Please someone tell time to slow down. What the heck? She’s going to be crawling WAY too soon.

There was just too much to post about it all at once. It was a whirlwind trip but we tried to cram in as much as we could.

So, the regular route is I-65N to Nashville, then I-24W. Well, we forgot about that turn. We didn’t miss it, we didn’t even look for it. The only way we knew we were going the wrong was is John started telling me what his GPS said and it sounded super wrong. We could either go back 30 miles to Nashville and get on the right road or we could take the back way. We opted for the back way.

Am I the only one to realize that the middle of Kentucky has quite a large Shaker community? No? Good. It does. Lots and lots of Shakers. We saw four or five horse and buggies, a Shaker Museum and a Shaker Bed and Breakfast. We also saw a TON of tobacco fields. And zero bathrooms. We turned off on a little two lane highway and it was 45 minutes before we saw a gas station. Not a good thing.

We’re podunking along, not really paying attention, and all of a sudden we see this:

In the middle of NO WHERE. Seriously. That thing was huge. It’s a marker for the birthplace of Jefferson Davis.

It was also in the middle of a park with a playground so we stopped and took pictures and let Dash run some steam off. Turns out our detour cost us an extra three hours on an already seven hour trip. With a two and a half year old and a four month old.

We FINALLY got to St. Louis. And saw this.

That crazy little structure will forever do funny things to me. It’s such a symbol of my hometown.

New Busch was right behind it, and it’s just not.the.same.

It’s just a regular ol’ stadium now; nothing special. Old Busch was something special.

We quickly checked into our hotel room (anyone ever stay at a Drury Inn? Holy moly, what a great hotel for the price. Free hot breakfast, adult beverages and snacks every night (three free per person!), indoor pool, great staff… And I think it was 65 bucks a night.) and headed out to meet my best friend from the fourth grade! It had been all of 16 years since I’ve seen her.

We had so much fun. Sarah is as sweet as she ever was and found herself an equally sweet husband. We picked up where we left off like we never skipped a beat. She took us to The Hill, the Italian district in St. Louis, to an awesome little restaurant called Rigazzi’s

And this crazy little thing was sitting out front. =)

After dinner we headed off to Ted Drewe’s, one of my all-time favorite St. Louis places.

and filled up on Chocolate and Oreo concretes. Oh-so-good. More to come tomorrow… (do you believe that? You know what kind of blogger I am, right? I’ll try for tomorrow though. Seriously. =) )

Seriously… something RIGHT THERE…

So we tried Kate on cereal tonight after she scarfed a 6 ounce bottle of milk from John this afternoon and was still hungry. Turns out Kate digs the cereal! Yay!

She actually ate quite a bit!

And excuse the red around her eyes, she was sleepy!

I still can’t believe she’s moved on to cereal. Where did the last four months go?

1. Regretsy makes me happy. (Has random vulgar or gross images, but it’s oh so funny.)

2. I have pictures to download from my point and shoot before I do a St. Louis summary, but we had a blast. Here’s a pic of the kids we met…

Five two year olds on a park bench. I wish someone had a video of us trying to choreograph that.

3. I’ve taken to watching videos on youtube on my IPod Touch while I’m working. My favorites are Friends bloopers and Wanda Sykes specials.

4. Kate will be 4 months old Sunday. I know.

5. I ordered A Very Merry Muppet Christmas on DVD last week. Anyone remember that one? Where it combines Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street and The Muppets? It came out in 1987. What’s your favorite Christmas movie?

6. John got accepted to UAH. That should really be number 1. I’m so proud of him! He’ll start in the fall if he decides to go. Depends on the work situation but I have a feeling he’s going to do it.

7. He’s also applying for this NASA program, he’ll have online classes for a semester and may get to go to the Johnson Space Center in Houston in May. Super-cool opportunity.

8. Kate is a trip. I realized I haven’t talked about her personality much and it’s definitely shining through now. She dishes out smiles like no baby I’ve ever met. If you just look at her, she grins instantly. It’s so cute. And she kicks her legs when she’s excited to see me… Super sweet baby.

9. Dash has learned how to fake cry and it sounds exactly like real crying. John called him on it the other day. Here’s the conversation.

“Wahhhh!!!”
“Dash, I think you’re fake crying.”
Pause.
“No, Dashy crying.”
“Wahhhh!!!!”
(John now)”Wahhhh!!”
Pause.
“Daddy don’t cry. Dashy crying.”
“Wahhhh!!!!”

Sigh.

10. What do you want for Christmas? I’m torn. Between a new lens, a flip HD, a desktop computer, and nothing at all. I WANT a lot. I don’t really need anything though, I’m pretty stinkin content. I WOULD like if Auburn won the Iron Bowl, how about that? I can ask for an early Christmas present, can’t I?

The Dixon fam is off on an adventure tomorrow, think sleepy baby thoughts for us, will you? We’re heading to St. Louis for a long weekend and to meet up with some internet friends (and some real life ones, too!). It’s a 7 hour car drive without kids, so probably a 9 hour one with them… We’re going to leave when Kate wakes up to eat, whenever that is (3:30, last night) and take off, hoping we’ll get the bulk of the trip out of the way before they wake up.

So I’ve been part of a birth board since I was 15 weeks pregnant with Dash, and then a subgroup of the board who all had due dates in the same week. When babycenter changes its format and forced us off of old babycenter, we started a new board and have continued our virtual friendships over there. Since Dash is heading full speed ahead towards 3, we’ve been friends for a while. I’ve met 3 of them, and I’ll meet 5 of them this weekend. There are 20ish, total. One day, maybe I can meet them all (although one lives in Paris and another in Taiwan…).

We’re heading up to St. Louis and meeting up with my best friend from 4th grade on Friday night (Hi, Sarah!!) and going out for dinner and having a few drinks at their place… I hope my kids don’t terrorize them. Saturday we’re meeting up with the online crew and going to The Magic House and Saturday night we’re going to try to catch the Alabama game somewhere. I figure it’s the least I can do for John since my plans are pretty much taking up the whole weekend. We’re going to try and cram some Ted Drewes in there, too.

So I’ll be back Sunday and hopefully have a huge picture-filled blog post Monday.

Have a great weekend!!

Oh, and one more. The hat saga continues… This is my first try at beaded crochet and it wasn’t too bad…

And I bought two new whacky skeins of yarn for the trip so I’ll probably have a few more hats when I get home, too.

Dash had a great time this Halloween. We were going to go door to door but it was pretty chilly and I didn’t have much for Kate to wear other than her costume. We decided to go to the mall and Publix and John took Dash to a few doors when we got home.

First, the Katiebug…

The Dixon Fam…

Mr. Dixon…

That’s a fishing pole, not a rifle. Doesn’t it kind of look like a rifle?

The kidlets…

That’s Dash’s “cheese” face now. Lovely.

And finally, Kate being ridiculously cute.

I think Dash got 9 pieces of candy or so, and he would stop as soon as he got one and eat it… I’m wondering if the “don’t eat anything until we get home and we can inspect it!” was really for our safety when we were kids or just to keep us from eating it all…

This is what Dash looks like when he sees me across the room (or field, in this case) and it melts my heart Every.Time.

We’re back from a night of trick or treating and pictures are coming!!