Tonight, Ted and I went out for dinner. The restaurant parking lot had only a few empty parking spaces, so I picked one and pulled in between two pickup trucks. My Hot Mama car looked more like Baby Car.

I buy all of my spices from the Spice Shop where they are fresh and less than half the price of the grocery store offerings. The Spice Shop buys the fresh spices in bulk and puts them in clear plastic containers for sale to customers. When I switched from grocery store spices to Spice Shop spices, I saved my empty grocery store spice bottles and filled them with Spice Shop spices.

We updated our kitchen in 2023 and I ordered a built-in spice rack in the cabinet door over the countertop where I cook and bake. With my spice jars obviously displayed whenever I opened the cabinet door, I wanted some uniformity, so I bought new jars.

Those jars were a disappointment. They were plastic, and my labels didn’t stick very well. They also warped for no apparent reason and became oddly shaped, with large dents on the sides. I searched all over for the kind of jars I wanted (clear glass, square, spice-size, removable shaker caps under the lids) in the quantity I needed (25-30 jars) online and ordered them.

After washing the jars, I started transferring my spices to my new jars. That little blue funnel came with the jars. The containers of spices on the right are from the Spice Shop.

Now I have what I wanted when the spice rack was installed in 2023: an attractive and uniform array of spices.

One day in early March, Ted decided spring was coming, and he thought it was a good time for him to clean the solar lights that we put around the pool. It was a raw, cold, rainy day (see his puffy winter jacket and the wet driveway beneath his car). He backed his car into the driveway so that he could work in the relative comfort of the garage. If it had been up to me, I’d have waited for a warm, sunny day, but he’s a hard, dedicated worker, and he got the job done. That’s my man.

For my 60th birthday, Kyra made a special picture of her and me and she attached 60 Hershey’s Kisses around the edges to form a frame. I’m the one with the short hair. 😉 Note that, in the picture, she and I are holding hands, indicated by the single extended arm. ♥

Ever since Kyra gave me the picture, I’ve kept it on display on the top of the “grandchildren toy cabinet.” Kyra was surprised to learn that I still have the picture. I shared the candy kisses instead of saving them for posterity, but I treasure the picture.

When our two sons were little, they loved playing with Lego. In fact, Thom still does. Among other things, he builds Lego flowers and mini-figures and he and I still exchange a Christmas Lego set every year.

Lego has changed over the years. When our sons were little, Lego came in a variety of individual pieces–red, white, black, blue and yellow bricks in a variety of sizes. Now, it’s hard (impossible?) to find simple Lego pieces like that unless you order them online (order the exact number of pieces you want of each type/color) or have a nearby Lego store that sells pieces in bulk. Everything else is a set of Lego that builds an individual item or a small community of related items. Following directions has become more important than imagination.

We still had a box of Lego pieces in our basement. It’s bits and pieces of lots of things, but there are quite a few pieces. Ted and I have kept the Lego because our grandchildren always liked playing with it. One year, we bought a Lego box to store the pieces. When Jeff mentioned that our great-grandson, Ollie, loves Lego and that he (Jeff) was trying to think of some kind of Lego Ollie would like, Ted and I told him we could send our entire box of Lego to Ollie as our gift for his fourth birthday–after all, some of that Lego was originally Jeff’s (Ollie’s grandpa), making it what would now be called “heritage” Lego for Ollie.

That turned out to be a great idea. A four-year-old can swish piles of Lego pieces around with his hands, pick out what he likes, and stick some pieces together.

After Ollie’s birthday, Alex (his dad) texted the photo below to me. He said Ollie thanks us for the Lego and wants us to see the boat-plane he built. Lego. The perfect gift, filled with imagination.

Author’s note: Lego will probably never die. It’s plastic, so it won’t decompose and, even if you step on it, there’s more pain inflicted on your foot than on the Lego piece.

Tornado watches and warnings are normal in our area in the spring. Most of the time, we don’t get anything worse than a thunderstorm, possibly with some minor hail and/or strong wind. One time, we had tennis ball-sized hail, and one time an F1 tornado blew some shingles off several roofs less than three miles from our house. Every two or three years, the threat might be dangerous enough that Ted and I go to the basement to be close to our shelter and to watch the basement TV in order to stay aware of where the storms are.

So far, we’ve never gone into our shelter because of a storm, but we came very close to doing that on March 14 this year. On that evening, an unusually powerful storm system passed through our area with devastating severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, destructive winds, dust storms, and wildfires, causing 25 tornado-related deaths.

Prior to the storm, we moved our lawn furniture against the house to keep it from blowing around in the wind, and we weighted our hot tub cover with firewood because the wind was trying to lift it off the hot tub. An EF2 tornado moving southwest to northeast entered the Greater St. Louis area and crossed a runway at Lambert Airport, but we are were lucky. We are roughly 15 miles west of the airport and only had severe thunderstorms, nickel-sized hail, and high winds (60 mph gusts). Our only damage was a few 1.5-inch-thick tree branches that were blown off our trees and fell into our yard.

Our record stands: We’ve never actually huddled in our tornado shelter, but it’s always ready for us. Our go-to place for a tornado is the basement closet beneath the stairwell. The stairwell is in the center of the house (no nearby windows) and the basement walls are underground, so it’s our safest place. We keep that closet empty of storage items, except for our survival things. Survival items include some old quilts that we can put on the hard, cold, concrete floor, or cover ourselves with, or take to the community shelter if our house blows away.

Author’s note: My mom made this patchwork quilt for me when I was in college. I remember many of those fabric pieces from clothes she sewed for herself and for me. The orange/pink blanket she used for batting (look at the worn front edge of the quilt) was a wedding gift to her and my dad. The quilt is worn out from use, but I’ll never throw it away. Maybe it will even save my life someday if a tornado strikes our house.

Ted and I have a printed list on the bulletin board in the kitchen that tells us what to gather if a tornado is possible. The list includes things like our electronics and chargers, our glasses, cash, car keys, medications, my good jewelry, Ted’s hearing aid batteries, our bike helmets, etc. Everything else is already in the shelter.

The tote bag under the bottom closet shelf has clothing for both of us: a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, underwear, socks, and jackets. These are all clothes we don’t wear any more, but we might have to take shelter in our pajamas, and we’ll need something to wear when we start cleaning up the mess. We also store our hiking shoes in this closet because we’ll have to walk over a lot of broken stuff after the tornado passes. In addition, we have a weather radio, several battery-operated flashlights and lanterns (we check the batteries every spring), water bottles, and a first-aid kit. Our bike helmets will protect our heads, but we have old pillows in the shelter to cover the helmets and to (hopefully) break the impact of anything that falls on our heads.

Since we moved to the Midwest 47 years ago, we’ve never needed to make use of our shelter, and I’ll be happy if we never do, but we’re ready. Climate change is increasing the severity of storms around the world. This year, we came uncomfortably close to putting on our bike helmets and crouching in the shelter with the door closed.

Over the weekend, Kathy came from Kirksville, and Kari’s family members–including Sky, who was in town for a few days–came from nearby to spend some time with Kyra and Hannah. The “Secret Hitler” game produced so much raucous play for most of the afternoon that it seemed like a shame to break it up for dinner.

Theo brought along one of his sketch books and we all had a chance to ooh and aah at his many drawings and witticisms. I requested that the artist gift his grandmother with a drawing. I didn’t give him any specifics beyond that, but he seemed agreeable, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he draws for me.

Kathy’s birthday is coming up, making this weekend a good time to celebrate with her and to save the shipping costs for her gifts. Her favorite birthday cake is funfetti angel food with a Dream Whip / instant pudding frosting. It’s an easy dessert, so I made a birthday cake for her.

Everyone who wasn’t scheduled to work (we missed you, Dean and Dylan) joined us for a birthday dinner for Kathy, and we all had a piece of cake for dessert.

Kathy thought this piece was a good size for her. The story behind that is years old, but it always makes Kathy and me laugh at the memory. Another time, in the long ago, Kathy was here for her birthday, and I made this cake for her. A few pieces were eaten, but most of the cake remained. We were both hungry for a snack, so we decided to have a piece of cake.

That piece was so good, we decided to have another piece. That piece was just as good, so we kept going–one piece at a time for each of us–until the entire cake was gone. We ate nearly a whole cake for an afternoon snack–and we enjoyed every bite! In our defense, it’s an angel food cake, and everyone knows you can squish an angel food cake into a tiny little ball, so we didn’t really eat as much as it sounds like. At least, that’s what Kathy and I choose to believe. We’ve never done that again, but the memory it is still one of our favorite shared times.

After Kathy and Sky left to go back to their homes, we had one more day to spend with Kyra and Hannah before taking them to the airport for their flight back to Montana. The weather was nice, so we decided to go to Historic Downtown St. Charles for a walk through Kister and Frontier Parks along the Missouri River. After that, we walked through the downtown area with its boutique shops. Kari had the day off from work, so she joined us.

Spring is here and the redbud trees (background) and tulips are blooming.

Hannah asked Kyra to take a picture of her sitting in the park.

After that, I took a picture of the two girls sitting together, showing off their long hair. Kyra said her hair has been growing for eleven years! The FedEx truck kind of spoils the mood of the picture, but, in spite of that, the girls look like good friends–which they are.

After our time in the park and downtown, the girls needed to pack up their things, so we went home. When they were ready to travel, we had dinner at Dewey’s–Ted’s and my favorite pizza restaurant–on our way to the airport.

We had so much fun with Kyra and Hannah that we hated to see them leave. It was hard to say good-bye at the airport, but it makes us want to be together again soon for more good times.

Unfortunately, the adage “April showers bring May flowers” was true this week. The weather forecast for Kyra and Hannah’s visit to our area includes rain every day until they leave, when the weather will become warm and sunny. We lucked out with the rain today–most of the time. There was a pause in the light showers while we walked from the parking garage to the Gateway Arch grounds, so we had time to take a picture of Kyra and Hannah posing with the Arch in the background.

Then we took a group selfie, also with the Arch in the background.

We had extra time before our Tram Ride to the Top ticket reservations, so we walked past the Arch entrance to the Mississippi riverfront. Hannah’s interest in fashion design inspired her to pose for Kyra to take some pictures. I like the bright red umbrella and Kyra’s purple jacket against the green and gloomy background.

The Arch grounds were in bloom. and looked very spring-like. The blooming trees, shrubs, and flowers would have looked even better in spring sunshine, but after winter, everything about spring is beautiful, rain or shine, right?

Here we are in our Arch tram car on our way to the top of the Arch–600+ feet above our starting point.

On a clear day, the view from the top extends for miles; today, we could see downtown St. Louis. The red curved structure in the left of the photo below is Busch Stadium, the home field for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.

The green-domed building in the center of the photo is the Old Court House. This was the site of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision which held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States. If they were not citizens, they could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked the power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories, effectively invalidating the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36o30′ parallel, except for Missouri–a decision that escalated political tensions leading to the Civil War.

All that green grass in the photo covers the Arch grounds. The 2018 update to the Arch included covering I-70 (the road running horizontally across the photo) and making it possible to easily walk from downtown St. Louis to the Arch. The light-colored semicircle around the fountain is the glass ceiling of the Arch entrance. The visitor center, museum, and tram access are all under the ground between the entrance and the Arch itself.

Two minutes after I took the photo above, the fog and the rain moved in.

Less than two minutes after that, the fog and the rain moved out again. Talk about quick weather changes!

There are countless varieties of Arch souvenirs in the gift shop. This Arch is made of, not Lego, but 1,930 pieces marketed as “Mini Building Blocks.” Note the smaller Arches sheltered by the large one (not included with the 1,930-piece building set).

Here’s a close-up of the Old Court House which is no longer used as a court house. It houses a museum with a large Dred Scott decision exhibit among other things, and also serves as the ticket and tourist information center for the Arch and the Tram Ride to the Top. (We bought reserved tickets online in advance.)

We lucked out again when we left the Arch and went back to the parking garage–it was still cloudy, but without even a drizzle of rain in the air! Our next stop was the Science Museum in Forest Park. Check the sign in the lower center of the photo below.

As we walked around the Science Center, we saw this chicken-and-egg riddle. The answer is at the bottom of this post, as calculated and agreed upon by eight of our family members the next afternoon.

When we left the Science Center, we had just enough time for a quick stop at the Art Museum in Forest Park. At that point, our dry weather luck ran out. The heavy rain competed with our umbrellas and jackets while we walked from the car to the museum entrance. I think all of us were wet almost to our ankles from the puddles and spattered by rain to our knees.

We had some time to dry out on our way to dinner–authentic Italian food at Mama’s on the Hill in South St. Louis. It’s too bad this selfie is a little blurry, but you can tell we were all happy with our delicious meal and another great day together.

Riddle answer: 36 eggs–assuming the hens work around the clock and that each hen lays 3 eggs in 3 days–1.5 eggs/1.5 days.

Ted and I were excited when Kyra told us she’d finally saved enough money to come to our home for a visit–something we’ve all been looking forward to for quite a while. The event became even better when we heard that her BFF, Hannah, was coming too. The girls met each other when they were two years old and have been friends ever since. Ted and I have seen Hannah with Kyra so many times over the years that we think of her as another granddaughter.

Given the girls’ arrival time in St. Louis, and given the quality of airline food, we knew the girls would be hungry when they arrived, so our first stop was at Blueberry Hill for lunch.

When Ted and I were at Blueberry Hill with the Bryans, we didn’t have time to look at all the displays in the restaurant. Today, we did.

Joe Edwards, the owner of Blueberry Hill, has his picture taken with every celebrity who visits or performs at his restaurant. The photos include four U. S. Presidents. The walls of the 10,000-square-foot building are covered with those photos and with Edwards’ collections. We saw photos of three Presidents: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. On this wall, you can see Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Snap, Crackle, and Pop. It would have been fun to be there when the cereal trio showed up!

Edwards began collecting things when he was seven years old. He started with comic books, records (he has over 30,000 records in his collection and alternates them in the jukebox), and baseball cards. At 10, he started collecting toys, sheet music, and oak furniture. (Oak furniture?! At 10?!) At 12, he says, it was vintage lunch boxes; at 16, Wurlitzer juke boxes. Now he has collections of Star Wars, the Simpsons, Howdy Doody, Elvis, PacMan, Pez dispensers, etc., etc. and the largest collection of Chuck Berry artifacts and historic memorabilia on display in the world. The center boxes in this display are some of Edwards’ vintage Pez containers. (There were many, many more in other displays.)

These are some of Edwards’ Howdy Doody memorabilia.

There are two live performance venues within the restaurant. One is the Elvis room. Although every wall in the restaurant is covered with displays or photos, there may be fewer individual celebrity photos than you think. Throughout the restaurant, we saw duplicate photos of a number of people, and the left wall below has the same arrangement of photos as the wall in the photo above, with Obama, the Clintons, and Snap, Crackle, and Pop in the same positions with the same adjacent photos. Oops!

The Duck Room, named for Chuck Berry’s famous “duck walk,” is the other live performance venue at Blueberry Hill. Chuck Berry was the first pop music star to perform at Blueberry Hill, and he made 209 consecutive monthly appearances. Chuck’s home was in this area, and he has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame which passes in front of Blueberry Hill. Check out the chimeras near the ceiling on the right in this photo.

Remember this old video game? At Blueberry Hill, it’s a wall decoration.

I couldn’t tell if this giraffe lamp was carved out of oak and therefore qualified as oak furniture for Edwards’ collection; if not, maybe it was part of a “giraffe lamps” collection.

Kyra and Hannah sat on planes (two flights) for over three hours, plus a two-hour layover, and then in our car and at lunch. When we finished eating and looking at the restaurant displays, we were all ready to take a walk around the Delmar Loop, where Blueberry Hill is located. As we walked, we saw some outdoor murals. If you look closely at this photo, you can see that the gray blocks on the sidewalk have St. Louis Walk of Fame stars on them.

I especially like the Maya Angelou quotes in this mural. The quotation with the yellow background on the left is from Angelou’s book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It says, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.” The quotation on the right says, “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you are.”

Kyra and Hannah needed to wake up very early to be at the airport for their flight(s) to St. Louis. Then they had hours of travel followed by a lengthy lunch and a restaurant tour so, after our walk, we went home where they could unpack and chill out before we had dinner together. You can tell by the outdoor photos that it was a gloomy day, but not for us. For us, being together made it as much fun as a sunny day!