St Louis

Last weekend we went to St. Louis for the Cardinals Kids' Crew party. The kids had the opportunity to get autographs from Cardinal players, as well as eat food, and see the stadium.

We left Friday night and arrived at a camp ground in Kahokia Illinois - just across the river from St. Louis. We got set up and went to bed for the night. The next morning we got up and ate a breakfast of pancakes and bacon. We then cleaned up and headed for the arch. At the arch there was a special display about baseball history in St. Louis. They had it put there special for the All Star Game. After spending some time at the arch - and hearing about what occupied children on the wagon train, we headed to the stadium to wait in line. We were armed with a deck of cards, chips, water, sandwiches, and a wiffle ball. A 2 1/2 hour wait is what we had upon us. Since we were prepared - it was not at all bad this year. We have learned after three years of waiting in line what to bring to make the line less miserable.

We got into the stadium around 1:00 and were able to get in line for Skip Shumacker(not sure how to spell it) autograph. After that, we split up. Michael went to get Franklin's autograph while I went with Emily to get three more players autographs. Then we ate snacks, Michael and Doug went to the Cardinal team store, and we got Cardinal Bears (for making a $5 to the Cardinals' Care charity).

We then went to the car, walked around Keiner plaza a little bit and saw the arches, and found batteries for the camera before going back to wait in another line to get back into the stadium.

It was picture day so we waited in line to get a good spot. Michael and Doug headed down to the field while Emily and I went to build a bear and got her Cardinal Kids Crew goodie bag. The boys had a good spot along the warning track. They started taking pictures of players and then Michael got called out in a group to get a picture taken with Albert Pujols :) Boy was that a memory. Some more pictures were taken and then they were back with us. We sat in section 170 - right in the outfield on ground level. They were good seats. We had a good view of Matt Holliday (Michale had bought a Matt Holliday shirt before the game from the Cardinal Team Store). The Cardinals won the game 9 - 4 :) We saw 2 home runs and lot of action.

After the game we hit Ted Drews for concretes - and waited in another line (this one only about 20 minutes long). Emily had brownie, Doug had heath bar, I had oatmeal cookie, and Michael had a cherry sundae in a Cardinal hat. Yummy!!!! Wish we had a Ted Drews in KY (or maybe not, as I would gain a lot of weight if we did)

Then it was back to the camper for bed - since it was about 11:30 or so.

We got up the next morning and ate a breakfast of golden grahams :) and packed up the camper. Then we headed to Belleville for Church. It is always nice to worship with Dawn and Craig. Michael said the nicest thing about their church - "I like going there because they are kid friendly." What a great thing to say about a Church.

We ate lunch with Dawn, Craig & Leyna at a chinese buffet. Thanks guys for inviting us to lunch. It was great to catch up and hear about Justin and college as well as Leyna and high school first hand.

It was a great weekend - but very exhausting. We had to go back to school and work on Monday being exhausted but with lots of fun news to share.