I’m sorry I haven’t been adding more recaps of my trip earlier…isn’t that how it goes? Rest assure I have notes and such and I hope to get a recap done soon. But life has been busy with plenty of activities!

When we got back, I went straight into summer teaching. It was a lot of fun getting back to it after several weeks off. In addition to teaching, we went to several operas at Opera Theatre (with the Young Friends dinner, the best deal for opera ever, dinner and drinks, plus your ticket, for about $50. )

We also went out for my official birthday dinner at Bowood, and I got a facial at STL Skin and Body, where I hadn’t been in over a year. It improved my skin immensely!

Then my sister Leslie and her kids came to visit, so I took another week off teaching to hang out with them. We spent our first morning at the City Museum crawling all over the place. The next day we went to the Arch–the kids had loved seeing it and when they learned you could go up it, they requested to do that.

We went to Circus Flora one night. Everybody loved the trained dogs and the tightrope walkers the most, I think. My nephew kept going on about the little chihuahua and how he thought it was amazing and how cute they were.

My niece got into sweeping and ended up sweeping my house, dusting with various dusters, and leafblowing the front with a new Ryobi leaf blower (battery powered) that Louie had gotten recently. I want to clarify that I did not request that she cleaned the house, though I may have gotten the ball rolling by once asking her to help sweep something off the kitchen floor during dinner prep. I’ll tell you, the front steps never looked better, and I need them to come back and clean up more.

We had a wonderful time visiting and hanging out, and they enjoyed exploring our new house.

And then after they left, we were sad, and exhausted. We went to another opera that night, which ended with a real life proposal onstage.

And then yesterday Louie and I went to the .zack theater in midtown to see the Amazing Acrocats. It was great, and much what you might expect from a cat circus. Basically sometimes the cats did the tricks they were supposed to and otherwise they did cat things. It was a lot of fun and we would highly recommend it if you have a chance. They are going to Denver next and then later to Minneapolis and Chicago.

We ended the weekend with a barbecue with Louie’s colleagues and some Succession watching (we are working through the latest season.) It was a busy but fun week!

Looking ahead, I am getting “back to normal” this week with lots of teaching and a few gigs. After that my sister Carrie visits over the holiday and we have a few plans for that as well, but I am not taking the week off, just having some time off due to the 4th of July falling on a Tuesday. I know there is still plenty of summer left, but as it is almost July, I am worried it will go by too quickly for my taste! I remind myself I have 6 more weeks of teaching scheduled, which is quite a lot, so there is plenty of summer left.