Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie

This post is long overdue! A couple of weekends ago, Ryan and I headed up to St. Louis for the wedding of two friends. The groom, Justin, is a friend from college; the bride, Katie, is another story...rather, few stories. I met her through Justin at another wedding during college, but she also knew Josey's brother Gabe through high school theatre, Josey's sister Summer through college, AND my sister's friend Tracey through college. I'm tied to this girl in quite a few random ways.

Joining us were our dear college friends, two of them married couples. It was like a mini TU reunion, only in my wonderful hometown!

We had the time of our lives. Five of us stayed at Pi and Gra's house. On Friday night, we went to the City Museum. If you've never been, I can't really describe it other than to say that it is like a quirky, indoor playground that adults enjoy as well. It also has art and oddities of all sorts. We bought passes to go up onto the newly finished roof, on which there is a ferris wheel and a giant slide, among other attractions.
We were told "NO REFUNDS" when we paid the 5 bucks for the roof passes. We got up there, looked around for approximately ten seconds, and heard, "The roof is closing!" A storm was coming. Nooooooo!

I felt incredibly stupid and guilty for "causing" everyone to waste $5, but we still had a good time inside. We explored caves, walked through a hall of mirrors, climbed a ridiculous number of flights of stairs to slide down a huuuuuuge slide, and enjoyed chatting/laughing with one another.

Then we came back and went to sleep.

On Saturday morning, Ryan and I joined Yemma, Pi, my Aunt Lisa and my cousin Jordan for a special pre-Father's Day breakfast. Great family time was had by all. Great banana crunch pancakes were had by me.

Aunt Lisa is so pretty!

The wonderful honoree.

:)

My cousin Jordan and me!

My maaaan!

Ladies :)

(Gra took our friends out for brunch to keep them entertained. She's hospitable like that.)

That afternoon, it was time for the wedding. I think this was the first wedding I've ever been to where it was difficult at first to decide which side to sit on - however, since all of my friends knew Justin better than Katie, we all sat on his side. My cutie filmed the wedding.

It was a beautiful ceremony. I wish I'd been able to get better pictures, but we were sitting kind of far back. The priest told funny, cute stories about the couple. It was intimate and sweet.

There was a gap of a few hours between the ceremony and reception, so what were we to do? It was a hot day in St. Louis...not really a lot of head-scratching going on for ideas.

Although Ted Drewes is DELICIOUS, a few of our group were needing some "real" food. Next we made our way to St. Louis Bread Co. (I love that I can still call it that up there...) for a late lunch. We sat and talked for awhile, then headed to the art museum for a bit.

I LOVE our art museum. I love that it was around for the historic 1904 World's Fair and I love that it's free. (So is the zoo - the only bad thing about that is that now I think it's preposterous to have to pay to get into a zoo or an art museum.)

Cookieface and I hug a tree.

After we closed the place down at 5, we journeyed to a magical place I'd never been but had been wanting to experience for quite awhile...Bailey's Chocolate Bar.

I knew that it had...well, chocolate...but I didn't realize that it had a full page dedicated to chocolate martinis/other classy drinks and a menu full of tempting desserts and appetizers like fancy cheeses. The atmosphere was so fun! Wow, we ate a LOT that day, but the best food was still to come.

Reception time! Katie and Justin's dinner and dancing reception was at Rose of The Hill. FYI for St. Louis novices - if you hear the words "the hill," that's your cue to salivate. Like Pavlov's dogs. It's a historic Italian part of town in which I could eat every meal every day for the rest of my life and never want for anything else. The food was exquisite, and our group of eight were all seated at the same table, so the day-long fun continued into the night. There was also an open bar that served the best amaretto sour I've ever had in my life. (Wow, this post is making me sound like a drunk...just throwing this out there; I drink MAYBE once or twice a month and rarely ever have more than one drink at a time. I had ONE chocolate-covered cherry martini and ONE amaretto sour that day. So there.) ;)

First dance!

Father/daughter dance :)
Check out the hilarious garter!
This is the single picture of me at the wedding/reception. Have a look at that humidity hair!

Not my best picture. Anyway, Justin, Katie and their families threw a great party. We were fortunate to get to catch up with the bride and groom at our table for awhile! (Now they're on their European adventure honeymoon!) We closed the joint down, then headed back for some sleep.

On Sunday, the five of us who were staying at Pi and Gra's enjoyed a breakfast with Pi, Gra, and Yemma. Then it was off to tour the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, something I'd never done before. I'm not a beer fan, but it was really interesting to see and hear about the whole process.

Horsie!
Inside the stables where the Clydesdales are kept :)This room was FREEEEEEEEZING.
Learning about the process
This room was soooo cool.
I loved the light fixture!
So wait...some people need signs? ;)This reminded me of the room where Veruca Salt's dad is paying all those girls to go through boxes and boxes of chocolate to find a golden ticket.
At the end of the tour, they serve free beer. I had a Mountain Dew ;) and Ryan had a beer just to try it, but didn't like it. I took a sip and it gave me the same feeling as when I drink Emergen-C: like my head was swimming and about to explode. Not for me. But we had a fun time of chatting :)

Shannon had to catch a flight later that afternoon, so we decided to go to Fitz's for a late lunch and to spend some more time together before she had to leave. Unfortunately, we all sat at the bar for time's sake and it was horrible for photos, so we didn't get any.

All in all, we had a FANTASTIC weekend of St. Louis fun!

So I'm up here...

Sorry for the lack of posts! I know I haven't been good about that lately.

Well, I was at work when I posted the brief Yemma update and shortly after I posted, I started freaking out. It came on kind of suddenly. I guess I had a bad look on my face because a nurse from across the nurse's station asked, "Sarah, are you okay?" and I started bawling, just like that.

So, in short, I took last night and tonight off work and drove up here after work yesterday. I didn't tell anyone I was coming up. They were all excited to see me, especially Yemma.

Yemma sounds a lot better, but she coughs a lot, especially at night. As I type, we're in her hospital room and she has just another hour or two to go on her 24-hour Taxol drip. Then they'll infuse two liters of Cisplatin into her abdominal port. It'll drip in by gravity (meaning just freely, instead of through a pump that regulates the rate) so it'll only take a few hours, and she should get to go home tonight even if it's kind of late. She's really excited about that.

Last night she got up and I heard her say, "Oh." I looked over and she was looking down at her pillow. There was hair all over it. It was just like in the movies, but it didn't create a spectacle for us. She continued, "Well, we knew THAT was gonna happen." I said, "I'm okay if you're okay" and she repeated it, and we went on about our business (which was watching the Shirley Temple version of "The Little Princess" on my laptop).

I want to thank everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We need them and feel them all around us. As ever, I am SO grateful for the peace that God is giving us through this. My main concern is for those of our loved ones who don't know Him and don't have that peace. It breaks my heart to see and hear of their worry. Of course, like the other night at work, I have my moments - I am human, after all - but Yemma and I have just put this in God's hands, trusting Him completely. In all honesty, I had just seen "My Sister's Keeper" the night before and watching the girl go through the side effects of chemo really stuck with me. So I mostly blame my imagination for my little freak-out session. (Side note - do yourself a favor and don't see that movie if you have a loved one newly on chemo. The book is much better than the movie, anyway.)

Allow me to leave you with this conversation that I had with Ryan on Gmail today:

Me: Eeeeeeeee!!! http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25259608
Ryan: hehe
Me: I loooooooooove! It's a journal and it's tiny.
Ryan: It is a death sentence. (Quoting the movie "Kung Pow")
Me: I was thinking someone could have their living will written in there. That way if anyone found them dead, they'd have it on them. Beautifully morbid, don't you think?
Ryan: But what if they died in a fire....
Me: That's why you spray fireproof stuff that I may or may not have just invented in my head on it.
Ryan: You could spray that all over you in that case.
Me: No because it's corrosive to human skin.
Ryan: You need a safer imagination.

Have a great "4th" weekend! :)

Chemo #2

In a few hours, Yemma will go back to the hospital to begin chemo round number two. We mistakenly thought she'd only have to be hospitalized for the first round - in actuality, all IV chemos will take 24 hours to infuse and therefore she'll be hospitalized each time.

Please pray extra hard for her as she has a raging sinus infection and a low blood count on top of having to endure a second round of chemo. And I know this is selfish, but please pray for me as I'm finding it very difficult to be away from her throughout this battle.

Thank you.

This is the Greatest and Best Pi in the World: Tribute.

My Gra and my Pi met when my mom and Aunt Lisa were young girls. They had been used to it being just the three girls living together, so when Pi and Gra got married and suddenly there was a man in the house, they weren't too keen on the idea of having more discipline in their lives. Pi worked his way into their hearts soon enough, though, by his HILARIOUS, cynical sense of humor and heart the size of Andre the Giant's (without the health issues).

So when I was born, Pi had been a part of the family for over a decade. I've never known any different than having him as my grandpa. And, because my parents have been divorced since I was five and Pi and Gra have always lived only a couple miles away from us, he's been my "dad" as well.

Let me tell you some things about this man. He is 6'4" and has a white, curly afro. He is beautiful. We call him our unflavored sno cone. Any time we need to find him among lots of people, all we have to do is look at the tops of everyone's heads. He is, to quote Waldo Aloysius Johnston III, "A rare rose in a garden of weeds."

As I stated previously, he is very cynical. He is impatient, sarcastic, generous, brilliant, witty, kind, and gentle. It's possible when you're Pi. He loves children and animals.
He would (and does) bend over backward for anyone, whether it's a beloved family member or a stranger. He is adored by all who know him, particularly me. I even speak Old English to him because it just seems appropriate.

If you haven't met him, you need to. But I will give you this comparison: ever seen the Steve Martin version of "Father of the Bride?" Yeah, that's him. Up and down and all the way around. Completely. I was proud to be on his arm and to dance with him on MY wedding day.

He has never, ever failed to be there for me (or ANYONE who needs him). The most wonderful thing of all is that he won't take credit for any of it. He rolls his eyes and says, "Ohhh, come on" and acts like it's no big deal at all. But it's the biggest deal in the world. I don't even want to know where my life would have gone if he hadn't been in it. He's my (and so many others') Pi.