At the beginning of June we took a trip back home! We started our trip in St. Louis, where we got in about 7 p.m. on a Friday. To back up a bit, on the previous Thursday at about 3 p.m. I started to feel "funny." Wasn't feeling sick, but something just didn't seem right. Well, that "funny" feeling quickly progressed to me puking my guts out for close to 7 hours. Not exactly how you want to spend the night before you are supposed to fly, especially considering that there was still lots of packing and cleaning to do. Jeff swooped in and took care of lots of items that still needed to be done, while also handling Boone solo. I think without his organization and efficiency, we wouldn't have made it to the States.
We also had a minor glitch before we got on the plane Friday morning. I had been driving a rental vehicle for a few weeks prior to our trip, because our car was in the shop for some minor body work. When the vehicle still wasn't finished the morning we were supposed to leave, we arranged with the body shop and the car rental company to drop our rental off at their "airport location." Jeff and I were pretty proud of ourselves that we finagled the situation so that we wouldn't need to pay for parking or ask someone to drive us the 30 minutes to the airport. Also, it would be easy once we got back in because we could just check out another vehicle and drive back to our house! Easy, right? WRONG! As we were getting ready to turn into the airport lot, the vehicle's gas light came on. "Phew," we thought! Lucky us that we have plenty of time and we can go fill up the car. So we pulled into the nearest gas station and filled it up. As we proceeded into the airport car rental area, both Jeff and I kept searching for the company name that we were looking for. We kept asking each other, "did you see it? No? Maybe we missed it, let's drive around again." After the second go around in the rental area, we decide to call the location we had taken the vehicle from down by our house. They quickly informed us that no, their "airport location" was not at all at the airport. It was 3 exits back on the highway, or a 15 minute drive.
Panicked, we look at each other and Jeff proceeds to go full throttle towards the location. We were both so worried knowing that we only had a narrow window of leeway time to get through customs and security. It can take anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour going through those two checkpoints, and it's sort of anyone's guess how it will be. There's no way to predict. Once we sped into the parking lot of the rental company, we ran inside and tried to hurriedly explain our situation. Well, we happened to walk in the door when there were already 6 customers in line and one extremely frazzled manager. Bad timing. The manager didn't know what to do. The phone would ring and he just kept putting more and more people on hold. Thankfully for us, a few of the customers understood our situation and gladly let us jump them in line. At about an hour and a half before our flight (we usually like to be entering customs 2 hours before) , another employee showed up to the location and agreed to drive us back to the airport. He was very safe (err... slow), but once he pulled up, we spilled out of the car and began to hustle our way into the airport. Thankfully, the machine at the ticketing counter still let us check in, which meant (as we were told by the airline official) that we were good to go on the flight as long as we could make it through customs.
Once we were checked in, we grabbed our bags and went through the customs door. As we turned the corner, I braced myself to see a line zigzagging back and forth for a mile, but... there wasn't! There was barely 20 people in line ahead of us! So thankful! We breezed through customs and security with little fanfare and were seated at our gate with at least 30 minutes to spare before boarding! All that running and stressing for no reason. Phew. Glad I was able to get that all down, because at the time, not funny, but now, such a ridiculous and crazy story of the 24 hours prior to us boarding a plane home!
Anyways, now onto the actual trip! That was a lot of words, so I'll stick to pictures from here on out with a little explanation!
I ran a 5k with my brother and his girlfriend our first morning in St. Louis!
Not my best time, but glad I made myself do it even after I had been sick!
Boone with his great-grandma!
Boone in a wagon for the first time! He LOVED it!
Pool time at the Younkins!
Boone with Nana!
At the St. Louis Zoo.
Getting all strapped in his new stroller!
Penguins!
Jeff captured us checking out the puffins from the other side of the room.
Jeff's dream job in retirement is zoo train conductor.
The gorillas
Strolling in style with Uncle John.
He's out.
And onto Fulton:
A sad sidenote- Jeff was so excited to take Boone into the lake at his parent's farm that he forgot he had his iPhone in his pocket! See ya iPhone! :/
Hanging with Grandpa.
These two are big time friends!
At the columns! We love Columbia!
We got to see my friend Kelly and her baby Cooper! Boone was born
10 days after Cooper so it's fun to see them together!
We also had the opportunity to visit with Boone's great-great aunt Nancy! She was in town for the Robertson reunion and she stayed at Jeff's parent's house. She loved hanging out with both of the babies!
Kelly and I with our boys. So glad she stopped by!
Jeff, his dad and Boone at the creek in Enon, MO where Jeff's grandma was baptized. We were in the area for the Robertson Family Reunion in Russellville, MO! Lots of Robertson family history in that area of Missouri!
Such good times! We love summer in Missouri! Let's face it, we like anytime of the year in Missouri because of all our friends and family there!
Thankful for the opportunity to head back for a visit!
Love,
Emily, Jeff + Boone
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