Where the White Things Are: MO Fun for us

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

MO Fun for us

Rose and I spent our second and final week out and about at my sister’s house in Washington, MO. Rose was right at home with her two cousins Steve and Dan—with an older brother of her own, two boy cousins were right up her ally. Em and I talked, baked, and watched a whole season of Psych. For the first time in a while, we didn’t do any projects when we got together. All the projects I wanted to do were back at my house and Em was just starting the glorious morning sickness phase of pregnancy, so we settled for some quality relaxation together.

All ready for church on Sunday. Rose and I left church early and went home to have lunch with my Grandma Brown at her nice retirement home. It was good to spend quality time with her, and I’m glad Rose got to play with her great-grandma a little bit. I enjoyed watching Rose hold Grama’s hand and walk around the big dining room with her while Grama introduced us (aka showed off her great-grandbaby) to all of her friends. Rose pulled out all the stops and gushed charm on everyone in sight.

Monday night for FHE, we went to Super Smoker’s for some good quality BBQ. St. Louis isn’t even the southern part of the South, but they can still hold their own on the pulled pork sandwich scene. I love testing all 6 flavors of BBQ sauce. My mouth is watering right now while I type this. Mmmmm. I guess I’m more of a southern girl than I thought…

Trampoline time! It was pretty hot outside, but what kid can resist a trampoline? I even had to get out there and bounce around and play a few rounds of ring around the rosy.

This video about sums up the week: Rose playing in the foreground while Steve and Dan wrestled in the background.

Playing with her cousins’ Captain America shield, cowboy hat, dagger, and Transformers mask. I should really get Rose some girly toys sometime. Maybe.

We went out for some cold, creamy frozen custard. They give kids a tiny cone for free at this place. This is the same place that Jay had his first ice cream cone a year ago. Eventually Rose just slurped the whole scoop into her mouth. Burr! The look on her face was so big—big cheeks, big eyes. But she didn’t give up. She swallowed that cold lump right down, and when I showed her that she could eat her cone, she crunched that down too.

Annnnnnd, you guessed it—I made another bacon mushroom swiss white pizza. That’s kind of how I pay rent when I’m a-visiting. The crust was per-FECT-o this time, not to boast or anything. It’s just a tricky thing to get the pizza crust to that nirvana-esque state of chewy but not tough, thin but not crunchy, soft but not soggy. Nailed it! (after all those Psych episodes, Shawn Spencertalk was bound to seep out somewhere).

LEST you think that all we did was eat and watch shows, here’s what I did every morning to be worth of a couch potato afternoon with my prego sister (prego people don’t have to do anything to merit laying around; non-pregos need an excuse):

RUNNING!

I love to run. I adore moist cool summer mornings in Missouri—that’s exactly where I trained for my marathon, so after all that quality time in that climate, how could I not feel at home in that fresh humid air? I BASKED and ran at the same time, if that’s possible. I was only planning on running 2 or 3 times while I was there, but every morning that delicious air begged me to come out, so I ran every day but Sunday.

One day I brought my camera to capture the ZEN of this country road. Em lives right on the edge of town, with easy access to this perfect country road. It makes me so happy.

All of those Missouri hills rather destroyed my flat-lander’s gluteus, and my trick hip flared up, but those discomforts were well worth it.

Corn!

Barn full of giant hay-biscuits! Ahh, so satisfyingly rustic. I should’ve taken this picture in sepia. My childhood of jumping, sliding, and rolling in heaps of hay makes me really appreciate a well-stocked barn.