Life update!

I feel like writing tonight, so look out! :)

Well, first of all, we have been moved for a month and a half now! We are settling in pretty well, I think. All of the boxes are unpacked, we know generally where most things are located in town, and we are enjoying ourselves. The cat has made himself at home as well.

We have sold my childhood house..again. The house was put on the market two weeks ago, on a Wednesday.  We had an offer and contract drawn up 2 days later. I came back that weekend to help a friend go through her things before she moved (today). I said my goodbyes and stayed in my empty childhood home with a twin size air mattress and a single table lamp. And I cried.  I got up Sunday morning and ran the neighborhood, came back and showered, and headed out for breakfast.

I'm so glad I chose to go to The 5 Brothers Cafe that morning. I like 5 Brothers for breakfast because 1. Its not Denny's and 2. You can get lots of food for less than $7. I was a little sad to go eat by myself at a restaurant, but I walked in and my aunt and uncle were sitting in a booth. The waitress said I could sit wherever I wanted to, so I went and plopped myself down beside them. I don't get to see my family members very often so I was grateful to get to eat/ chat with them.

After breakfast I headed to the First Baptist Church to hear my aunt Kathy play in the One Way Singers. They do a concert every 5 years. I got to sit between my uncle and my cousin, and after the church service I spent the afternoon at Forbes with my aunt Beverly and uncle Lowell, and 3 of my cousins. Uncle Lowell teased the waitress into filling the hummingbird feeders so we got to see 5 hummingbirds fight over the sugar water in the feeder.

No trip to Salem is complete without a trip to Dairy Mart, so we all met up there and had ice cream. I even got a picture with 3 of my 4 aunts! Just missing aunt Catherine.

The evening ended with an 18 inning Cardinals Baseball game that uncle Lowell and I watched on TV and had dinner at Aunt Beverly's house.
It was a really wonderful day and I wish I got to spend more days like that with my family.

But back to the house:
 The first buyer ended up backing out because she has a health issue that she thought was "in-network" at the Mt. Vernon hospital but found out that she would have to drive to St. Louis for her frequent treatments. No worries though, it sold again earlier this week. Still a bittersweet subject with me though.

In other news: (in no particular order..)

I have successfully made it through my first week at my new job! My coworkers seem fun. I look forward to working with them and getting to know them a little more.

I...ran 52 miles this month! Not as many as I had originally set on my training schedule, but still not bad for my first month of training. My goal is to run a half-marathon this fall.

Having cable TV is pretty cool...I've been in cardinals baseball heaven lately.

We went to the Lantern Festival on a whim last Sunday evening. Very cool experience. The Chinese acrobats we saw were worth the $22 admission to me. The ONLY complaint about it was that it was 93° and so humid it was hard to breathe. Even after the sun went down and the Botanical Garden lit the lanterns...it was miserably hot. But the lanterns were beautiful! I'm glad we went.

 Nick came to visit us and we ate $130 of sushi. It was...wonderful.

We bought a house plant and named it Ralph. The cat has decided that Ralph is his best friend. He sleeps next to the plant, and when we vacuum he hides under the plant. He even tries to bite me when I go to water the plant. Guess he thinks I'm going to hurt it or take it away? 

Anyways, thats all for this life update. We will have more adventures soon :)

Jack's Fork River Float Trip

This year, in lieu of going to Florida again, my husband and his brother decided we should take a float trip down to current river and spend a weekend equivalent of "relaxing". A family that doesn't plan things out, and flys by the seat of their pants, ACTUALLY PLANNED this one and rented a cabin and tubes for the river in advance.
(Too bad it ended up going wrong)
Monday morning they came and picked us up and all 6 of us rode down to Salem/Eminence, Missouri. (About a 3-3.5 hour drive) My stomach didn't care for the winding roads, but I made it through without getting sick. We arrived at Akers Ferry around 5:30pm and went inside this little store to get the keys to our rental and the address for the cabin.

It should have been a warning sign when the lady told us there wasn't any address for it, you just " go upt that road over there until you see a sign for JJ then go till you see a gravel road, its the blue house." There was no address. So, we go, and find it. From the first look I had decided "nope. No way." There were 3 trashbags of trash thrown out on the porch, the cabin itself looked like it was going to fall in at any minute. There were three bedrooms, and the website said bedding was provided...all that was there was dirty, stained, box spring mattresses. The air smelled musty, like this place had been abandoned for 20 years, had rat traps in the closets, as well as animal nests inside. It was, in a word, horrendous. Not to mention, on the dirt road we had to take to get there, we passed several condemned/falling in/ uninhabitable buildings, and you have to cross a river that was already flooding. Also, the only lights that worked were in the kitchen. The rest of them were burnt out fluorescent bulbs that flickered at best.



Before they would give us our money back, we had to see two other cabins- and both were gross. At this point, we were all frustrated, tired, and hungry. We ended up at Montauk State Park and actually, got really lucky! They had cabin #32 available, though only for one night. We took it. 

Newly renovated, central air, two bedrooms- both looked the same- a couch, TV, and a Murphy bed. It smelled like wood, which I LOVE and was clean AND CHEAPER than the other crap-hole. We sat down to dinner at 9:30pm and were all asleep by 11:30pm.

Tuesday- we had no plan...we wanted to go to current river, but the people at Montauk told us Jacks fork river was open for sure. I actually had cell phone signal, so I typed in "Jacks fork, Eminence MO" into my Google maps and we headed that way. Um, apparently that will take you to a personal residence with "No trespassing" signs posted everywhere. So, we decided to just drive. We happened upon Harvey's Alley Spring Canoe Rental. It looked nice, so we stopped, got out tubes, and they took us to the drop in area of Jacks Fork river.

We took the Go Pro with us on the river, and didn't lose it! Since there had been so much rain, the river was high and the first half of our 7 mile float was filled with higher currents, trees, and rocks. I was having a minor break down, as I had never floated before. We have canoed, but with those you have some control of where you end up. We stopped a couple of times to re-group, and the last half was more enjoyable. Minus the fact that we were tired, and I was sunburnt. I was very happy to see the pick up point and was the first one to get out. We spent Tuesday night at Pine Crest Cabins in Eminence, MO. They were like any other hotel room, decently clean and they looked nice from the outside

Now, on to one of my favorite things from this trip...Hideaway Pizza. This little hole in the wall in downtown Eminence could have possibly been the best pizza I have had, outside of Italy itself. We ended up with three pizzas, a thin crust supreme, a meat locker (pepperoni, sausage, bacon) and a western (BBQ sauce, onion, sausage) and all three were delicious. All of us ate until we were too full to move. I would make the 4 hour drive to eat at this place again. It was fantastic. 

Wednesday we headed back towards home and stopped at one of my favorite caves in Missouri. Onondaga Cave State Park. 

I like Onondaga because: 

1. The part of the cave you tour is beautiful. This is still an active cave with lots of colors and formations.

2. The tours are small because it is less crowded than Meramec Caverns or the other surrounding tourist-y caves. Our family of 6 was the tour. In a way, we got a private tour of this monster.

3. You get a workout, and they don't do stairs in the tour. Everything is a grated ramp system, so no stairs to fall up or down. 

After a late lunch at Steak n shake, my in-laws dropped us back off at our apartment and the cat seemed surprised to see us. Guess he thought we left and the apartment was his now.