Labor Day Weekend

The weekend was a wonderful escape. Gabe and I went to his family's place outside of Fulton, MO on Friday. I really rather enjoy hanging out with his family. They're very different but still so similar to my own. Then Gabe and I travelled out to The Country on Saturday.

The Country. My grandparents bought some land in southern Missouri in the 60's (I think). Near Ironton and Fredricktown on the St. Francis River...never heard of any of those? It's all good, no one has:) It's nothing fancy, just an old trailer that the men added a back room and porch onto years ago in the middle of the woods, off an old gravel road. My uncle bought it from my grandparents a few years ago. He added all these new amenities like running water and satellite tv. It's madness! Down the hill, through the woods is the river. Up river is the deep end where we can float and swim. Down river are the rapids. Now don't go picturing anything intense...when we were little kids we went down the rapids like little water slides. We also went rock hopping up and down the river.

This weekend we were having a bit of a family reunion. Saturday, though, there were only a very few of us. But it was nice. Gabe and I went canoeing and swimming, but only for a little bit cause we got freaked out by snake in the water. We spent plenty of time over on the rocks though. We did a little hopping and then just sat with our feet in the water. The family went to mass in town where a 96 year old priest who has to be reminded of the date and gets through the mass in about 20 minutes is the only thing allowing those people to have mass at all. Sad but beautiful at the same time. Later that night we had a bonfire and Gabe and I roasted some marshmellows. Unfortunately though, my allergies had been acting up really badly for the past week so I took a couple Benadryl causing me to keep dozing off, even in the middle of conversations. So we went to bed earlier. We slept out on the porch; despite the cold mornings, it's the best place to sleep, listening to the insects and critters, waking up to the cool air in the early morning when everything is pale.

Gabe left early that morning. He wanted to go home to spend a little extra time with his own family and go to their a fair his Church was having. It was sad he had to go before the rest of the family came, but it was awesome that he came 3 hours to spend one day and night down there. He knows how much I love the Country and wanted him to be there, though. That's just like him:)

The rest of the family came down and we spent the day doing things such as drinking, floating and drinking, playing games and drinking, eating s'mores drinking...you get the picture:) It was an all around fun day. Monday morning I headed back to St. Louis with my sister and her family and then headed back to Kansas City. It was nice to get back at school, but I was definitely sad for the weekend to end.

Love and prayers