The Gumbo Shop

We finally found good cajun food in St. Louis!  It's still not quite home, but close enough for us to be happy! 

The view walking up to the front door.  It's always a good sign when you see a restaurant growing their own veggies and spices right outside!

One of the many pepper plans in their garden area!

We tried to find out what part of Louisiana the owners are from, but the workers weren't sure.

Tony, of course, ordered the big sampler platter with a little bit of everything.  I had an order of crawfish etouffee.  Sadly, it was the worst thing on their menu.  I'm not sure if it's always like this or I just got a bad batch, but the sauce was overcooked.  The jamabalaya and the gumbo were both pretty spot on!

Thank You, Tony!

It took him like 10 minutes to free hand the drawing! I would have been there all night!

The finished product in my office.  I love it!

Sugar Welcomes You Home

Since my Mom will be returning to the hospital tomorrow, I figured that I'd give her a present to welcome her back home.  A new picture of Sugar on the blog.  Sugar loves you and misses you very much.  He's sorry that he won't be there to comfort you when you get home.  :)

Downtown St. Louis

Last Friday, we met Tony's training group downtown to celebrate the end of their six week class.  Now, they get to join the other outside sales reps in the office!  Of course we've driven through downtown before and even been to a few places, but I had never really taken the time to walk around.  I didn't realize how gorgeous it is!  There are lush gardens and fountains all over the place.  I absolutely love the two wading pools that people are allowed to swim in.

What a gorgeous view of the Arch!

You can see the little kids swimming in this photo.  I was shocked by how clean the wading pools were kept.

The other wading pool.  I took my shoes off and joined in the fun, but Tony wouldn't join me!

Yep, that's my thumb.  Oops!

The AT&T building downtown where Tony has been working these past few weeks.  It's the tallest building in St. Louis aside from the Arch.  City decree states that no structure can be taller than the Arch!

Jambalaya

Tony would be very sad if I didn't include this picture on the blog.  He recently used a former colleagues recipe to give us a little taste of home.  It was delicious!

Pretty Animals in our Neighborhood

From what we can tell, our neighborhood is now home to 4 bunnies!  This makes me very happy.  We would always see them outside of Jean's house, but this is the first time that we've seen any on our street.  It's adorable to watch them chase each other back and forth across the street.  No, there are no plans to turn one into a rabbit gumbo, stew, or anything else food related!

The Infamous Bat

So, one Saturday evening I'm home alone and put Sugar in the backyard after dark.  I see this absolutely horrific looking creature slinking along our fence post.  Since I couldn't identify it, I ran inside to grab our camera to take a picture to show Tony once he returned.  By the time that I got back outside, the awful creature had holed himself up behind a fence post.

Tony took one look at the photos and immediately identified it as a bat.  I have to say that it's honestly the ugliest thing that I've ever seen.  It's been a few weeks and I'm still freaked out about going into the backyward alone after dark!

The Muny!

Where do I begin?  This was truly one of my favorite activities here in St. Louis.   Since 1919, The Muny has offered musical theatre in the country's largest outdoor theatre.  Productions run each summer from mid-June to mid-August.  We went to opening night of this season and saw Beauty and the Beast.  It was absolutely brilliant!

Outside the gorgeous venue!  Lots of people picnic in the park grounds around the theatre before the nightly performances.

A grove of oak trees frame the main stage.

Lovely fans that help keep the audience cool!  Unfortunately, they turn them off when the performance begins.

Opening Act

I was genuinely shocked at the large-scale production.  I mean, our tickets were $7!!!!  It felt like attending a real Broadway production.

The Be our Guest number - all I can say is WOW!!!

I have no idea how the Beast survived in this costume!  The night that we went was one of the hottest and most humid nights that we've had so far this summer.  A news article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch said that they would stuff him full of ice bags every time that he exited the stage.  That sounds pleasant.

Shakespeare in the Park

The start of each summer in St. Louis is usually marked by the annual Shakespeare festival.  This year was the 10th anniversary of the second largest festival in the country and boasted and record-breaking crowd of 56,000 people from all over the world!  This year, the production was Hamlet.  It's always held in Forest Park and the event is completely free.  It's a fantastic atmosphere as everyone brings their lawn chairs and/or blankets along with their ice chests full of food and drinks to enjoy the food.  The festival always last for two weeks with shows every evening.  We are already looking forward to The Taming of the Shrew next year!