I feel like a need a new salutation because I find my opening blog paragraphs slightly repetitive. Oh well. It's the same story, just new pictures. I actually updated before we had a zillion pictures this time! So I guess that's new. We're hoping that the blog is helping to keep y'all posted on our goings on here in the Show Me State. Can't wait to be home for Christmas! Love to all of totally awesome family and friends!

This is us at my new favorite restaurant, Steak N Shake. Yes, steak! They have the most amazing steakburgers! It is so delicious. I cannot express well enough the amazing wonderfullness of this place.

This was after a ward temple trip to St. Louis. Yum! A temple trip ending with Steak N Shake is heavenly indeed!

Justin was trying to shy away from the camera...

At Steak N Shake they have a hot pepper juice. I had never really noticed it but a girl from our ward dared us to eat one. It's made up of Amazon white peppers, I believe. Notice the warning on the bottle: "Easy does it." You aren't supposed to eat the peppers but we did. That was a huge mistake. Definitely the hottest pepper I've ever eaten. All I could do for a while was breathe through my mouth and only answer "yes" or "no" questions because it hurt to exhale since my insides were on fire. The upper area of my shirt was covered in drool because I had no bodily control anymore. Okay, not really but it was close. 4 of us at the table ate the pepper and I think we all tried to play it off but we had tears in our eyes so there was no faking it!

We had a church activity a couple nights ago where we had to sculpt temples with sugar cubes. We ended up with the Washington, D.C. temple. It's an amazing likeness. (Ha ha ha....)

It was kind of messy!

Yay! a 1940's dance! Our stake did a "Dance across the decades" and you got to dress up as any decade you wanted to. Being the old soul that I am and lover of music including Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and movies with Carey Grant and Katherine Hepburn, it was an easy choice. Notice the line up my stockings. I drew on eyeliner to look like I had a seam up the back. I also did my hair in the vintage "victory" rolls. If I had more time, I would have made a swanky hat but oh well. I think we pulled it off pretty well. (Can you tell I was just a little excited and proud?) We had a blast dancing and hanging out with some fellow ward members. Alas, I didn't have my camera at the dance.

Justin is such a good sport! We decided that he could like like a 30's or 40's golfing chap with rolled up pants to look like knickers and some argyle socks! He was a little skeptical until I mentioned that his converse shoes were ok. That sealed the deal pretty quickly.

Ready for a night on the town!