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.

the Cards game...

Now that we're in St. Louis we decided the best way to get acquainted with the city was to go to a Cardinals game. At my job, pretty much everyone has season tickets and a lot of people can't use them every home game, so they were easy to get. Our seats were in the outfield, just on the right field side of center like the 4th row up. Perfect view of all the action. The stadium was incredible and it was a perfect night to catch a game. They won 6 - 1, so I was allowed to go back to work the next day. The people who gave me the tickets said if they lost not to come back.

Ashley and I at the Mall

While I was in Utah I got together with my friend Ashley from High School and we did what we do best, nothing really. We just walked around and took random pictures. It was great, Ashley's always been such a great friend so this post is dedicated to you and your awesomeness.

Haley's Soccer Game

In Utah we went to my sister Haley's soccer game. It was the playoff game.



















Her team is called the Lehi Strikers.








They lost that game but, they were 2nd place in the league. So Haley was a little sad, but they sure did well.

the JAZZ game!!!!

So along the way on our travels through Utah, my older sister Emily decided to solidify her spot in heaven and get Jazz tickets for Game 3 against the Lakers. So her, Kim and my old man all met in Ogden and hopped on the train and headed to Salt Lake City for the showdown. It was great to ride the train cause we missed all the traffic both going to and coming from the game. (Also I (Jake) was interviewed by both the Standard Examiner (see http://www.standard.net/live and the video entitled "Follow our Drew Godleski as he rides FrontRunner to the Jazz game) and a TV station from Spain, Canal +, for my thoughts on the game).

It was an awesome game, very intense and extremely loud the entire time. Some kid named David Archuleta sang the national anthem. The song wasn't too bad, but everyone, including Kim and my sister made a huge fuss over him....anyone heard of him?

Anyways, the Jazz played a decent game and pulled it off in the end, 104 - 99. It was a TON of fun to get to go to a Jazz playoff game and my sister is awesome for pulling it off.

Kim getting ready for the game wearing her new boyfriend's shirt.

Photo op on the train on the way to the game.
View from our seats. Pretty high up, but closer to heaven so our prayers got there first.
David Archuleta singing the national anthem. Apparently none of the Jazz players wanted his autograph.
Mr. Archuleta again. Not a bad singing voice for picking some random kid to sing at the game. Maybe this will help him launch some sort of career.
Jake and Old Man River stoically observing the refs not allow Kobe to be harmed the entire game.

MOAB: Bikes & 4-Wheelers....

Ok, so if you don't already know, little miss Kimberly and I are spending our summer outside of the broiling oven of Phoenix and going to be living in the humid sauna of St. Louis while I prove to my wife that I am capable of holding down a good job. For three months at least. On our way out to the exciting Midwest, we are visiting both of our families in Utah.

So we met up with Kim's family in Moab, Utah, which has got to be one of the most amazing places on this earth. Perfect warm weather. Beautiful breathtaking views. And plenty of rocks to climb on with both 4-wheelers and your conventional peddle bicycle.

We had so much fun riding on the Jeep trails and passing all of the slow-poke trucks creeping along. We made a good attempt at Slickrock on our bikes, but had to stick to most of the practice loop. Still made about 7 miles of it though. Still incredibly tough.

A big cliff on the Slickrock Trail.
Kim taking pictures of herself. Classic pose.
We hiked to this little hole in the rock.
A long line of Jeeps and FJ's. We just went around them.
One of the longest, steepest hills we had to climb.

Fun Pictures

These are my sisters and of course Jake, in the "bright" colors that they are! Hahahaha, fun.

Farewell Dinner with Thunderbird Pals

Saturday night we had a farewell dinner at Cheesecake Factory, for the Thunderbird friends, because most of us are leaving for the summer, graduating or will be gone by the end of it. I am so grateful we've had such great friends to share the school year with Jake and I will miss you all so much!