Friday evening & Saturday, June 4-5—Fun Times in St. Louie!

We got into St. Louis about 6:15 last after an easy 5-hour drive from Memphis. Let me just say that after driving about 10 days in Ireland on the left side of the road, and 15 days in Italy amongst very impatient drivers, it is so easy driving here in the U.S. I almost feel like it's cheating!

When we got here, we were greeted by Denny and Cynthia, as well as 21-year-old son, Max, and their 11-year-old son, Dawson. It was so fun to see them again, after several years. The boys have both really grown since we've seen them, and it was fun to see them so “grown up.” How old does that make us sound?! Denny treated us to a fantastic rib eye dinner from the grill, and we had a great time catching up. During dinner we were told that some of Max's friends were coming over to the house later that evening to watch a recorded version of the National Spelling Bee, and they were going to try to “compete” with the TV contestants.

Sure enough, after dinner Max's friends started showing up for the spelling bee, and Denny, Dawson and I went down to get in on the fun. And did we have fun! It was a riot seeing these guys, and to a lesser extent ourselves, trying to correctly spell words we had never heard of. Max and his friends are a crème de la crème group of great college kids, and Denny and I both have advanced degrees. I can honestly say that the TV contestants, none of which was over 14, left us in the dust! We had a lot of laughs!

Saturday, Denny, Dawson and his friend, Connor and I went to a Cardinals game while Cynthia took Bev on a shopping spree. Everyone was happy, including the Cardinals fans, after the Cards beat Milwaukee in 11 innings! Then the four “adults” (read, old folks) went to dinner at a nice restaurant in the neighborhood.

Again, it was so great to get to spend some precious time with our dear friends. As I told Denny, for all that we've seen and done since I started my sabbatical the middle of January, including road-tripping around the United States and spending two months abroad, nothing has been better than being able to see family and friends, getting caught up, and just spending time with them all!