No Slowing Down

Friday, October 14, 2016 was Jerry and Robbie Hayes' 40th anniversary.  Byrd invited us to attend their surprise anniversary party. So we went and had an awesome time. 40 years...that is a lifetime.
We visited dad and mom both on Saturday, October 15, 2016. We had some deliveries too. My niece Tiffany is building a new house, so daddy took us by to see where it was. Phyllis came too. She gets around quite well with a walker these days.
Our church property received some dozer work on Saturday, but with the lack of rain, we were not allowed to burn any brush.

We were back in church Sunday, October 16, 2016 followed by three deliveries all within 5 miles of us. We had deliveries made and still made it to lunch at Cheddar's to meet Sterl, Deb, Lee and Judy.
Afterwords, we went home for a nap.  Easy Sunday.
I felt pretty good on Monday, October 16, 2016, so we took Kimba to Cane Creek for a walk.

Must have worn me out because our next outing was church on Wednesday, October 19, 2016.
On Thursday, October 20, 2016 I went to visit mom and Devin went with me. It rained a little for the first time in October.

We were headed for a drought, and still are. When we got home from moms, Devin let me cut his hair for the first time in a year.  It was a hot mess.

Devin and Brooke had a dentist appointment on Friday, October 21, 2016 but Devin never showed up. He thought it was funny, but I chewed him out.
Stroker and I went to the WCHS bbq dinner later that evening. Kurt and Beverly sat next to us for a while and then a guy named Tinker and his wife sat across from us for the rest of the evening. We had a good time, but didn't win anything.
We knew Saturday, October 22, 2016  was going to be a hectic day before we even started. We had eight stops to make and they were in two different counties. In Monterey that evening we informed residents of a gas line that they were surprised to know that they had  running to their house.  That's us, always making discoveries.  And that's God, always protecting us from disaster.

We got up and headed to church on Sunday, October 23, 2016 and then went to Cheddar's for lunch. I had a hair appointment Sunday evening. Brooke went with Mary and Ella to Amazing Acres.
On Wednesday, October 26, 2016, we moved the TV to an alternate wall and put in a fireplace. We didn't make it to church. We went to Sparta to pick up the dunk tank for a late season rental. The warm weather is really holding out this year.
On Thursday, October 27, 2016, we went to Cumberland Auto and had dinner at Cracker Barrell with Lee and Judy. We stopped and took our picture by the Mystery Machine.

We made a trip to Monterey on Friday, October 28, 2016 to get a head start on a super busy weekend. We had two new outlets installed in Brooke's room.
We got up Saturday, October 29th and sat out on a sold out day. Thanks God.
We did stop by moms for a minute. She was rooting for the Vols.

Sunday, October 30th  was kind of a repeat after church.  We went to Livingston, Doyle and Alpine and Monterey.
The final day of October...Monday, October, 31, 2016. What a relief. I even dressed up this year. Kate's costume beat mine though.

It was around 70 degrees all throughout trunk or treat. I decorated the car around 4pm because trunk-or-treat started at 5pm.  I bet we had over 300 trick or treaters come through.

Brooke went to a costume party.

St Louis...the Ghost Town

On my last post, I left out the cool zombie apocalypse part.

One of the cool, yet a little creepy parts of our trip was that it is not baseball season.

Navigating through downtown was a breeze. The streets were empty, there was no lines to wait in for anything and we had the opportunity to get a good close look at everything we wanted to see.

On a creepier note. It felt like the zombie apocalypse after dark. The bars, taverns and restaurants were all lit up, with the tv's playing and tables sitting empty. 

The stadium lights were on as if a game were in full swing, and yet there was not a soul in sight.

The streets were loud with music, but no one was around.

Like I said. Kinda Creepy...kinda cool!

I can only imagine all the hype during baseball season though.

 

Fall Break St. Louis Trip

Since Hurricane Mathew took over the coast line this fall break, we decided on a getaway a little more inland.

St. Louis was our destination for this trip. I have wanted to see and experience the St. Louis Arch for a while now, and oh how perfect our room view was. I spent quite a bit of time just admiring it from our hotel window.

When we went to dinner on Sunday evening, October 9, we ran smack into the Hillary Clinton convoy on their way to the debate.

After all of the commotion, we ventured on to our dinner destination...Sugarfire.

We can't visit St. Louis without tasting some St. Louis barbeque.

We stopped by the City Garden to check out some of the cool and random sculptures.

Seeing this Head Sculpture was actually on my "things to see" list.

That is two of the apples of my eyes staring back at me.

I caught a shot of Brooke holding up the arch that night.

The next morning, once we got Brooke out of the bed, we ventured out for a closer look of the arch.

We rode to the top in a tiny capsule for five from the south side of the arch until we stopped 630 feet above the ground.

The Mississippi river is on the east side of the arch.

 You can actually see the shadow of the arch in this view of the west side.

After hanging out and getting photos of the views, we rode back down the north side of the arch so that we can say we have traveled all the way from one side to the other.

Hard to believe you can actually travel to the top.

We toured Anheuser Busch brewery and seen several of the Clydesdale's. The tour wasn't that cool for us, but we did get a free Dr. Pepper at the ende

This is the brewing building, but I'm sure they had a cooler name for it on the tour...I wasn't really paying attention.

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We headed straight to the St. Louis Zoo after the Anheiser Busch tour.

This zoo was great. All of the animals were awake and active. Most zoo's have animals that you have to play "where's waldo" at every exhibit just to find a sleeping animal. Not this one. 

They were up and engaged. Not to mention, the layout was perfect. There were mostly deep culverts between visitors and the animals instead of 30 foot fences like there are at other zoo's. It felt like the animals could have walked up to us with the design of the exhibits.

Brooke actually took all of those photos in the collage above. 

Still can't get over everything being so active. I'm used to the zoo's where it is like a game of "Where's Waldo" only to find a tiny glimpse of a sleeping animal in the back corner of the enclosure.

I'm sure the other visitors were entertained by our excitement.

Next, we headed over to the Boat House for dinner by the water.

The jewel box was another stop on my "things to see" list.  I wanted to take a look at this glass green house at Forrest Park, but we only got to view it from the outside because it was closed at the time.

 To the Delmar Loop for an apple crisp dessert at Fitz's

We had to stop for some Strange Donuts while in St. Louis.

I got Campfire (like a s'mores), Brooke got dirt with worns (Chocolate with crushed Oreo's and gummy worms) and Stroker got the Maple Bacon.

Take a look at my campfire doughnut with graham cracker coating...

My marshmallow was even toasted !

A St. Louis icon is the "toasted ravioli", so we tried those when we went to the Hill. 

The hill is where the Italians live and have mastered the authentic toasted ravioli.

One thing we didn't get around to trying is the butter cake, another St, Louis icon. 

All in all, I think we got in quite a bit of site seeing and site tasting during our visit.
This was such a fun trip. The only thing that coulda made it better was if Devin came along.
I miss the days that he didn't have to be an adult, and have a job, and refuse to take a day off.
Makes me want to travel more with Brooke even more...before the day comes that she is all grown up.

October Adventures

I got a new battery for the Honda on Saturday, October 1, 2016. Just in time for cooler weather.
Heather and I went to Granville Scarecrow Festival. We had so much fun walking around Granville. We even sat down by the river and relaxed for a while.

It was a nice sunny day for a festival.

When we got back to Cookeville, Stroker and I went to dinner at Outback. Since Michigan had a big win, we wore our Michigan attire.

On Sunday, October 2, 2016 we started our day at church, just like every Sunday.  Except this Sunday, Jim Gaw played this song for me.  It is my favorite.

Afterwords, Brooke helped us with deliveries. We also found time to install the new washer.

I went for another micro-dermabrasion on Monday, October 3, 2016. Brooke had an ortho appointment and I visited mom for a while. We went to dinner at O'Charley's and Mary spent the night since schools are on fall break.

Mary and Ella spent the night on Tuesday, October 4, 2016. Stroker grilled pork chops for dinner.
I went to Tupperware Bingo for about an hour.

We had a fellowship meal at church on Wednesday, October 5, 2016. Made mac-n-cheese and spaghetti to take.
Another stray dog showed up on Thursday, October 6, 2016. Someone placed it inside our fence. Brookelynn begged to keep it, but Stroker called the police to come pick it up.

I took Strokers truck to get the tires rotated on Friday, October 7, 2016.Brooke and her friends met up at Fear Farm for a night of fun and zombies. It was Jennifer Dukes wedding day, so I headed over to Rosewood to witness the ceremony. I visited with her brother, mom and seen people that I have not seen in years.  She looked very happy.

 I took her my usual wedding basket.

Saturday, October 8, 2016 was full of traveling. Gainesboro, Dodson's Branch, Livingston, Sparta and Cookeville.  We certainly kept the roads hot that day.
It was my day to bring breakfast at church on Sunday, October 9, 2016. After church we hopped in the car and headed out for a few days in St. Louis.