Rich and Jude's visit Day 2

Day 2, we went downtown to visit the arch.  Unfortunately, we could not get tickets for Rich and Jude to go up the arch on Saturday.  We went to Union Station, but could not go in because it is under construction-it seems like the whole of St Louis is under construction at the moment!!  I was a little surprised that Ben was willing to push Sophie's pushchair....

Sophie and Maggie got along really well together.

We ate lunch at Rooster

Sophie did not eat at Rooster!!!!

Kiener Plaza reopened on Friday and they had a big Cardinals party there on Saturday.  Fred Bird was available for photo ops....

Great picture of the family in front of the court house

and in front of the arch

Look at Jude's perfect yoga pose!!!!

My babies.....

When you...just...can't....go....on....

One of our new favourite places to sit!!!

Everyone went to the Cardinals game and left me to babysit.  Looks like I'm not that great company

Rich and Jude's visit Day 1

Well, the visit finally happened!!!!  We have been planning for Rich and Jude to come for months, primarily because of the extension progress!!  Luckily, all the extension plans fell into place, but what we didn't plan for was the power going out!!!  We had a huge storm on Friday morning and it knocked out the power several times in the day.  We took Sophie out for a walk in the afternoon

We walked up to the school because Sam said that a huge tree had come down in the storm.  It fell on two cars in the driveway, but didn't touch the house at all, even though it was growing really close to the house.  They were very lucky

Because we had no power, we had to go out to dinner on Friday night.  We went to Dewey's and Sophie loved watching them making pizza

Lots of graduations

It was a big week for graduation. The Graduate Program had their graduation on Thursday and Shannon walked in that one.  It's a small ceremony, but pretty nice and of course a huge achievement for everyone.  Shannon bought her robes since she is going to be teaching in the future

We had a breakfast for the MD-PhD program on Friday morning.  We only have one student graduating this year.  This is Robert with me, the old Program Director and his PhD mentor.  He is going to Case Western to do Neurology

Flooding in Tilles Park

Spring at Shaw Nature Reserve

I have wanted to go to Shaw in the Spring for a while because I wanted to see the wildflowers.  It was an absolutely beautiful day there

The water was pretty high, I hadn't even thought there would be water everywhere even though we've just had so much rain

Only a couple of wildflower pics (even though I took loads of them!!)

Maggie standing in the empty tepee frame

Tree struck by lightening

Ben and Maggie

We could not get down to the river as there was still flooding

We found a friend!!!!

Beautiful tree and blue sky

Ben's balancing act

Maggie

These flowers were everywhere and we spotted our first hummingbird of the season feeding on them

I really like this raised bed of wildflowers, I'd like to do something like this at the back of our garden

Strawberry picking

We went to Theis Farms to pick strawberries on Saturday.  It was pretty damp out there, but Ben developed a successful method for staying dry

Maggie is always posing for photos

Ben and Maddie hanging out together.  They get along really well

Ben was inducted into the National Honor Society

A bunch of Ben's class was inducted into the National Honor Society.

Jackson Reeves!!!!

Reciting the oath

Ben, Maggie and me!!!

and Jan!!!!

Ben's certificate already framed.....