Here We Go Loopty Lou

We're back!  And we had a blast!  Highlights of our trip to St. Louis included seeing good friends, roaming our old stomping grounds, and running the Parkway Ward Memorial Day 5K.  :) 

We got to town on Friday night and the first in a slew of late nights was started as all 7 of us shared a single hotel room at the Springhill Suites.  Even WITH melatonin, it was a struggle to get all the kids to fall asleep each night!  Poor Scott had just flown in on a red-eye flight on Thursday and was going on 3 1/2 hours of sleep, so he was slightly out of commission for the first little part of our trip.  Thankfully, he recovered fairly quickly and was a good sport and big help even WITH his weary state.

After our slightly restful first night's sleep, Saturday was a jam-packed day.  Grace and Ethan spent the day with some neighbor friends in the morning while Scott and I took the other kids to the children's museum, and then in the afternoon we all met up to go swimming at the Lodge.  Man have we missed that place!  After a full and happy day, our evening was capped off to perfection with a gathering at the park with some of our good friends from church.  It seriously felt like a time warp being there -- even though it's been almost an entire year since we've seen any of them, it was like no time had passed at all.  There's nothing like "forever friends" with whom you can pick right back up where you left off no matter HOW much time has gone by since you've last seen them!

 

Now that's a porch!

No trip to a children's museum is complete without trying to get inside a giant bubble.  Hahahaha.

Or without trying out a little electromagnetic action. :)

Ethan, Grace, Sophie, Jane, and Alex with Nathan, Meredith, and Patrick.  {Ethan and Nathan have even been pen pals over the last few months!}

Maren, Natalie, Me, Jenn, Gina, Charity, Debbie, Tawny {and cute baby Max}

 Grace stole my phone to capture some selfie action with Haela.

Sunday we enjoyed attending our old ward in the afternoon and then topped the evening off with dinner at my BFF, Natalie's, followed by a general hang-out session with her and her family.  It was so much fun!  Old friends are the best friends.  :)

 

Princesses Sophie and Juliana play dress-up.

Our final day in St. Louis started out bright and early with the Annual Ward 5K and Fun Run.  Natalie and I ran the 5K together and Ethan, Grace, and Sophie all gave the races a go as well.  Poor Ethan started out in the 5K with us, but shot out WAY too fast and in the end dropped out before finishing because he was spent.  Grace and Sophie both ran the 1 mile Fun Run, and Grace knocked it out of the park once again and was the first girl to finish.  I'm kind of impressed with her intermittent need for speed.  Hahahaha.  Sophie, on the other hand, ran with a buddy and chatted it up the whole entire time.  You know, like it was just another Saturday long run for them.  Haha.

Once the race was over, we visited with friends for a bit longer and then decided we should probably head back to the hotel to check out and start back on our way home.  At this point in time, every single child was careening wildly on the Crazy Train Express thanks to lots of late nights, early mornings, and no naps.  Not to mention sun-up to sun-down activity. It was certainly a fun trip, and we will certainly do it again, but it is certainly NEVER fun to deal with the post-vacation fallout. 

I'm so glad we were able to go back, and I was so glad to finally come back home.  Because that was the biggest thing I realized on this trip.  St. Louis was {and still is} awesome and we LOVED our time there, but it's not our home anymore.  It was a really cathartic thing for me to recognize.  When we moved to St. Louis, the first time we drove into our neighborhood, I immediately felt like I was going home.  It was one of the biggest reasons we ended up buying our house there -- it just FELT right.  As we drove up on Saturday morning to bring Ethan and Grace to their friends and to see our old house, I realized that feeling was no longer there.  Obviously it's not our home anymore and we moved almost a year ago, but I think one of my biggest hang-ups and hurdles I've had to overcome since we've moved here is that I haven't felt at home.  A piece of my heart was still hanging back in St. Louis and even though we were no longer there, THERE was where home was.  It was really good to FINALLY come around to seeing that home is HERE.  Where my family is, and where my life is being lived.  I will always love St. Louis and I will always enjoy going back to visit, but it's good to FINALLY be able to say I've moved on and really mean it.

The second biggest thing I realized on this trip is that good bye doesn't mean forever. I think that part of the reason why I was so sad to leave St. Louis was that I had made such wonderful friends there and it seemed as though I was never going to see them again or that things would never be the same if I did.  Of course, things don't ever stay EXACTLY the same, but this trip helped me to see that with GOOD friends, it doesn't matter how much time has gone by, or how frequently {or infrequently} you've been in contact with them since you've been gone -- forever friends will be friends forever.  What a happy thought!  All in all, I can honestly say that I am finally in a good spot with this move of ours that "just" happened almost a year ago.  :)

And that, my friends, is a wrap!  Stay tuned for end-of-the-school-year festivities and more house projects...

 {The boys clearly needed more sleep.  Evidenced by Alex just climbing in bed one morning and giving himself a nap and Ethan promptly conking out as soon as we started our long drive home.}