Food and Laughter

This past Saturday, our street hosted the first block party of the summer and we had a great time meeting all of our neighbors! What did we learn at the block party? Well....

1. That there are several people on our street around our age.

2. That one couple has lived in the same house for 48 years and he used to work for a company that was contracted out to help at all of the major sports arenas here. Because of that job, he has a full collection of the very first St. Louis Blues china that was produced for the VIP suites and the very first program printed for the Blues and signed by the entire team that played that day.

3. We also learned that our neighbor across the street grew up in the house that he and his wife and kids live in now. It was originally his grandfather's house who owned almost all of the houses on our street at one time. His grandfather was a bondsman who would have those that he bailed out live in the houses until they could pay him back so that he could keep track of them. His grandfather also used to own a very popular bar in town and operated a brothel on the second floor of said bar. This was news to the grandson! He knew about the bar, but not the side business!

4. We also learned that our townhouse and the one that is connected to used to be 6-one bedroom apartments.

5. One of the ladies on our street graduated from Southeastern in Hammond in the late 90's!

Overall, we had a great time! Tony's gumbo was the big hit of the evening!

After the block party, we decided to go see The Hangover. I was actually dreading this movie, but it turned out to be fantastic. We also saw The Proposal this weekend which is what I was very much looking forward to seeing, but I enjoyed The Hangover more! Anyway, the real point of this story is about the theatre that we went to to see The Hangover. It's a Wehrenberg Theatre and that chain has been in business since like 1908. Inside, it had a full 1950's style diner and the tables were the back of old cars! They just used the ends of old cars and had them restored with the old bench seats and everything and just a table in between. It was really neat! They also had a huge projector screen showing previews of all of the upcoming movies and the old time speakers to hook on the side of your car just like the drive in theatres used to have.

Oh, and lastly, congratulations to the Tigers!!! It's time to bring home number 6 tonight!

Thank You Grandma

So, yesterday Tony and Sugar each got a Father's Day gift from my parents. I know... I know... Anyway, Sugar was playing with his on the window seat this morning, so I thought that I'd take a picture. He doesn't have any toys on the first or the second floor unless we bring some down. And even when we bring some down, they're back on the third floor by the next morning.

CWS - GEAUX TIGERS!

Sugar is getting ready to watch the Tigers win tonight!

GEAUX TIGERS!!!

UN Secretary General

Yesterday, Saint Louis University hosted the current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for a speech on solving the world's hunger problems. I have to admit that even though I've disagreed with many of his statements in the past, it was an amazing experience. His speech was good, but with little substance. He did touch on all of the major global crisises: hunger, economic, the current flu pandemic, and climate. His, and many others, believe that most of these can be solved by improving food supply and security across the world.

The Boeing Institute of International Business program on campus brought him as part of their guest lecture series. I can't wait to see who they get next!

I'm borrowing photos available online from the event since I forgot my camera.

A Sense of Humor

This is one of Tony's favorite pictures that he's taken since we moved here to St. Louis. He was taking pictures of the Anheuser Busch headquarters and spotted a for sale sign at a house down the street. So what did he do? Of course he walked down there and stole the sign from the ground and placed it in front of the AB headquarters. Then again, this is the same guy that interrupted a prayer group mid-prayer to ask them to move so that he could get the picture that he wanted.

At least he remembered to put the sign back...

More house tour photos

It's the LSU house! Just need to repaint the inside trim yellow...

The covering that you see on the bottom of the wall? Yeah, it's cow hide that is original to the house when it was built in the early 1900's. And people eat there. The house is for sale in the mid $700's.

The bottom of this sink was gorgeous as well with a satin draping.

What a view!

Lafayette Square Park House Tour

This weekend has been a lot of fun! Last night, we were up on the third floor about to watch a movie when we noticed fireworks going off in the distance. We ended up sitting in the window seat watching a gorgeous twenty minute fireworks display! Tony tried to take a few pictures, but none of them came out very well.

Today, we met up with Jean to do the annual Lafayette Square Park House Tour. There were fifteen homes on the tour with about half of them being for sale. We did skip the big funeral home which was on the tour because well - it's a funeral home. Even more disturbing, we did learn that the family that runs the funeral home actually lives there. No thanks! There were a variety of homes shown on the tour. Some were very traditional while others had undergone so major remodeling to make them quite contemporary.

Apparently the house tour is a big deal here. There was also a huge antique flea market set up all around and throughout the park as well as an old-timers baseball game being played in the park. Carriage rides were also available through the park.

I can't wait for the holiday parlor tour in December!

Geaux Red Team!

So Tony and I were surprised with tickets to the Cardinals vs. Reds on Monday evening. We had a great time! It was interesting to watch a baseball game and have no real vested interest in either team. We somewhat cheered for the Cardinals since they are the home team, but that's a little difficult to do when you're an Astros fan! The Cardinals did fall to the Reds by two runs, but at least they kept it interesting down to the last out. With two outs, the tying run hit a very long fly ball that backed the center fielder up to the wall to bring it in for the last out of the ballgame.