Christmas in St. Louis

WARNING---LONG POST! SORRY

Jason and I decided to go to my parents house this year for Christmas. Back in August my parents moved to St. Louis (which is a lot easier to get to than Dubuque). We arrived on Saturday evening (after a very short delay in Salt Lake). The next day, Sunday, we headed to the St. Louis Rams vs. the San Fransciso 49ers football game. My dad's company has box seats so that was quite a treat for my first NFL game. (and the 49ers won!!)

Jason and I before the game

Our $10/each treats (man were they good)

The "kids" after the football game

After the football game it was time to decorate the tree....

Everyone works on the tree

Missy investigates.....

The finished project (sorry blogger wouldn't let me rotate photo)

The next day we headed over to the ever popular Arch. It was quite the site and an amazing experience. We got soooo many good pics, it is hard to pick the best ones. Before going to the top of the arch we watched a movie about how the arch was made. What the endevor it was and no one died in the process!!

view of the arch from the other side of the Mississippi River

Jason hiding...

View of the arch from the courthouse

Now here are some of the views from the top of the arch:

Baseball stadium

downtown St. Louis

view of the Mississippi (notice the ice chunks)

view from the top--football dome off to the right

Jason and I at the "top"

The following day we went to the Science Museum of St. Louis. It was an AMAZING museum...one I wish we had in Salt Lake. There were hundreds of exhibits, all kinds of movies playing, hundreds of hands on activities, and it even was FREE!! The only photos I took were of the dinosaur exhibit and the film reel (room) before we saw our movie "Sharks" that was in a dome like theater (I forgot what it was called--not an IMAX). I wish we could have stayed longer cause there were so many exhibits we didn't get to see!

T-REX

The film for these movies was HUGE!!

For Christmas Eve, Jason and I went to the mall for a little bit (they had a Coach store) and than we went and saw "Yes, Man". It was hilarious. We than had the Avery traditional Christmas Eve dinner (steak, mashed potatoes, cheese cauilflower). We than opened our pj's (Jason and I even got some) and than headed out to look at lights. We even managed to find several neighborhoods with luminarias! One neighborhood was COVERED in them!! It made me miss being in Albuquerque. No pics from Christmas Eve.

The next morning we all slept in until about 10am. It was WONDERFUL! Jason and I were definetly spoiled for Christmas! Thank you all so much!! After opening presents we had our standard Christmas brunch (egg casserol by Shaun) and than headed out to some state park (don't remember the name) for a nice walk and than played games for the rest of the night.

Jason Christmas morning

Christmas brunch with the family

The missouri forrest

The boys go marching one by one....

Jason and I

The last day of our trip we headed down to a small town called St. Charles. It is where the Lewis and Clark mission started at. We went thru the small museum there and than headed over to the small town to do some wandering and some shopping. I was amazed at how friendly people are in the Midwest (much different than Utah). Jason and I had a great trip and arrived safely home (after a medical emergency on our flight and all flights in/out of Chicago being canceled) We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and we look forward to the New Year and all the possibilities it brings!

Jason outside the museum. The Missouri River is in the back.