St. Louis & Reunion Time With Good Friends!

After our stay in Indiana, we traveled through Illinois...

and then we reached MISSOURI!!!!  We were all SO excited to be back in St. Louis to visit good friends and familiar places!

During our stay in St. Louis, the boys enjoyed many play dates, outings, picnics, and fun with friends!

Our first stop was a visit to the St. Louis Science Center...

We also stopped by our favorite McDonald's to see our friend and #1 McDonald's employee Jamie!  If you have ever been to the Ellisville McDonald's, then you have probably met Jamie.  He is an amazing guy...very kind and friendly to every person he meets!  He owns a couple of baseball caps full of McDonald's pins that customers have given to him throughout the years.  We brought him some pins from our visit to Niagara Falls.

Yes...there is one more boy in the picture than usual!!! We ran into some good friends while we were there! Lacie and her youngest son, Javin.  What a fun surprise! It was great to visit with them too!

Another important stop was to visit our favorite librarians at the Daniel Boone Library! Mary Carol & Mary Lynn are wonderful ladies who do a fantastic job! When we lived in St. Louis, the boys enjoyed the various library programs they provided.  It was sure good to see them and hug their necks!

One afternoon, we stopped by the FBCE church office to visit the staff. It was really neat to see everyone again! Thank you to the staff for letting us crash Dustin's office Birthday party!! We enjoyed the treats! (Right before we came to the office, I had just accidentally dropped my camera and broke part of the lens, so I did not get any photos! Argh! I had another lens back at the RV to use, and Alan was actually able to fix my lens later on! Whew!)

Then there was more fun and visits with friends throughout the week!

The boys were also thrilled to have the chance to go to Six Flags one day with our friends Paul, Tricia, Cam and Faith...

This looks like one crazy fun bunch!!

One of Nate's good buddies joined us too!

We got a quick visit with our good friends, Tom and Sally too! They were in the process of moving, so it was short and sweet...but we were SO glad to see them! Thanks for making time for us that week Tom and Sally!

We were also able to catch Caleb and Joshua's preschool teacher from when they attended at FBCE. They were SO happy to see her!  Joshua gave her a big hug and kiss on the cheek...

Caleb still talks about Mrs. C! He loved the way she wore her hair back into a bun.  He often suggests for me to put my hair back like she does:)

One afternoon, we made a quick announcement on Facebook for anyone in town to come up to the FBCE playground for a little while.  It was really hot that day, but several sweet friends came out to play anyway! We were sure happy to see them!

What a fun group!

Now time for a silly picture of course...

We camped the RV at Babler State Park during the first part of our visit in St. Louis.  One night, we enjoyed grilling out for dinner with some dear friends.  It was still very hot, so the all of the kids enjoyed cooling off and playing with a water sprinkler.

The tough guys hung out at the grill to cook up some dinner!

Great job Chefs! (Andrew & Alan)

We also enjoyed visiting with our FBCE church family on Sunday.  It was wonderful to see so many dear friends.  Although, we did miss seeing some people due to the Labor Day holiday.  To all of our church family at FBCE -  you will always hold a special place in our hearts, no matter how many miles are between us! Thanks so much for the warm welcome back during our visit.

After church, we headed to lunch for more time with friends...

The boys even had the chance to go to a friend's birthday party that afternoon! It was a Lego theme - they were really excited about that!

During the end of our stay in St. Louis, we visited with our friends, Debbie and Steve. They have been so kind to our boys, and they would often babysit for us while we lived in St. Louis.

Ron and Cindy came by with their beautiful granddaughter too!

While we were there, Steve and Debbie actually kept the boys overnight so Alan & I could go on a date! Wahoo! The boys had a blast during their sleepover which included going to the movies, Silky's, pancakes for breakfast, and bowling! Thank you again Mrs. Debbie and Mr. Steve...from ALL the Haigoods!:)

Before we left St. Louis, I made sure to have some girl time!! I sure have missed my friends while we have been traveling this past year! One night, I had dinner at St. Louis Bread Co. (my favorite!) and just had fun with some close friends...laughing and encouraging each other.  Thanks girls...for a fun night out!  God has blessed me with your friendship:)

Caroline and Me

Katie (about to start laughing!), Me and Tricia

After our posed pictures, we just got silly with laughter! (As you can see from the photo above, Katie was already starting to crack up! ) Remember...I am a gal who always got in trouble in school for laughing way TOO loud!!!

We cracked ourselves up, just trying to "pretend" like we were taking unposed, natural pictures....yeah right!

OK, OK...lets get serious for the picture now...

It sure was a fast and full week in St. Louis! We had so much fun, but we were really tired afterwards!  Thank you St. Louis friends for a WONDERFUL time! We look forward to visiting again sometime down the road and we hope to catch a few more hugs from those of you we missed!!

Blessings to you and yours,

Jill and the boys:)