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??

Recap: Trip Home to St. Louis

It's really hard for me to write this blog post because I feel guilty focusing on my time at home that was fun.  When I think about my trip home, Grandpa's passing is the first thing that enters my mind.  And it's hard to push that aside and remember all the fun I had while home.

My original intent for going home was not for Grandpa.  I go home every August to get my yearly surgery AND because my Dad would be turning 60!!!!  Grandpa going through chemotherapy treatments was just a perk for me to get to spend that time with him.  I know a lot of people think I was heading home because of Grandpa, but in reality, I had my August trip planned since well before we even knew Grandpa had cancer.

Leah and I headed home to St. Louis, with her dogs in tow, on August 2nd.  Here are some of the significant highlights from my trip home:

Cousins' Night Out:  Backstreet's Back!
On August 3rd, after spending the day at Grandpa and Grandma's house, we headed out for our Cousins' Night Out.  We decided to relive our childhood at the Backstreet Boys concert (Let it be known that we were all obsessed with *NSYNC.  Our loyalty still lies with them but who could pass up a boy band concert to relive the past?!)  We went out to dinner and then headed to the concert.  After the concert, we had a slumber party at my cousin Teeny's condo.  In the morning, we crashed her parents house for my uncle's infamous chocolate chip and M&M pancakes!!!

(we are not duck-facers.  This was done with the intention of mocking that ridiculousness.)

Endoscopy
This was the reason for my visit home and thankfully, all went well.  (I blogged about this while I was home so you can check it out HERE)

Chemo with Grandpa
In 2006, I underwent a very intense cancer treatment regiment.  I first started with radiation, which lasted six weeks and I went every weekday.  Following those six weeks, I had another six weeks to try to gain some weight (radiation knocked me down pretty badly and I was weighing in at just 101 pounds).  I finally began chemotherapy and my regiment was the most intense at the time, with two of the strongest drugs.  I went to chemo Monday through Friday every third week over a 15 week period (five total weeks).  My chemo sessions kept me at the hospital for almost 8 hours each day.  Because chemo was so long and so frequent, my mother could not attend all my treatments with me.  As I'm sure you know all know by now, I have an amazing family.  Aunts, uncles, siblings, friends, cousins, etc took off work and skipped classes to take me to chemo, sit with me, and bring me home.  During this time, I was pretty sick.  I slept the entire day...the ride to the hospital, in the waiting room, during my chemo infusion, the ride home, after I got home, and all night long.  I really was not awake during my chemo weeks.  In addition to this, I got so weak that I was wheelchair bound unless in my own home.  Grandpa, being retired and so awesome, was one of my regulars at chemo.  He sat with me, in those freezing cold rooms, all day long.  So caring and loving.  Always providing a smile and a laugh.  It was very important for me to get to attend at least one chemo treatment with him.  I could never repay him for all the love, support, and laughs he gave me during my cancer journey, but I wanted to do this with him.  I wanted to now be his chemo buddy.  Thankfully for me, one of his chemo treatments fell during my visit home.  This was his second chemo treatment, and it ended up being his last.  I drove Grandpa, Grandma, and Leah to chemo on August 8th.  We sat with Grandpa, having quite a few laughs, and I helped Grandma with feeding tube "lunch".  The next day, I took Grandpa back to get his white blood cell shot.
I am so thankful that I was able to spend this day with him.  Grandpa's love and support during my cancer battle meant the world to me and I'm happy I was able to repay him, even though it was nothing compared to all he's done for me.  I'm happy we were able to fill his days with smiles and laughs during such an awful experience.  I will forever be grateful that I was able to attend a chemo with him, as he did with me.

Sibling Weekend
The weekend of the 9th through the 11th, Leah and I headed to Kansas City (well really Kansas but who wants to admit they went to Kansas??  Not I!).  Randy moved to KC a few months ago for work and Ben just recently moved there after getting a new job.  It's weird to have him living 4 hours from home but I'm happy he's happy and finally back with Randy.  We had a great weekend seeing his new place, hanging out with friends (they started out as his friends but after my many years of living in CoMO, they've turned into my friends as well), and enjoying time with just us siblings.  We talked about our childhood, our concern for Grandpa, Grandma, and our own parents.  We talked about our fears and wishes.  It was a much needed mini-vacay for me and I wish my siblings and I could have this more often.

Of course we went out for some Kansas City BBQ

Ben & Mark found a video game-esque beer so of course they bought it.  And of course Ben drank it out of his Mario Brother's mug.

Ben bought an original Clue game at a swap meet but he'd NEVER played before!!!  Of course we broke it out to play a few games (while also watching the movie "Clue")

Dinner with Friends
I was able to squeeze in some really quick dinners with friends.  I hate that time home is so rushed but I love getting to see my friends.  I consider myself very lucky to have kept in such close contact with so many of them and I feel we're closer than we were when I was living in St. Louis.

Cardinals Game
Nick came in town halfway through my (what should have been) last week in town.  His aunt and uncle invited us to a Cardinals day game and of course we accepted.  We met them at a casino downtown where the guys gambled and Nick's aunt and I chatted.  We attended one freaking awesome game where the Cardinals made a ridiculous come back to beat the Pirates in extra innings.

Fireworks for the WIN!

Afterwards, we happened to walk by Jim Hayes and Rick Horton doing their post-game show.  We took some photos of them doing their broadcast and then Nick's aunt suggested that Nick and I pose with them behind us, at their desk, doing their show.  As she takes the picture, we see her laughing.  Upon getting my phone back, I look at the photo and see this:

They photobombed us!!!  We wanted them just sitting there, doing their broadcast but instead we got this.  Epic!! When I looked up, the two of them were laughing so hard and they asked to see the photo, upon which they laughed even harder.  They are Nick and my favorite sports talk show hosts because they always seem like such goofy guys, always laughing.  And this photo just confirms that!

Dad's 60th
This was one of my main reasons for coming to St. Louis.  Dad turned 60 on the 16th!!!!  My Dad is who I get the "big kid at heart" thing from so for his birthday, he simply wanted to spend the day at the Zoo with his family.  And that's what we did.

We had dinner plans but we got a call that Grandpa was being taken to the emergency room so we all headed there instead.  Sadly, this is where we spent the remainder of Dad's birthday, and Leah's birthday the next day.  Sunday was supposed to be a large birthday party for Dad and Leah, but we decided immediately to cancel that because of things going on with Grandpa.  (Which ended up being a good idea, because Sunday was the day Grandpa passed away.)

My amazing family, together, as we were for three days, in the waiting room.

Unfortunately, the rest of my visit home would be one of tears and heartbreak.  Grandpa never left the hospital.  All 16 of us stayed the next three days at St. Anthony's until Grandpa finally left us to be with Jesus.  His passing was very unexpected.  Many have asked what happened and I do plan to write a blog post about it.  I apologize in advance because it might be all over the place.  Friday afternoon through Sunday all seem to run together but I'll try to remember what I can.