St. Louis

We have been on "vacation" for the past week or so and we decided to spend some time Hot Springs with Grandpa and Grandma Bodemann. Cate had a great time just running from the living room to the kitchen, chasing the dogs, asking for "up, up" from her grandparents, watching cousin Claire play volleyball, seeing her great-grandparents and then traveling to St. Louis to surprise Aunt Julie (My parents were going that weekend, so they invited us along and we decided Julie needed to be surprised by Cate, which she was shocked). Here are a few photos from our travels.

Cate sitting like a big girl at the dinner table at Don Juan's (the HS equilalent to El Rodeo)

On the flight to St. Louis, she's a master at using Dad's iPad.

I just love this one....she looks like such a big girl in her jeans!

On Saturday afternoon in SL, Cate and I went to a hot air balloon race with Aunt Julie and Grandma Peggy, we got to the area where the balloons were launching just in time.....even though it was VERY hot and humid, it was amazing to see all these balloons so close. They just slowly started coming up over the hill (in the above picture) and soon the skies were full of balloons!

Cate loved to just point and say "boon", and of course clap for them!

So we thought this balloon was riding a little low.....it landed right in front of us! We later found out that because there was so little wind that day, many of the pilots decided to land where they could because it was too dangerous, we saw several balloons bump each other, which I guess is scary up in the sky!

Balloon landing behind Cate

Cate and Mom (again, it was very hot!)

The Energizer Bunny, this is the first balloon launched during the race because they sponsor the event, so we knew were on time when saw him rising into the sky!

We had a great weekend, lots of football watched, a fire on the back deck (before the rain), a trip to the zoo....we needed more time! Thanks for letting us invade your house Aunt Julie and Uncle John and thanks Grandma and Grandpa for letting us travel with you and invade your house for a week!