I met Stacia and JJ at the airport with a pitcher of appletini's and two glasses. After that, we headed to South County to get manicures and pedicures and then headed to dinner. We went to 54th Street Bar and Grill and had a few more drinks with dinner.
Then we walked to the movie theatre and watched "Eat, Love, Pray". Luckily, Ronnie's 20 sells cosmopolitans and a drink called stilettos. I had a stiletto and JJ and Dues had cosmopolitans. I love Julia Roberts and enjoyed the movie. It moved pretty slow and wasn't the most exciting film, but it was relaxing and filmed in some beautiful locations. I'm not usually a fan of Javier Bardem and don't understand why women think he's hot, but I understood after seeing him in this movie. After the movie we went to the Pink Galleon (no, it's not a gay bar) to play video games and have more drinks. JJ, the resident golfer in our group, kicked our butts at video Putt-Putt. My boyfriend, Jeff, beat us all.
We had planned to take the train to Hermann, MO and go to the wineries on Saturday, so my sister and I had made other plans to have my car get an oil change, emissions test, etc. on Saturday morning. But, the plans for the winery fell through and now we were stuck without a car or an idea of what we were going to do. We headed back to the house we were staying at and pretty much went to sleep and left the plan making to the next day.
The next day we slept in. I don't know a lot about the neighborhood Pickle's family lives in, but thanks to ideas from my sister, and Stacia's magic iPhone we ended up with a successful morning. We used her phone to navigate our way from the house to the restaurant, which was pretty neat. We walked (1.7 miles according to the iPhone) through Tower Grove Park and ate at the Three Monkeys.
My sister and mom dropped my car off at the Three Monkeys after it was finished, and we decided to go to the Anheuser-Busch factory and take a beer class and then take a factory tour. This is us in class and then me with my certificate that says I'm a Beer Master.
This is Stacia and JJ with the A-B Eagle and then having a drink after the beer tour.
We were treated to two free adult beverages after the tour. I had a Bud Light Wheat which I love. Stacia tried a Wild Berry beer which tasted like blueberry juice. JJ went for the Bud Light Wheat like me. Then we headed back to the house for a nap. When we got up from our naps it was after 8 pm. Stacia used to live in St. Louis many eons ago, so I asked her if there was anywhere she wanted to eat that she missed. Since she had fond memories of The Hill we headed there. The Hill is an area of St. Louis known for it's Italian restaurants. It's got narrow roads, crappy parking, and seems to always be busy. We decided to go to Zia's and when we got to the restaurant around 8:45, we still had to wait 20 minutes for a table. The food was amazing, we had toasted ravioli and some kind of shrimp, cream sauce, cheese stuff on little mini sliced toast for appetizers. For our dinners, I got the seafood ravioli, Stacia got mostaccioli, and JJ got the mostaccioli with chicken, mushrooms and broccoli. No desert since we were very stuffed and sleepy all over again. So even though we had had a recent nap, we all went to sleep when we got back to the house.
The next morning we all slept in again. My big plan for the day was to have breakfast, and then to get the iconic St. Louis photo, a picture with the Arch in the background, and then head for the airport. You would think it would be easy to find a good picture with The Arch in the background, but it really isn't. If you get too close, you can't get the entire Arch in the picture. If you are too far away, you pretty much have old ugly buildings clearly seen in the background with The Arch not so noticeable in the distance. It's a delicate balance. So, I've only found two good spots. One has the Old Missouri State Capital in the background along with The Arch. The other is from the balcony on the fourth floor of The Four Season's hotel. So, it was my idea to have breakfast in Soulard and then head to Laclede's Landing. We picked up my mom so that she could take the picture with all 3 of us in it and we wouldn't have to rely on a stranger to be there and willing to take our picture. Then we headed to the Soulard Coffee Garden and had breakfast in their back garden area. My mom and I had eggs benedict, Stacia had french toast and JJ had an omelet. It was very nice, relaxing morning until I went to pay for my meal and realized I had left my credit card at Zia's the night before. This instantly stressed me out. I made calls but there was nothing I could do to find out where it was at until Monday and I couldn't check my balance to see if there had been any unauthorized purchases until I could get to a computer which wasn't going to happen until after I dropped my friends off at the airport. So, we headed to Laclede's Landing to get the picture I wanted...and then proceeded to run into a crapload of traffic. The Rams game was going on downtown and there was nowhere to park, the traffic was terrible and there was no way I was going to get Stacia and JJ back to the airport on time. So we abandoned the picture, which frustrated me a great deal. If I had thought ahead about the game, we could have avoided the traffic or taken the picture on Saturday after the beer tour instead. Stacia and JJ rarely come to St. Louis, so the chance to get a picture with The Arch in the background has passed and isn't likely to happen again for a long time. But whatever, life goes on. Anyway, after the failed picture attempt, I dropped JJ and Stacia off at the airport and they went safely home. It was a really fun weekend and I was glad to spend time with them again. I hope we keep up this tradition for a long time.
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