Family Visit – St. Louis Missouri

This edition for my blog will be short and sweet… It’s all about our brief April visit with Laurie’s family in the St. Louis area.  It was our 39^th wedding anniversary trip…and no trip to St. Louis would be complete without breaking bread with a few family members.

This is Laurie’s middle sister Karole with her husband Bob.  Bob is retired from the grocery business but Karole continues to work part time.  They have 3 sons…Chris, Marc and Bryan.  With Bob, Karole spends quite a bit of their spare time with their granddaughters Abby, Regan and Cate.

Laurie took this nice photo of Karole and Bonnie.  Bonnie and her husband Bill are our frequent visitors and traveling partners.  Laurie’s younger sister Bonnie is retired and while Bill is retired from police work in general, he still works as a 'civilian supervisor' over a multi-community jail.   Their son Kyle and their daughter Kasey have 6 children between them, (Collin and Keaton with Kyle and Melissa, and Delaney, Avery,Charlie Kate and Elliot Jane with Kasey and Kevin.  They keep their grandparents very busy!   

Johnny and his wife Rose joined us for lunch.  Johnny is the sister’s first cousin.  Both of them are semi retired but Rose keeps extra busy looking out for Johnny’s mother Lois who lives in a retirement village.  Aunt Lois and Doris (Glenda, Karole, Laurie and Bonnie’s mother) are both sisters who married the two Templeton brothers.  There are a heck of a lot of double first cousins in the family!  

Time now for a short food break...

As usual, we met at The Local House Restaurant and Bar in Arnold Missouri.   What the heck…we had to eat and I like to comment on our food experiences. 

This was Laurie’s Fried Pickle Burger. ($10.49) This excellent burger creation was topped with cheddar cheese, bacon crumbles and fried pickle chips, then topped with chipotle ranch dressing!  The house made potato chips were great too... Yum!

I was trying to behave 'a little' so I started with a house salad and then followed it up with an order of 12 chicken wings. ($10.99) I asked for the wings served up as the ‘trashed butter and garlic’ version.  I just didn’t care for them…not enough pizzazz!  But, as they say, ‘different strokes (or wings) for different folks’. 

As usual, the folks at The Local House were friendly and welcoming… The Local House Restaurant and Bar is located at 3946 Jeffco Boulevard in Arnold Missouri.  Phone: 636-467-9900.  Their website is at: http://localhousearnold.com/index.html.

Of course the main attraction any time we visit St. Louis is Laurie’s Aunt Lois!  On this occasion Laurie, Bonnie, Bill and I visited with her in the facility’s coffee café. 

Aunt Lois is now 104 years old and she recently whipped pneumonia!  She dreamed that she’d gone to heaven and they told her she had to go back…they weren’t ready for her yet.  So she woke up after not eating for about 10 days and announced that she wanted to get dressed and go down to the dining room for dinner!  She loves family visits and she’s one heck of a SkipBo and Bingo player!

 

That’s all for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave