Trip down to the arch

We went down to the arch to see just how high the river was. We parked over by City Garden (any excuse to walk through there and see what's going on).  Maggie really likes this man with no arms!!!!

Sophie's horse up on the hill

I don't think I've seen this little guy before

Everyone has pictures of the arch and court building!!!!

Yes another one.....

The river is up to the arch steps

The barges are moved at quite a speed downriver, but I bet it takes them a while to go the other way right now!!!!

Poor Seaman can barely hold his head above water!!!!!

I'm always amazed that the trees seem to cope quite well with the flooding

It was raining the whole time we were down by the arch, so we dried off in IKEA!!!!!

Update on Dad

Dad has definitely been through the wars this year.  Still, for someone who wasn't going to make it in March, he's still hanging on.  He gets moved back and forth to various hospitals and nursing homes.  He was moved to a nursing home in Loughborough right before Marie came over to visit.  This was really convenient because it meant that John could go and see him every day and send us updates.  This was him waving to us when we were in New York back in May.

Since then, his foot got worse and he was transferred to Leicester, where they said he had wet gangrene.  They pumped him full of antibiotics and eventually did surgery on June 11 to remove his foot and part of his leg.  Amazingly, he survived the operation and has now been moved to a rehab place, where hopefully he'll recover a little bit so he can have some improved quality of life.    It is very hard to be away from him, although Marie is absolutely brilliant about keeping me up to date on how he is doing.  Marie sent me this picture of him the day after his operation.  He doesn't look too happy at her taking his picture!!!!

SLU Ranks Among Missouri’s Top 10 Best Places to Work

A recent Forbes survey finds Saint Louis University is the 8th best employer in Missouri.

 

The list was based on an independent survey of about 80,000 employees from at least 500 companies in 25 industries. Employees were contacted anonymously through several online panels rather than directly through their employers to avoid any undue influence. The survey occurred from October 2018 to February 2019.

The evaluation was determined by two criteria:

If employees would recommend their employer to a friend or family member

If employees evaluate other employers either positively or negatively.

The Forbes survey found SLU was the top-rated educational institution in the state, and was among 78 companies from Missouri that were ranked. In addition, SLU is the 10th largest employer in the St. Louis, according to a St. Louis Business Journal list.

Among SLU’s benefits for employees:

Retirement match of up to 10 percent of an employee’s salary

Tuition remission for employees and dependents

13 paid holidays annually in addition to up to 200 hours of vacation time a year

Subsidized medical insurance

The best employer accolade is the most recent for SLU, which also has ranked:

Number one in the Princeton Review’s list for community service by universities

Number eight among Niche’s list of top Catholic colleges

One of only nine Catholic universities to receive a Carnegie Classification of “higher” or “highest research” activity

Number 39 for U.S. News & World Report’s list of “Best Value Schools”

Trip to MBG June 2019

Well, it was no surprise that the water was blue since The Blues won the Stanley Cup.  This water was REALLY blue!!!!!

I'm not sure what these are, but they were massive and looked absolutely perfect

The Chinese Garden has become my new favourite place at MBG.  It is so peaceful

I love this clematis, so unusual

Raised bed in the Kemper Center.  We're going to keep our eye on this one and see how much they leave in over the Winter

The lilies are in full bloom and as beautiful as ever

I liked these the best!!!!

Flooding in St Charles

Ben and I went to St Charles. We were originally going to hunt down the Seaman dog statues, but we had forgotten about the flooding and it definitely ruined our plans!!!!  Still, I'm glad we got to see it all, we've never seen the flooding in St Charles before.  It was really busy there and we had to park way down by the river and walk back.  It was likely busy on the street because the big parking lot was completely under water!!!!

One of the picnic areas under water

The water is right up to the railway line

The Lewis and Clark center is under water, but I believe it was built to withstand something like this

The road down to the casino and start of the Katy Trail is completely flooded

Old mill wheel-probably wondering where all this water came from!!!!

Luckily, the flooding is not high enough to have come over the road and everything in St Charles is safe

Garden update 2019

We have had a lot of rain this Spring.  The plants are growing like crazy.  I thought we had lost a lot this past Winter, and that's still possible, but everything else is making up for it and filling in the spaces.  This is the herb garden

My native perennial garden.  The columbines did not do well this year.  We lost a bunch of them, but there are plenty of new babies starting

The rain garden is being taken over, will definitely need to pull out some of the more invasive plants at the end of the year

I love spiderwort, it's a pity they flower early in the morning

My columbine flowered this year, obviously I was supposed to cut them right back!!!!

Graduation 2019!!!!

We had two graduations in one day this year. In addition to the medical school graduation, Ben graduated from high school on the same day. It was a very long day.
We always have a breakfast for the MD/PhD students.  It was huge this year, we had 4 students graduating and they brought a bunch of family.  This is Kostia (Biochemistry), Anit (SLUCOR), me, Andy (was the Program Director before me), Andrew (MMI), Ray (Biochemistry)

We took this picture after graduation-me and a bunch of Biochemistry people.  Dr DiCera (chair of Biochemistry), me, Ray (MD/PhD student), Kostia (MD/PhD student), Susana Gonzalo (Ray's mentor) and Sergey Korolev (Kostia's mentor)

On to Ben's graduation.  

He was definitely ready to be done with High School and move on to College!

They had a very nice ceremony and Ben got a bunch of certificates from the school and State

Family waiting for the ceremony in the auditorium

Found this old picture of Ben and Ms Scott from last day of 5th grade, time goes by so quickly

Can't wait to see what this new chapter in Ben's life looks like