Meet me in St. Louis...

Talk about a whirlwind weekend... Friday morning around 4/5ish we (The Brendel's) headed north to Troy, IL/St. Louis. It was Aunt Sherry's 50th surprise party.

Hannah decided last minute to stay behind b/c of the parade Mammy's in every year and her first indoor soccer game. We missed her so much and she would have LOVED the party.



The party... wow - what fun... Uncle Wayne out did himself making some wonderful memories for his lovely bride. :) Her "surprise entertainment was Elvis (hints, the 50's party). He was really good. He even handed out red scarves to the ladies... I didn't get one though - not sure why {wink}... :)

Eventually, I will have pictures from the actual party to upload... funny story as to why we didn't have our camera (I won't go into that now).

It was every one's first time meeting little Lucas. They had come down several times and met Hannah, but never the little guy, so that was extra special.

Here everyone is at John's piano recital. He was awesome ... very good!

Johnny boy

After John played Matt and I took off to St. Louis. Matt wanted to show me a few hot spots downtown. We ended up w/ a "tag-a-long" (as Uncle Wayne put it-ha)... Adam. We had a blast with him! I think he was a little bored, but he was a trooper.

It looks like I'm JUMP ROPING (right Anna May?)

To give you an idea of how massive this is...

"arch" who goes there... hee hee (me & my honey)

We had to try the famous frozen custard here. We drove way into the hood in downtown St. Louis... As you can see Matt is the only one CRAZY enough to be ordering frozen custard w/ temperature of 32 degrees... w/ the wind chill of -400!

I had my first White Castle experience... I'm good if that was my last. :) Way too greasy

And now the fun begins...

We took a tour - it was awesome!

These fermentation tanks were way cool. If you were to drink all the beer in ONE of these - you would have to drink one 12 oz beer every hour of everyday for 137 years... a few guys on the tour were up to the challenge. :)

Me & my "bud"dy

The picture is horrible b/c of the flash, but this was way cool. It was the assembly line for all the bottles being filled... (like Laverne & Shirley):)

Simply breathtaking Clydesdale's... they must be 18 hands high & 2300 lbs... HUGE!

Their stables... along w/ the Dalmatian watch dog. :)

Adam was so much fun!

This was in the hospitality room at the end of the tour... well, duh we have to sample all the beers we just learned about...

And the good ol' Mississippi.

Last night there...

This was by far the best picture taking night. I loved taking pictures of Hannah on the beach. She loved doing her Paris Hilton poses. She is so beautiful and photogenic. It was hard to say goodbye to The Sheeley's, but it was so wonderful seeing them. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pictures of Lucas' expression when Matt's throwing him in the air.

The biggest regret I have is NOT HAVING A BRENDEL FAMILY PICTURE!!! We will have to go back (via airplane) and take one I guess... :(

pool

Lucas didn't care so much for the ocean. We figured it was a combination of the noise of the waves and the rush of the water coming at him??? HOWEVER, he LOVED the pool. So did Hannah (as seen here in the lazy river pool)!

FORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Matt and his dad had a great time golfing... If you know anything about Myrtle Beach (other than the ocean) you know that it has approx 14 million golf courses! :)
They golfed 3 days and on the 3rd day they did see an alligator sun bathing on the course. Again, Stanley wanted to shoot it - ha! Matt had a really good game on Wednesday - I wrote about it on the blog a few days ago... scroll down and read all about it :).

waistin' away again in Margaritaville... searchin' for my lost shaker of salt..

This was by far the most fun restaurant we went to. The first attempt was unsuccessful. It was a 2 1/2 hr wait, so we went somewhere else. The 2nd time we decided to go early... yet again a 2hr wait. But, we went ahead and waited... ate some appetizers and of course - drank some awesome rita's! The entertainment was so cool inside! As part of Hannah's kids menu - she got to wear a parrot head (as seen in the picture). Very fun!

The Kin Folk

I can't express in words how awesome it was to see my family. It had at least 15 -20 years. I've been talking to Dottie via email for almost 6 years! It was truly awesome and it made our vacation extra special! Here are a few pictures from our first dinner together. We had a view of a very pretty pond and before we knew it ... up comes this HUGE alligator swimming around in the pond! OH MY! It was really cool! Stanley wanted to shoot it - ha!