Howdy!

Remember when I said this trip would be less vacation-like and more like real life? Well, this week was a bit of both.

The beginning of the week was real ife. We worked on projects, including patching walls and painting the boys’ room at Alex’s place. Teddy helped with the painting, so that was fun and exciting . It actually turned out great and we had no major incidents.

We also got to celebrate Alex’s birthday on Wednesday. We went to the top of the Gateway Arch and then to Fitz’s for dinner and bottomless frosty mugs of root beer.

Thursday, we jumped in the car and headed north to Chicago for a long weekend. We have really loved our few visits to the city and this one was the best yet. We stopped in Springfield on our way north to have a bite and tour the Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Activities in Chicago included catching a taping of the radio show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, jazz at Andy’s Jazz Club, and the Willow Springs Blues Festival. We also got out of the heat and saw a couple of movies.

We also go to Chicago for the food. We did an outstanding food tour (Megan Bauserman, you need to do this one!), we did a “taco crawl” in the River North neighborhood, and we made a pilgrimage to one of our favorite bakeries in the world, Hewn.

Now it’s back to St. Louis for another week of fun and family.

Hope you’re all healthy and happy!