What I do in St. Louis

So a lot of people have been asking me (Kim) what I do all day in St. Louis. Since I'm not working or in school at the moment. I honestly have been really busy and find all kinds of fun stuff to do. My most favorite thing that I do 5-6times a week is yoga. I adore yoga and have for the last two years. I first discovered it at USU when I took a class. I have sinse taken classes at my gym in Phoenix and here in St. Louis go to a Yoga Gym. I love Yoga Gymns because may of the teachers have 20 plus years experience and I sure learn a lot from them. I focus on all types of yoga. My favorite is called vinyasa flow yoga which is a flowing powerful type of yoga in which you follow your breath while going in and out of poses and it is a little non-stop. I then do 2-3 times a week power yoga (similar to Bikram Yoga) which is done in a 90 degree heated room. It is a step up from vinyasa and is more fast placed, the heat causes you to sweat A LOT! It is so cool to see drops of sweat coming from your forearms and calves. I love that type, because I feel like all the toxin buildup in my body is being released. I do one other type of yoga once a week Yin Yoga, which is a calm, yoga. It focuses on increasing flexibility and not on strength training. You get into a pose and hold it for four minutes and interesting enough that is very difficult. But, I truly love this and am so happy that I've been able to participate so much in it.
I also have been scrapbooking, biking, and touring all the museums around St. Louis. I've found a new found love of books and read a lot. I also really enjoy the New York Times. So all-in-all I've had a great summer thus far and am excited to enjoy more.

The City Museum

Sara, Ashley, Cecily and I at the City Museum in St. Louis MO. This Museum is the most amazing place I have ever been.
This museum was started by a man who made everything from scrap metal and junk.
It is called the "adult playground" because everything in the museum is adult sized and adult climb and crawl throught the entire thing as well as kids.
There are slinkies that you climb in that go up into the ceiling, and slides that drop into holes in the floor.
You end up crawling up through tubes in the ceiling, and through mazes of fake caves in the basement.
The pictures shown are of the outside of the museum. But the inside is double the size.
Sara, Ashley, Cecily, Barbara and Larry all had a great time. If you go to St. Louis this is a must see. I would even say make a specific trip to St. Louis just to go to it!!!
I had an amazing time. Loved it.
This is an old airplane that is supspended and you get into via wire tubes pictured in the previous pictures.

Church History Tour

Since my brother-in-law Don Roberto works for the Church as a Historian, he periodically travels to the Midwest to do research. Since we now live in the Midwest, my whole family decided to accompany him on his latest trip. It was great to see everyone and cool to visit all the early Church historical sites. Rob has connections with the Community of Christ so we got to see a lot of neat stuff.
Kim and I at the graves of Emma Smith, Hyrum Smith and the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.
Kim tried to make me dance at Adam Ondi-Ahman. I resisted.
Old Man River and Mom at Liberty Jail.
Inside the Visitor's Center at Independence, Missouri.
Sophie, Cecily, Marri and Scott - my sister Emily's kids at Independence.

My college roommate Jenny Shaw

For my birthday which was June 11th I was in Branson MO, with my old college roommate Jenny Shaw. She recently returned home from her mission in New Mexico and told me her and her family were going to Branson MO, and because I live in St. Louis MO, which is about four hours away I went to visit her for four days. We had a blast. It was so good to see her, I haven't seen her for two years and it was nice to spend some time with her, I partied while Jake worked. The first night we went to an Elvis Presley concert (imitation of course.... or maybe he's still alive). The next day we went to the Spirit of the Dance concert, which was amazing. It's an Irish dancing group and they were fabulous. That afternoon we then went to this amazing restraunt called "Steak-and-Shake" and let me tell you I absolutely love those steak hamburgers, if anyone ever comes to the Midwest you must stop in at a Steak-and-Shake. We then went to the theme park Silver City and that was really fun as well. We were going to ride the roller coaster 23 times in a row in honor of my birthday but we got to 10 times in a row and decided that was good enough. That night we went to a Mikey Gilley country concert, I didn't know who he was, Jenny's dad picked it out, turns out if anyone has ever seen Urban Cowboy, Mickey Gilley wrote most of those songs and was a hit back in the day. Overall I had a great Birthday and an awesome vacation. Jenny and I went searching for some karyoke one night and found some and as it turns out it was more of a bar than a karyoke spot, so we decided to leave. It was pretty funny, because Jenny is such a newly returned missionary and I'm a married Mormon girl and we just didn't fit so well there. Needless to say Jenny is not Missionary-weird any more!

Mamma Mia!

Continuing her efforts to try and expose me to some culture while we're here in St. Louis, Kim booked us tickets to the play, Mamma Mia! It was showing at the beautiful Fox Theater
which is an amazing theater not too far from our loft. Well, the show was great and it was a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll get out to see some more, we'll probably try and see some in Chicago later on this summer.