually the parents of a friend of ours but we are so close to them and claim them as our own too! They both had birthdays this week and we wanted to visit them to help them celebrate. We flew into Detroit and then rented a car for the drive to Clio. It is close to Flint and also Frankenmuth which is a great German town! It is known for being the home of Bronner's (World's largest Christmas store). We took Jim and Helen to Zehnder's for a great chicken dinner on Friday evening. On Saturday, Phil and I were able to visit Bronners and also walk around the nice shops in town. Close to Frankenmuth, there are Outlet stores and we were able to wander through them as well. That evening, we joined other family members and had a great meal at Lucky's. Great weather, flights, food and laughter made the trip so much fun for us! We hope to be able to visit Jim and Helen again next summer! Happy Birthday Jim and Helen! Frankenmuth Historic Marker Zehnder's Family Restaurant Rachel and Donita
3 Generations - Rachel with mother, Donita and grandmother, Helen
A close friend of ours, Judy Macher, is the owner of the Dream House and Tea Room located at the intersection of Kehrs Mill and Clayton Road. Today, her gift shop and tea room was featured on our local Channel 5 television station (KSDK). Here is the link to the 2.5 minute showcase. It is a beautiful shop and Phil was instrumental in the design and also gets to do some of the buying for it.
Debbie, Wade and Gena
Debbie, Mike and Elizabeth's home
Fall decorations
This past weekend, Phil and I traveled to east Tennessee to visit my sisters and close family members. I have 2 sisters and a brother in Tennessee and was sure glad to see both of my sisters again! Debbie and Gena live about 3 miles from each other in Seymour, Tennessee at the foothills of the Smokey Mountains.
We left St Louis and drove to Nashville on Thursday, Oct 16th and stayed overnight. The next morning, Phil had the chance to see a beautiful Tennessee autumn morning. The leaves had begun to change but had not peaked as of yet.
Friday night, Debbie had invited our sister, Gena, her husband Scott, daughter April and son Jared. Also attending were my cousin Danny and his wife Ann along with their son, Brian. Debbie and her husband, Mike, along with their daughter Elizabeth were our hosts.
It was a lot of fun catching up and hearing old stories of the times we all shared together when we were much younger. I am so glad that Phil was finally able to meet my family!
Gena and Scott have 2 beautiful children and have done very well raising them! April is very pretty and off to college now and Jared is in the 3rd grade. I can remember playing with April as such a small child..it just amazes me how fast they grow up. This was the first time I had met Jared and was so glad to finally meet him. He is such a gentleman and very smart too!
Danny and Ann live in Sevierville and I was so happy to see them again! Brian, their son, continues to work with Oak Haven Resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Take a look at the website and make your plans early as each cabin is so beautiful!
Debbie, Mike and Elizabeth added on to their home this past year and did a beautiful job! Elizabeth is now in the 8th grade and it was fun getting to pick her up from school. We got to watch a video of her riding horses at the summer camp she attends too.
Enjoy the pictures and I hope each of them will come visit us in Missouri soon!
Danny and Ann Murr
Scott, Debbie and Mike
Jared and Elizabeth
Gena, April, Jared and Scott Debbie, Wade, Jared and Gena
Today, Phil and I went on our annual pumpkin hunt to the Rombach Farm in Chesterfield, Missouri. This year, due to the very wet Spring and Summer, the pumpkin patch is just overflowing with pumpkins and gourds. We noticed a French variety of pumpkins too. They are more flat looking but still nice to have on display. Phil noticed a particularly good pumpkin and we chose it. I will carve it for Halloween and have it on the doorstep. I also had to buy some pumpkin butter and looking forward to having biscuits soon to sample it.
Here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch and I hope you all get to visit a pumpkin farm this year!
We saw some pumpkins that were over 200 lbs.
Lots of mums
Old tractor with scarecrow driver
One view of pumpkin patch
Wade with this years pumpkin
Phil at country store
Fall wreath on door
Front of house
Garage side of house
The past couple of days we had our driveway resurfaced and they did a great job! We used Bebb Asphalt here in St. Louis. We will not have it sealed until next Spring. They did leave us some notes for care. Mostly common sense things but parking the car in the same spot each time or turning your steering wheel back and forth will cause some damage. This was the last project that we had planned for 2008 and glad to have it finished. Here are some pictures that I took today.
Mystic Seaport Stonington, Connecticut Phil and I took a quick trip up to New England to visit a few areas that we enjoy. We flew from St Louis to Hartford. We rented a car and headed for the coastline of Connecticut where we stayed in Mystic. We ate lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, The Skipper's Dock, in the borough of Stonington which is close by. Also in Stonington is one of the best places to eat Breakfast and Lunch too, it is called, Noah's.
Wade at Stonington Phil at Stonington
We traveled from there to Newport, Rhode Island. Here we stayed one night at the Hyatt Regency Goat Island. We received a water view and I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice lighthouse from my window too. In Newport, we love to shop and eat lunch at our favorite restaurant called The Brick Alley. While in town, we chartered a sailboat along with 25 others for a 2.5 hour cruise in the Newport harbor. We ate dinner at Sardella's and enjoyed a nice Italian meal.
Lighthouse on Goat Island in Newport
Next we headed to Essex, Connecticut and stayed at the Griswold Inn. We have a favorite room there and was able to enjoy it again. We visited Chester, Marlborough, Old Saybrook and other small towns while in the area.
All in all we had a great time with super crisp days and blue skies. We keep asking ourselves if we could live there one day and we keep saying "YES"! Hope you enjoy the photos.
Stonington scenic area
Tall ship at Mystic Seaport
Randall's Ordinary Restaurant in North Stonington
Essex, Connecticut
I needed a new picture of Sammy for my desktop and after about a dozen tries...I got the one I wanted. He is now 8 years old and still acts like a kitten. We love him so much! I hope you enjoy the photo too.
Here are some pictures of some longtime friends in Colorado. The Arnold family all got together for some group pictures and I would like to share them with you. Sharon and Butch are the parents and have 3 amazing daughters, Sharlyn, Kara and Krista. Each of them have beautiful families of their own. I really enjoy keeping in touch with them and watching the new families grow. I hope to be able to visit with them soon!
From Left to Right Krista, Butch, Sharlyn, Kara and Sharon
 Arnold Family Group Photo
Happy 4th of July!
My company, Maritz, sponsors hot air balloons each year in the Vail Prophet (VP) Parade on July 4th each year. This was my fifth year as a volunteer balloon handler. You never quite know what to expect weather wise here but this year was the most pleasant since I moved to St. Louis in 1996. What a gorgeous day for a parade! They had forecasted rain all week and we were prepared to be wet and miserable until the day before when they finally called for a nice breezy day with the high temperature of 80! (It usually is around 95-100) Maritz was given 3 balloons this year, they were smaller but challenging still in the breeze. I lead one of the balloons and I must say, I had a great team as we kept our balloon in line and in perfect position the entire route. One of the fun things we get to do for the crowd is "spin" the balloons. This year we got to spin more than any year and had quite a work out. Here are some photos and I hope you had a pleasant and safe 4th of July too! 
Group picture 
Pat, Mary, Dawn and Wade 
Mary, Pat and Dawn 
Posing in front of our balloons 
Our balloon 
Lined up and ready to go!
Happy June everyone! I have been working on a walkway project for a couple of weeks now. The rain certainly has not helped except to set the stones better in the ground. I am almost done and certainly glad to have a walkway in the back of the house. Here is the process I used: 1. Lay flagstones in yard 2. Using a shovel, dig around the shape of the stone 3. Dig out the area about 2 inches in depth 4. Level the area with rake 5. Add sand about 1 inch deep in hole area
Hey all, hope you are welcoming Spring to your area of the world! We are getting more rain in the St. Louis area and we just don't need it. I will be posting some pictures of the yard soon as it emerges from the winter season. I have added a link to friends of mine - Debbie Thole and her husband, Chip. Check out their blogsite link on the right. 
They just returned from Italy and they also have a black lab, "Buddy"... and we have a chocolate lab "Buddy" who stayed at the farm house when we moved in 2002. He is now 10 years old by the way. We are getting ready for our Paris and Provence trip in late April. I will be posting some pictures of the hotels and itinerary soon. Happy Spring! Wade, Phil and Sammy
We have returned from our annual ski trip to Aspen, Colorado. This was Wade's 12th year and Phil has been going to Aspen since the late 60's. This year it was a challenge just to arrive as our flight from Denver circled the airport at Aspen with a slim chance to land but there must have been angels watching over us as we did just get in. All flights for the remainder of the day were cancelled.
The Hotel Durant, our second home, was waiting our arrival and it was great to be greeted by Rhonda. (She even wrote "Welcome Home" on a note left in our room.) Also great to see Cynthia, Brian and a new associate of the hotel, Ruth.
Returning guests that we see each year, Tom from England, Jim and Ginger from Colorado, Susan and David from the New York City area, and our friends from Germany. We met many nice hotel guests from the Channel Islands, Germany, and the US.
It did snow each day and we were amazed at the snow amounts. This was certainly the most snow I have ever seen anywhere! Skiing was fun but did require a bit more work with the powder each day....Phil and I did really well again. We are good blue run skiers.
Highlights of the trip included eating at Montagna at the Little Nell. We also enjoyed eating at Jimmy's American Restaurant downtown. We did not see any Hollywood stars this year but we are not sure, as we could have been skiing right along side anyone on the slopes and never know it!
Here are some pictures from the trip:
 
Hotel Durant ~ 10th Mountain Division Statue
 
Colorado Rocky Mountains ~ Sams Knob at Snowmass
 
Big Burn Ski Run at Snowmass ~ Snowmass employee on Fat Tuesday
 
Rhonda at Front Desk ~ Cynthia at Front Desk
 
Tom from England ~ Jim and Ginger from Colorado
 
German friends ~ New Snowmass Info Sign   Wade with snow drift ~ Phil with snow drift   Wade in downtown Aspen ~ House on Cooper Street
I just wanted to add a few lines to say Happy New Year to all of my family and friends!
We had a great Christmas and New Years again this year! New Years Eve was spent at a home in Florissant with many musicians and actors/actresses of local theatre. Now it is not many parties where the entire room knows all the lyrics to the music from South Pacific! :-)
New Years Day, we had 4 friends over to watch Football...One of our friends was a graduate of the Univ. of Wisconsin and I being a graduate of the Univ. of Tennessee....we watched the Outback Bowl Game where Tennessee beat Wisconsin 21-17. I kept my celebrating to a minimal excitement and switched the game over to Missouri who also won their game against Arkansas...38-7.
Phil cooked many appetizers and then served a wonderful beef tenderloin dinner. All in all it was a very relaxing and fun day! Hope yours was too and that you have many more good times in 2008!
We had our first snowfall in St. Louis on Saturday, December 15th. Phil met me after my work day at Crate and Barrel to have dinner with some friends at Maggiano's. It was lightly snowing while we ate and when we came outside.....there were at least 3 new inches of snow on the ground. We drove home on the interstate and it was covered with snow for the 10 mile drive. We both made it home just in time as I saw many stranded cars and people having trouble. We ended up with 8 inches of snow on the ground.
Here are some pictures I took of the house.  
 
 
 
I joined my sister, Debbie, and her family in Orlando November 9th through the 13th. While we were there we celebrated her birthday on Nov 9th and her daughter, Sylvia's, on Nov 13th! We went to Disney World for 3 days and saw the parks transform into their holiday decorations too. Here are some pictures from the trip. Group shot on Main Street at Walt Disney World. From top left, Sylvia, Debbie, Mike, Wade Kneeling is Madison and Elizabeth  Wade, Sylvia and Debbie at Rainforest Cafe  Debbie and Wade at Animal Kingdom Debbie with Tigger at Grand Floridian Character Breakfast (Madison bending down)  Madison, Mary Poppins and Elizabeth
Debbie, Elizabeth and Mike....this may be their Christmas Card
Back in September of this year, we threw a going away party for 2 of our Crate and Barrel family members. I took pictures with my camera and then discovered that I didnt have my memory card in it. After a few weeks, I remembered that my camera has built in memory and that I had to have them stored. Today I finally downloaded them to my computer. Yea! Bob, who opened the store in St. Louis was an assistant manager and Liz was an office manager. I took some pictures at the party and have posted them below. Bob is now in Arkansas living the good life and Liz moved to Denver, CO and is working at a Crate and Barrel there. We all will miss them both very much!        
Light The Night is the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's nationwide evening walk to celebrate survivors and commemorate lives touched by cancer. The walk is held in the twilight, with everyone holding illuminated balloons. My friend Sharon Arnold, Westminster, CO and friends walked in Denver and then traveled to Penn., Phoenix, and Las Vegas to walk with the girls and their families and friends. Sharon is a shining example of how a positive spirit and attitude along with healing prayers can defeat this crippling disease.
Well, I didn't wake up on Friday morning and say "Hey, I am going to buy a BMW today." I had made a call to the dealership and was just curious what my Honda Civic was worth. I found out that it was pretty good. I was on the way to the gym and got a call from my salesperson and he asked if I could stop by. Next thing I knew I was signing papers to get it that night! It is a 2007 328i and my first BMW. The color is platinum bronze and it is new this year. I was thinking about Sparkling Graphite (Gray) but when I saw this one, I knew it would work for me. I have got to go back to the dealership today for some last minute details. It drives really well, Phil has 2 BMW's an X3 and a Z4 and I guessed it kinda rubbed off on me. Here are some pictures, you can click on each for a larger image.
Hey, we really had a great time on the cruise! I took over 400 pictures and have built a small album for you to see some of the highlights from the trip. Celebrity Cruises did a great job in helping us have a very enjoyable vacation. We departed and returned to Rome. The ports we visited were Messina, Sicily, Italy then to Mykonos, Greece on to Kusadasi, Turkey, then to Santorini, Greece, on to Rhodes, Greece and then back to Naples, Italy. You can view the entire itinerary earlier in my blog. I had my head shaved in Kusadasi and it was fun! I played basketball and volleyball in the pool each day and Phil attended wine tasting classes and read 2 books. Hope you enjoy the pictures! Just click on the link below to go to the album. It is always good to be home again! Greek Cruise Album
I have a friend, Sharlyn, (we go way back) that is living in Las Vegas but we didn't get to see her or her family on this trip as they were out of town to attend a wedding. They sent some pictures and I thought they were so good that I wanted to add them to my site here. Sharlyn (Arnold) Alejandro, her husband, James, Rimma and Evan. I hope that on the next visit they will be in town or better yet, you can come to St. Louis!
We had a great time in Las Vegas! It was hot but we were expecting it to be as well. The highlight had to be our meal at Caneletto Restaurant at the Venetian Hotel. We had a patio table and it was just like sitting in St Mark's Square in Venice. We also enjoyed the Paris Hotel as it was next door to our own hotel, the new Planet Hollywood Hotel. The Wynn Hotel and Belagio Hotel were extremely nice too! I did gamble and of course, won some and gave it back. Here are some pictures from the trip. I took these with my Samsung Blackjack phone:
I took some pictures of our plantings around the house. We work hard at keeping everything watered and weeded. Here are just a few pictures that I took with my Blackjack phone.
We had a great trip to Atlanta! The weather was cooler than average and I am glad because I did a lot of walking outside. Phil attended the AmericasMart Gift Show and I got to join him for about 1/2 day. It is fun looking at all the new products for 2008 and Phil had many appointments with exhibitors. I took Friday and Sunday off from the Gift Market and went sightseeing. Since I used to live in Atlanta, I wanted to see how much has changed. Centennial Olympic Park is just beautiful and 11 years since the Olympics, it is nice to see how important it still is to Atlanta. I was able to visit the new Georgia Aquarium, The World of Coca Cola, and I took the CNN Studio Tour (something I never did while I lived in Atlanta for 13 years!). The aquarium is the world's largest and I really enjoyed it! I still like the Living Seas exhibit at DisneyWorld best but this is a close second. World of Coca Cola is in a new location in Atlanta, next door to the Georgia Aquarium, and very informative and fun as well. I really enjoyed the CNN Studio tour and will never be able to watch CNN again without thinking that I was there in the studio. I saw Heidi Collins and Chuck Roberts. I also was able to visit 2 Crate and Barrel stores in Atlanta. One at Lenox Mall and the other at Perimeter Mall. It is always fun for me looking at our other stores and see how they operate. Ok, here are some pictures that I took while walking around.     |
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