Thanksgiving Visit to St. Louis

Nicholas and I (and pups) hopped in the Pathfinder at 6pm Tuesday evening and embarked on a 15 hour roadtrip to St. Louis.  Many people thought we were crazy.  To drive through the night.  To go home for just three days.  But there is nothing crazy about wanting to be surrounded by family on the holidays.  If it's possible, I'll do it.  And this was absolutely possible.  It wasn't really difficult at all.  Nick started ourt driving while I slept.  He woke me when he was tired and we switched.  And the pattern continued.  Our dogs are rockstar travelers.  They sleep the entire time (with no assistance from drugging or natural pills).  The car starts moving, they lay down and sleep.  They didn't wake or get out of the car until we arrived in St. Louis! 

This year, it was very important for me to be at home.  This was the first Thanksgiving, the first holiday, without Grandpa.  And I wanted to be with my family.  We are close.  Obnoxiously close.  I've been having a very difficult time with Grandpa's death since he passed 4 months ago.  I knew being with my family would help me and I was right.  I am so happy I went home to be with them all.  But that will be a separate post.  

The visit was short but sweet.  So here's a quick recap.

We had dinner and drinks with Nick's family

 

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family.

My amazing family (minus Kyle who had to stay in Alabama) 

Grandma and all her grandkids (obviously minus Kyle again)

We continued family traditions.  

I didn't support Black Friday (Black Thanksgiving?) but instead lounged around all day with my family and pups.

We did some wedding venue shopping (oh yeah, my little sis got engaged!  Post about that coming soon!)

My family, (and we got Grandma to come along) went to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and did the Lights Tour.  They open the doors to the brewery grounds and you can walk about at your own pace, enjoying the lights, bands playing, Clydesdales, free samples of all sorts of beer and drinks, etc.  (Did I also mention this is 100% free??  Well, it is!)

She was braiding it's hair (or whatever it is they do to them)

We went out for dinner and drinks with Nick's cousins.

We did some shopping (on Saturday).  We spent the afternoon with Grandma.
That evening, we enjoyed some Imo's (you all know we weren't going to leave town without stuffing our faces with it's deliciousness!!!)

and watched Mizzou beat Texas A&M to go on to the SEC Championship game!!!!  Hell yeah!!!!  I will fully admit that I doubted our team.  Last year was our first year in the SEC and we weren't even bowl-eligible.  It was rough.  I thought it'd take us a good 3-5 years to be able to compete with the big boys of the SEC.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  Way wrong.  It took one year.  This year, we more than more proved we're a kickass team and worthy of being in the SEC.  Of course there are haters out there coming up with any and every reason of why this year was luck, other teams fault, etc.  Basically anything but the fact that Mizzou showed up this year with the skill and determination to win.  But you know what they say...Eff the haters!  Anyway, we watched the game and then hit the road at 10:30pm and headed back to Florida!!!!


This drive was a little harder and we ended up stopping once for a quick two hour nap but we arrived safely in Jacksonville around 3pm.  Just enough time to unpack, relax, and get to bed at a decent hour.


I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  Did anyone else travel for the holidays??