St. Louis and Wisconsin

The rest of our trip was wonderful as well. We visited great places in St. Louis like Crown Candy Kitchen, where Ali has her first taste of a shake, The Science Center (one of Anna's favorite places), and Ted Drewes. We got to visit the Peregoy family, Angie, and Erin and Brian. It was great!

After leaving St. Louis we flew to Wisconsin. The weather was beautiful. Ali was introduced to Great Grandma and Grandpa Maschke. Lots of quality time was spent with Grandma and Grandpa as well and Uncle Nate, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Jen. Ali also met the "tat", Molly, and spent copious amounts of time following her around. By the end of our time she was even brave enough to touch the cat. She was quite proud of herself.

We also had the chance to catch up with Jon and Christina Bender. It was great to see them.

More pictures for you to enjoy...

The Great Midwest Adventure

Now that Anna's done with her classes, we're enjoying our great midwest adventure. We celebrated the Fourth in style...Seward, Nebraska style. We joined an estimated 30,000 people who converged on Seward ("Nebraska's Fourth of July City") to celebrate the independence of our country. As always, the usual festivities were available: breakfast with "The Waffle Man," an earth moving exhibition at Concordia University, Water Wars (it's basically the opposite of a tug of war, played with fire hoses and a barrel on a pully hanging from a wire...I guess it's easier to just see it) and the commemorative cancellations and free postcards at the Post Office.

We partook of Food Alley (Ali likes lemons)...

...listened to the Van Kampen Trio, and watched the parade which featured every local celebrity, politician, and queen found between Lincoln and York. The day was finally finished with fireworks at the park.

While in Lincoln, Jed had his first Runza experience ("They're not too bad!"). We enjoyed staying with the Birkbiglers, who were kind enough to take Ali for an evening while we went out for a night on the town. We celebrated our 3rd year of marriage with steaks and beer at Misty's, and then washed it down with a coffee and chai at The Mill.

The next day we traveled to St. Louis, and on Saturday ate lunch at the same Steak and Shake where we had our first date almost 6 years ago! It's hard to believe Anna's been able to stand me for that long, but as our waitress commented after nodding at Ali, "I guess it worked out!" She gave us free shakes for our celebration. We give Steak and Shake a thumbs up.

We went to St. John's on Sunday, attending both services since we couldn't decide which one to attend. We've got grand plans for the rest of the time we're here, including Crown Candy Kitchen and Ted Drewes, and hanging out with friends!

Wednesday we head out to Milwaukee for the Maschke 35th wedding Anniversary celebration! We'll let you know more as we continue the Great Midwest Adventure!