St. Louis

I believe it was my cousin Jenna who first suggested we should hold a family reunion with all of the offspring of my maternal grandparents, Bob and Verlie Hansen.  We kicked it around for years, talking about staying at my cousin Anne's house, or going to Bear Lake.  But when Jenna's husband's family held their own reunion in Branson, MO, Jenna decided this would make a great location for us, too.  And suddenly, we were actually picking a year (2026!) and dates (end of June!).  Craig finally buckled down for the Bentley contingent and found a rental house that could accommodate all of us (that was: my mom, four Bentley sisters, their husbands, and 14 of their combined 16 kids; sadly we were missing Leah and her family, Bentley, and Samuel).  It was actually happening!!!

We were lucky, because we could just drive there.  For most of my family, they needed to fly.  But no airports are particularly close to Branson so most people opted to fly through St. Louis and then drive the remaining four hours, which is kind of lame.  Craig joked that we should drive through St. Louis so we could stop by Ted Drewes, but then we actually looked at a map and realized that that was the shortest route for us!  And since a bunch of family would be there, too, we tried to figure out (like, the day before we left) if we could meet up with any of them!

So we left first thing Tuesday morning, made way better time that I thought we would, and got to St. Louis a little before 5pm!  We checked into our hotel and then met up with my mom at St. Louis' finest dining, a really crappy Taco Bell on the wrong side of the tracks! 😂 (Natalie and her family went to a Cardinals game and had invited us to join them, but I was worried about the expense and getting there on time; I also wasn't sure we'd want to spend hours sitting in uncomfortable seats after driving all day, so we finally decided not to do it.)  We enjoyed our Taco Bell and then headed to Ted Drewes' and found Tracy and Adam there, visiting with Adam's niece and nephew (and their spouses) who live in St. Louis.  So that was fun (and delicious)!

I took a picture of the graffiti because Bentley loves stuff like that.  Somehow I did not take any pictures of me or my family...

The next morning we headed to the arch!  We wandered through the museum while Craig looked for parking (I HATE trying to park in a city!!!) and watched the film about the making of the arch.  It was absolutely WILD watching all the workers climbing all over the arch without any ropes or harnesses or anything.  That's what architecture looked like before OSHA, I guess.  They bragged in the film about how they were insured for up to 13 deaths, but didn't actually lose anyone.  That's really great, but seriously???  What a different world...

Cora and Camille enjoy a dugout canoe in the museum

Kendra with a little statue of a handcart pioneer!!!  (With Tracy and Adam in the background!)

Then we got to go up to the top of the arch!  The ride up was slightly claustrophobic.  I was glad for the windows in our little car (which Craig told me were a somewhat recent addition), otherwise I think I might have struggled.

That's one cozy little pod (even more so once Craig was sitting in there with us)

View from the top!  The people down there are just specks!

Back on the ground, we quickly snapped pictures of us with the arch and then Craig hurried to move the van before we could get a ticket.  

Then it was back to Ted Drewes for one more round of frozen custard before we drove to Branson!

It was there that we finally ran into Natalie and her family, so that was a perfect surprise!  After we'd finished our custard, but while we were still wandering into a nearby chocolate shop and purchasing butter cakes at a third shop (where three of my children bought giant squishy (fake) sticks of butter for themselves) we also ran into my Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Bob!  The family reunion was well and truly underway!  We scrambled the cousins all around-- so Tracy and Adam got Kendra, Natalie & Cameron took Ryder and Colton, and we had Camille, Nicole, Claire, and Cora in our car-- and I stole my Mom and made her ride with us, too.  And then everyone was on their way to Branson!

We stopped at a Buc-ee's along the way-- partly because we needed gas and it was super cheap to fill up, but also because I wanted my Mom to experience the joy that is Buc-ee's!  (She was astounded at the price of gas-- about half what they're charging in Seattle!)  And we ran into Bob and Lorraine there, too!!!  So fun!

Rolling up to our rental house, we discovered two things: the entire neighborhood was terrifyingly perched on some steep hills overlooking nearby Table Rock Lake.  Just driving up and down those hills made me catch my breath.  And they were clearly rebuilding some of the retaining walls in ways that did NOT inspire confidence.  If I see on the news some day that the entire development has come crashing down, I will not be surprised.  But if you could just ignore that, the house itself was PERFECT.  Every bedroom had an ensuite bathroom, plus an extra half bath on every floor.  You entered on the main floor, which had a huge deck, huge living room, huge kitchen (two fridges and two dishwashers) and HUGE table, with three bedrooms, then on the next level down were more bedrooms and a poker table, and on the third and lowest floor, there were more bedrooms and game rooms and stuff.  It meant that the kids spent most of the time playing on the lower floors while the grown ups could hang out on the top floor chatting away with very little noise or distractions from their kids!  Amazing!!!

There you can see the lake, with a tiny moon above it all!

More to come!