My Crazy Birthday Weekend Part 1

The older I get the less excited I get about my birthday. I guess that is the one thing women really have in common! It's not so much that I dread getting older- it's just that things always seem to go differently than planned.

This year was a great birthday though! I was able to spend part of my birthday in St Louis with some great ladies listening to Beth Moore. It was awesome. We had been planning the trip for weeks. We headed up to St Louis on Friday morning and ate lunch on 'The Hill'. The Hill is a older part of the City of St Louis, that you've probably driven by and never even noticed. It's on both sides of I-44 about 5 miles from the Arch. The Hill has hundreds of classic Italian restaurants. And I'm not talking about Olive Garden... which I LOVE. In the four years of living in STL, I've only eaten there twice, but was dying to go and try so more places.

There were two parts of this trip that I was most looking forward to. Hearing Beth Moore speak and seeing my best friend Carrie. I hadn't seen Carrie since the day we moved. I needed Carrie time. As much as we talk on the phone, it just isn't the same. It was pretty awesome how it worked out, because Carrie wasn't even supposed to come on the trip. A good friend of ours was supposed to, but had to back out at the last minute- so I called Carried and she was able to go.

Anyway, we met Carrie on the Hill, ate yummy food at Favazza's, and then headed to our hotel downtown. We intrusted Gar- Gar Binks ( Garmin) to get us there in one piece. He took us a little out of the way and put us about 20 minutes behind, but he got us there safely. We arrived at the hotel and parked on the top of the parking garage. When we walked into the lobby it was packed with women. We finally got checked in and headed up to our room on the 14 floor.

This is part of the group outside Favazza's

Robin, my Aunt Beth, me, my mom, and Cathey

The hotel was really nice. We settled in for a few minutes and then headed back down to the car. We wanted to get to Chafietz Arena early since seats are first come first served. It was an eventful drive to SLU's campus. I was driving, and should have known the exact way to get there, but took us on a slight detour. We ended up a couple of miles away, but after I was able to stop and get my bearings, we were good to go! We arrived safely at Chafietz and started waiting in the crazy heat. But it paid off! We got seats on the floor three rows from the stage. The coolest part about our seats- we were three rows behind where Beth Moore stood during worship. I was distracted in the beginning... I mean how many ladies have been able to stand behind Beth Moore and watch her worship the Almighty God? It was amazing.

Worship was led by Travis Cottrell and his amazing team. There is just something about singing songs of praise with a few thousand other women... and being led by a man that is truly after God's own heart.

We dismissed late Friday night, headed back to the hotel and had some Birthday cookie cake and kettle corn that Carrie had brought. We had a mini birthday party and time of fellowship in our room, and went to bed since it was going to be an early morning. Saturday (my birthday) we headed back to Chafietz, and shockingly got the same seats! We were once again blessed by Beth Moore. We cut out about ten minutes early, since we were really needing to eat some lunch and get back on the road to Ozark. We stopped and ate lunch in Fenton, and headed back home. It was a great getaway and just the beginning of the weekend for me!