Girls Trip - St. Louis

I met up with JJ and Crystal in St. Louis this past weekend for a Girls Trip. We stayed in St. Charles at the Ameristar Casino. Crystal's friend comped us a great room!

On Friday, we went to Bella Vino Wine Bar for drinks and apps. Afterwards, we walked around the area through the shops and the craft fair. There was a store with all kinds of fun things... I thought these earrings were so crazy!

We headed back to the sports bar at the casino to watch some football. We also grabbed some more drinks and apps.

On Saturday, we had brunch at the hotel and then took an Uber to Augusta, MO to tour some wineries. We started off at Augusta Winery, but their outdoor beer garden wasn't opening for another 45 minutes, so we went over to the next winery, Mount Pleasant.

At Mount Pleasant, we did a wine tasting. All very good!

Then, we decided to do the chocolate port shot - port in a little chocolate cup.

I'm not sure we were all that jazzed by the port shot. I love this picture - all of our faces are like "um, that wasn't great!"

Then, we walked around the winery and got a bottle of wine to enjoy in the beer garden.

I wanted to try the wine slushy... it was surprisingly stronger than it first seemed!

After we finished up at Mount Pleasant, we went back to Augusta Winery. With a quick stop off at the Friendship Garden!

No other pictures from the Augusta Winery, but the band was great! JJ and I had a wine tasting flight. We also got some sangria which was really fresh and delicious. They had a small store where we bought some cheese, pretzels and sausage, which really hit the spot. While we were there, they did some Taylor Swift trivia and had some vendors selling random things. It was a nice afternoon!

On our way back to St. Charles, the Uber driver stopped off at this picture spot that has huge butterflies on the side of the cliff. Also, there are painted silos at the same stop.

Crystal took a pic of us taking a selfie

And here's the selfie!

Our Uber driver took our picture - he was great!

On Saturday night, we went to a cooking demonstration class at the Kitchen Conservatory. It was a Taylor Swift themed night, so they played TS songs and made foods that are favorites of hers. So, we had honey mustard salmon, coconut rice and grilled green beans. We also had a fun drink with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.

On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at this cute little spot in St. Charles called the Bike Stop Cafe. As always, it was fun to catch up with JJ and Crystal!

Wordle

I've been really lucky on Wordle lately!

Happy Birthday to me!

Another trip around the sun! I requested a new coffee maker for my birthday. My current Keurig would leak sporadically and was pretty old anyway. The box from Amazon was delivered just like this and I picked it up off the porch, so no surprise here! :) The bow was added by the girls - ha! 

Milo thought it was his birthday. He tried to snatch my gifts away! ;)

Morgan's soccer team got new uniforms this year and the sponsor held a uniform launch party. A couple of the teams were invited to the party. It was a gorgeous day! They had pizza, Cane's and cookies for everyone!

For dinner I requested filet mignon and baked potatoes. Matt made dinner. No pictures of that, but it was delicious! It was a great day spent with my favorite people!

Friday Night football game

The big cross-town high school football game was Friday night between DGN and DGS. The girls will be going to DGN (North) for high school. HS football games are now on our social event list, I guess. Middle schoolers are not allowed to be dropped off, so a parent has to take them. Luckily, their friend Maebel's dad was going with his two boys, so he volunteered to take A&M with them. :)

It was a "USA" theme for the night, so Morgan wore her soccer jersey. Avery found the only purple sweatshirt she has and wore that (purple is the DGN color, but it's more of a darker purple than this). It was pretty chilly for September. They had fun hanging out with their friends. DGN crushed DGS, so that made the night even better! :)

Day 2

They're already getting into the routine! Out the door on time and off to catch the bus! We've been enjoying some cooler weather this week, which makes me look forward to fall! And yes, Morgan does have shorts on!

Middle School, here they come!

Tuesday was the first day of school. I'm not sure who was more nervous, me or the girls! This is a big change for them! New school, lots of new kids, changing classes, using a locker, riding a bus!

Photo dump...

They said they had a great day! They made it on time to all their classes (well, except Morgan who had a little trouble in the morning with her locker combination, so the principal helped her out!) and even made a few new friends! Their bus was about 10 minutes late getting home, but that's to be expected on the first day. So glad it went well! We celebrated with our traditional trip to Cocomero for fro-yo!

Just for fun... here is their first day of kindergarten! Can't believe how much they have changed!

Labor Day Weekend - Monday

We lucked out that our condo was on the same floor near a small coffee shop that served Starbucks! So, every morning, I just had a short walk to grab muffins and coffee. They actually had a little sundry shop with it, so you could grab random stuff you might have forgotten at home. After breakfast, we started packing up and walked to one of the souvenir shops at the resort. We finished off our weekend in the Dells with one last activity - go karts! They had an indoor track and an outdoor track. The indoor track circled around for a few different levels. If this is any indication of their future driving personalities, Morgan was up front the whole time... and Avery almost got lapped! :)

We got on the road back home and traffic was not great. We kept randomly stopping on the highway. We stopped for lunch at the world's largest Culver's (when in Wisconsin, it's a must!)

We made it home in the afternoon and everyone relaxed a bit. Time to get ready for school to start tomorrow!