The Martens in Town

My parents came in to visit us last weekend. We had a really nice weekend with them. Of course we had to take them downtown to see the famous St. Louis Arch and then we went under the arch to the museum area and we watched a short movie on how the Arch was built. It's very fascinating. It's one of those things that when you see it in person and you're standing right underneath it, it seems so much taller and bigger than in pictures. It stands 630 feet tall. I can't imagine being the crew that had to finish off building the top of that thing!! If you ever come through this area, you have to go see it. I had fun taking a few pictures of it while we were there. Let's see.......we ate at a BBQ joint that was literally a hole in the wall and it still doesn't beat the best BBQ at The Branding Iron in Wichita Falls, TX. We had heard St. Louis is known for good BBQ but so far we haven't been too impressed. We were going to go do the Anheuser-Busch brewery tour but we didn't have enough time to do all of that in one day. So, the rest of the weekend we just hung around the house and spent time together. This picture just below is us standing in front of the Mississippi River.

Earthquake!

We experienced our first earthquake ever this morning! About 4:30 this morning I darted out of bed to the sound of our dresser mirror shaking and banging on the wall. I freaked out and jumped out of bed (Leland did too) and felt the floor vibrating. It was so weird! The thought of it being an earthquake never crossed my mind but Leland instantly realized what it was. It was so bizarre and kind of cool too. It's center point was in Illinois measuring at 5.2 on the scale. And then about 10:00 this morning we felt an aftershock -almost like the house was moving sideways a little. My parents just got in town last night to visit with us this weekend but they never felt it last night but they did feel the aftershock later this morning. We haven't noticed any structural damage to the house yet, but that can't be good on the foundation! It's really amazing to think about how it all works and what's going on underneath the earth's crust. Anyway, just wanted to share our experience.


Other exciting news is we finally had a new fence installed in our backyard today!! Yea! Now we can let Sadie out without having to get dressed in the morning and put her on her leash so she can go potty. And I won't have to keep coming home on my lunch break to let her out of the utility room that we keep her in while we're at work. That's been really stressful for me because my job is so busy that most days I don't have time to come home for lunch and I feel guilty leaving her in there for sometimes 10 hours without going out. One of my neighbors has been nice enough to come over when I need her to let Sadie out for me. Plus they have a puppy too which is Sadie's new best friend and she lets them run around and play for a while. But I feel bad asking her to always do that for us. This dog is costing us a lot of money!! :)

Here she is enjoying her new space!
Now let's just hope she's not a digger.

Good Old Family Time

Leland's parents, Gordon and Kathleen, came in town this past weekend to visit us. We were so happy to have them visit as we are missing our family. In fact, I don't think I was ready for them to leave on Sunday. They got in town Thursday afternoon and we ate dinner and dessert at our house. Gordon's birthday is the 17th of April so we had a little early birthday cake, cheesecake-his favorite. Friday we went to see the Arch downtown and went into the museum under the arch. I had never been in there. It's huge and it's all underground! We didn't get to see it all, but there's a ton of history on how Louis and Clark discovered the West and many other neat things to see. It's worth seeing if you ever come to St. Louis. That same night we went to a Cardinals baseball game. It was fun but the weather wasn't. It was in the low 40's so we were bundled up. They won the game! Most people that live here are die hard Cardinal fans so we had to experience the atmoshphere and engery of a live game. Let's see, the next day was much nicer weather. The boys did a few home projects while Kathleen and I just gabbed and cooked dinner. She's a fabulous cook. We made a ham and wild rice soup that was delicious. The next day we went to church and then they took off to Texas. We had a great time!

Sadie followed Kathleen around most of the weekend. It was so cute. Here she is sitting in her lap on the way to the airport.

This is Sadie's new neighborhood friend, Jezebel. Don't ask me what breed she is. I've heard the name like 6 times and can never seem to remember it. She's only 3 months old. They're taking a water break after playing.