Cousin Beth's Wedding!

We flew to St Louis for Jim's cousin Beth's wedding.  We had a good time seeing a lot of friends and family who either live in St Louis or who traveled there for the wedding.

The wedding was in a church in downtown Clayton.  Here is a picture of Beth walking down the aisle with her dad:

Funny part for us was right when after the wedding officient said "Who gives this woman away for marriage" and Beth's dad Dennis said "I do".  During that quiet moment 2 seconds later, Avery being a 21 month old screamed "YAY!!!!!" and clapped.  Gotta love toddlers!

The reception was on the top floor of the posh Chase Park Plaza, up in the Starlight Room with a view of the St Louis skyline in the distance.  Avery loved dancing with her cousins:

They also loved getting their photo taken up against the big windows overlooking the city:

And the adult cousins all got their picture taken outside on the balcony (in age order too, this seems to be a tradition at all the weddings)

We also got a family picture, facing the other direction with the Arch in the background.  Too bad it was so sunny!

After the reception ended, Jim's parents were kind enough to take Avery home so we could go out.  We went to the bar on the ground floor of the hotel and hung out with the Cross families, then we went to a sushi place a block away, then back to the Chase to see a movie at their theater!  We had a blast, thanks again to the babysitters!

While we were in St Louis we also were able to see Kevin Warnecke, his wife Cady, and their son Joey.  We tried to go to a nice Mexican restuarant called Pueblo Solis, but it was a huge wait so we went down the street to one called Amigo Joes which, we'll just say, didn't have the best Mexican or Margaritas we'd ever had.  (we should have known when we pulled up and they had a sign out front that said "Fried Chicken"!)

But we had fun anyway and stopped at Ted Drewes for dessert!

We also got to see all the Grandparents in St Louis. (Avery's great-grandpaents!)

We stopped by Grandma Dahlem's to visit:

We saw Grandma and Grandpa Harper at the wedding

And we saw Grandma Shirley by finally getting her xmas present to her by taking her out to lunch at her choice (Denny's!)  Avery slept through most of it, but she woke up near the end:

Also while we were in St Louis , Jim got to see Mike Pozsgay, (he was in town from DC taking care of some family matters while his wife Lisa was back home in DC 8 months pregnant!), he met up with Mike, plus Jeremy and Maria Leavitt for a couple hours.

Avery also like playing the bounce house with her cousins, thanks to Grandpa Ball for getting that set up for them!  

She was only half the size of the other girls and was usually getting bounced around on her back or belly since she could hardly stay up with the all the other bouncing, but she had so much fun and giggled the whole time!

And of course, one of the highlights of the trip was going to the Museum of Transportation and seeing all the big trains!  Avery kept saying "Choo choo!  All aboard!!!".  We got to crawl around the big steam engines, ring the bells on the train, etc.  She loved it, just like her daddy!

We also got to see Julie, James, and Olivia.  Julie was 8 months pregnant and we just missed seeing their new baby, Noah James Backer, born a week after we left!

Congrats to them!