SAINT LOUIS!!!!

Good day everyone. This is a post I'm sure most of you are looking forward to. It's long and detailed and awesome. So, here we go....

John and I spent last week in his home town, St. Louis, Missouri. This was my first time to the fabulous city and we had one incredible trip. We arrived Tuesday the 21st at about 1:30. We got a sweet rental car, the new Kia Soul. (the cars with the hampsters in the commercials) We discovered surprising fondness of our transport vehicle.

We arrived at Robert Knold's house in South City. This guy is super cool and a doctor. He and John grew up together and they reminisced about old times. It was fun to hear about John as a kid. The three of us took his dog for a walk in the 90+ humid heat.. I was not enjoying St. Louis at this time. Except the scenery was quite beautiful, very very green and lots of tall trees. After coming home we got dressed and ready for Mat's rehearsal dinner. I got to meet more old friends of John and his family. As is tradition in St. Louis, our dinner consisted of toasted ravioli. In other words, deep fried ravioli. (If you didn't know St. Louis was known for deep frying just about everything...you will once you're done reading this!)

Wednesday we got up and I had breakfast at IHop. John and his family were meeting up for lunch at a place called Sesame, which is Chinese food. NOT my favorite. So, I ate at IHop. I ordered my favorite item, Cheesecake Pancakes with eggs sausage and hash browns. Now, I've gotten this dish a lot here in Utah because its great but in St. Louis it was even more amazing. I started learning that food in St. Louis comes bigger and better. Those pancakes had so much cheesecake filling that I could not finish it for it was too sweet. Which is ODD for me because I love sweets and I have never not been able to finish it before. Anyhow, we arrive at Sesame and just enjoyed some Lewis family time...which naturally takes place around food. After that we went back to the house and got ready for the wedding. John's one and only younger sibling was about to be married. Thus the main reason for taking this trip to St. Louis. We had a wonderful time. The wedding was very Mat and Sarah. The ceremony was Buddhist. The cake was decorated with henna stencil (that Sarah's mom did, she's a rockstar). The food was every type of dish and many, if not all, home made. They also had a Caricaturist (and I totally got her to draw John and I on a sailboat - yeah buddy). There was music and dancing and drinking and laughing and happiness everywhere!


Thursday we got up and went to the temple. John's parents kindly joined us and drove us. We had a remarkable time. Afterwords, we went to the classic, Steak and Shake. This is mainly your ultimate burger joint. You got great burgers, fries, and not to mention SHAKES!! I wish we had one here. Then we cruised on down to a mall where I got some cute headbands (because John wants me to wear cute headbands) and a new skirt which ended up cheaper then what was on the tag. Gotta love that! John's sisters, MaryAnn and Laurene would love to tell you about the cool balsamic vinegar store they found and sampled.. perhaps on their blogs. After the mall John got some friends together and played basketball at his old church. I took a tour around the church, hardly anything was locked and I drew some super hero emblems on a chalk board. Fascinating.


Friday we again got together with the family for more food and fun. We went to the City Diner. Yep, it's just called the City Diner. It's unbelievable. That food was superb! Really! After stuffing ourselves for like the 10th time John and I, along with his brother Todd, took our next adventure to the well known St. Louis Gateway Arch. It's an incredible monument and if I remember correctly, it's the tallest one in all 50 States! After lots of walking and waiting and site seeing we then headed for the great Fitz's. (But we quickly dropped by the Cardinal stadium) Matt was working the dairy bar at Fitz's that night. Yeah, dairy bar, how awesome is that? Why don't we have a place like that in Utah? We don't care about alcohol, just ice cream! Anyhow, again here was some traditional deep fried foods. Toasted ravioli and pickle chips. I think it's funny how they give the food more appealing names when really all it is is breaded and DEEP FRIED!!! Of coarse, it makes anything good. Oh boy does it ever!



Saturday was the most eventful day. We got up with an alarm for the first time on this trip and headed out for the St. Louis Zoo. Which is FREE by the way. How wicked cool is that? We saw all sorts of amazing things. The penguin exhibit is so close you might be scared a penguin will walk or swim up and bite you. Another cool part of the zoo was the butterfly dome. It's just a room filled with hundreds of butterflies. I felt like I was in some Disney cartoon fantasy. After seeing a bunch of cool stuff at the zoo we went to Steak and Shake again because it's fabulous and then we headed out for 6 Flags!!! St. Louis Six Flags has got it goin on! It made me hate Lagoon. (Utah's amusement park) These rides were longer, faster, higher, and more intense. I was actually scared to go on some. I think the Mr. Freeze ride was my favorite. It was so insane! I also went on Superman...sigh. After going wild on a bunch of rides we went to a famous little ice cream hot spot called Ted Drew's. (oh yeah we went here the night of the wedding too) It's a pretty cool place but I don't know if it was anything amazing. Hopefully no one was hurt by reading that.


Sunday we finally relaxed a bit. We sorta slept through church... it's optional when you're on vacation right? ...So we went out to eat, ha what a surprise! Again at the City Diner. This time I had the french toast. I mean the DEEP FRIED french toast. It was probably the most delicious french toast in the world. Then we went to this Elk Park where you can just drive through these hills in a preservation and behold the majestic animals. I forgot my camera so I only have cell phone camera shots. Then we went home and did about nothing for 4 hours. Which was great because by this time I think all the eating out had gotten to me because my stomach was hurting! We later went out to eat (i know what you're thinking) at this Irish bar type place. It was not the most wonderful atmosphere but we were with good company and I had some salad which made me feel amazing.



Monday we took it pretty easy too. We went to the Science Center, also free, with some friends and we got to look and mess around with a bunch of neato stuff. Later that night we went to Sam's Steakhouse. This is a place very fond to John because he worked there for many years and just loved everyone there. A few of the old gang was still there which was great because they didn't charge us nearly what we were supposed to pay. Plate's start at over $30.00 there. John must be pretty awesome for them to hook us up huh?


Then Tuesday, today the 28th we went out to eat breakfast at a place called Bill's Pancake House. John and I each had dessert waffles. They were great! As most places there tend to have delicious food! Then we waited around for our flight and yadda yadda trip was over.

This trip was just fantastic. My description only covers the top layer of everything we did and how great it was. I loved getting out of Utah for a while. Although I will say that one thing I really love about Utah is that every building is smoke free! I couldn't believe how restaurants there separate a smoking section and a non-smoking section by only half a wall. Gross! And sure the humidity was awful but that really only lasted the first 3 or 4 days. Then it cooled off and was beautiful weather the rest of our trip. And I gotta say, John has great friends. His friend Robert that we stayed with and his wife Katie are probably some of the nicest and coolest people ever! A lot of his friends have added me on Facebook even! People there are so friendly and welcoming and comfortable. St. Louis has so many cool things to do and see and eat! Who knows if we'll end up there. I think I might be able to handle it for a couple years anyway.

Hope you enjoyed this! I did!

win a prize, enjoy a gift, and eat the greasy stuff

So I have a few things I've wanted to post and I hadn't yet because they don't go together. See for yourself...

For starters, I'm proud to announce that I made my sales goal in July and I got my new flat iron. It's awesome! Here is what it looks like,


Also, I wanted to mention how freaking awesome my sister is. She made me this cool bag, check out the radical inside lining!


And the last bit of random posting is about food. John and I occasionally eat terrible and delicious foods. This is on of my favorites, home made chili cheese fries....mmmmm don't cha just want some???

Johnny's birthday

So my husband doesn't care much about his birthday. I think it might have something to do with having 10 brothers and sisters growing up... can you imagine 11 big birthday parties in one year? Probably didn't happen much. But I like to think birthdays are great excuses to spend money and do something you normally wouldn't do. So, we did the Tucanos thing again (like we did last year) on Saturday night.

Sunday night was spent with friends. John and I like to host what we call Sundaes on Sunday. We get a bunch of vanilla ice cream, bowls, and spoons then we invite a bunch of people over and assign them toppings to bring. So, the more people who show up, the bigger your variety of toppings will be. It's a great way to socialize and get to know people. Plus it's a great way to cool off in the summer! Here's some of the crowd...

The best part of his birthday, in my opinion, was his birthday present from me! I got John an Ipod Touch. Something that is right up his alley! He was completely surprised and so excited! I was proud to get him the perfect gift!

Today is John's actual birthday. 29! I can't believe we're getting so old so fast! He's at work right now and earlier today he renewed his drivers license. Fun huh? Like I said, he doesn't care what he does on his birthday. But at least we got to have a good weekend. Hopefully he makes some good tips tonight!

some of my hair history

I am a hairdresser... but even before I professionally became one, I had many different hair styles and colors. As exciting as that sounds, I only captured a few on film. I thought it would be fun to post a few and see everyone's reactions. Also, if you happen to have a weird/unique hair picture of me please send it my way via email. Thanks and enjoy!

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2005

My 26th birthday at Park City

So I decided for my birthday I wanted a getaway. Neither John or I had been to Park City, so that's where we went! We woke up Thursday morning and chose to go to a good breakfast. John had seen a special on the show, Diners Drive Ins and Dives about a place in Salt Lake called, the Blue Plate Diner. It was pretty good.

Then we drove to Park City and when we got there, it was pouring rain. So, our plans were delayed and we tried to kill time wandering around. I was feeling pretty disappointed.. so we thought we'd try to check in to our hotel early which thankfully they were fine with. We get to our room and see a kitchen and a living room...and that's it. No bedroom... there is a door that probably led to the bedroom but it was locked. So we call the front desk and explain that we wanted a place to sleep, hello! They said the bed was a pull out from the couch, uh... I guess there is a lot of mix ups when you buy online and not over the phone or whatever. Anyway, they were able to put us in a different room but told us we would only be getting the bedroom and not the kitchen/living room area. We didn't care about that as long as we had a place to sleep! So we get into the room and that door that connects the two rooms is open so we had access to the kitchen/living room after all though we really didn't use it.

Once that was all figured out we went to a movie, Inception. WOW!!! Go see it people, it was really good! After we left the theater it was sunny and beautiful outside so we went to the rides and rode the zipline. I rather enjoyed it! Here is a picture of us on the lift

We didn't have time to ride the other rides so we agreed to do that Friday morning before we left. So we head to dinner at a very good restaurant called, Ciseros. The service was good but kinda slow...we were getting bored waiting for them to check on us and we left a good half hour later than we wanted to. But here's a shot of us enjoying ourselves anyway.

Well we finally made it back to our hotel. We were anxious to try out the jetted tub in the bathroom. This was the main reason for booking this hotel. (John's main reason) Well it took forever filling up and once it was, we were out of hot water. So, there we were trying to enjoy a cool tub of water with each other. Eventually we gave up and I took a warm shower in the other room's bathroom. By this time we're both so tired and annoyed with our plans not working out how we expected we just turned on the TV to end then night. But, we get sucked into a VH1 special on one hit wonders of the 80's. That ended at 1am and for some reason neither of us could fall asleep til about 6am. Check out was at 10 so we get up unwillingly and go to check out. There is no one at the front desk. All there is is a sign that says the desk opens at 1pm. Uh, John and I are now thinking we should have just slept in because I guess they don't care to make sure you are checked out on time.

Well, we head over to the rides and go on the Alpine Coaster. That was a lot of fun but I was a little nervous so I braked a lot. Afterwards I wish I would have just let it go! We then attempted to ride the Alpine Slide however they said it was closed until the slide dried out. We didn't want to wait because it could have taken hours for all we knew so we headed home.

Once home we both crashed and took a nap for at least a good hour. Later that night I had some friends over for an 80's movie night. We watched Teen Wolf and E.T. It was fun and I want to say thanks to everyone who showed up!

Overall my birthday was fun and John and I had a good time. It's frustrating when plans don't go as planned but all you can do is laugh and enjoy what you do get to do! I was told that those times are the more memorable ones. That's good right?

Couches for sale!

We are selling these couches for $25 a piece. Need them gone ASAP. If anyone can take them before Monday you can have them for free! Please let me know if you're interested!

help the needy....me!

I am in desperate need of a new flat iron for work. The one I have keeps shorting out and I can't do my job properly without a good flat iron. My region is offering a free CHI flat iron if I can sell 50 products by the end of July. So, I'm asking everyone for help. Even blogging about it... which is kind of lame, I know. But I'm desperate. Please come by Fantastic Sams in North Orem and buy something from me! I'll even offer to cut your hair for free if you buy product! Thanks people!
here's a picture for some encouragement...