30th Birthday Weekend

Well, I'm officially 30. My parents and sister came down for the weekend which was very fun. Here are some pics of a few things we did over the weekend.

Lori and me at my co-worker's gig on Thursday night.















Why can't Travis and I take a good picture together? We had a birthday party at Growlers because we get free birthday dinners! Yay! And it's free to use part of the room which is very nice.

My sister bought my mom and me a birthday shot that tasted like cough syrup to me. This is why I don't drink much! :) Travis decorated our part of the room with black balloons. Nice Travis. He said that I had been given him crap for a whole year about being 30 so he was getting me back. Oh, and the shirt I'm wearing is from Bonnette in NZ! She sent it to me for my birthday. Thanks Bonnette!

On Saturday we decided to go to Hermann to go to some of the wineries. This is the one where we ate lunch because the view is great, but the wine is discusting.

We were having a nice visit in Hermann until my parents car broke down. We sat on the side of the road for quite a while because we weren't sure what to do (so glad it was a beautiful day!). My mom couldn't walk much because of her broken foot, so my dad and sister finally went into a shop and the guy called his mechanic. Rodney was nice enough to come down and check out the car and sure enough, it needed a new fuel pump. He went back to his shop and found a part in Washington, MO. He was going to send someone to pick it up on Sunday morning and have the car done by noon or so on Sunday. So, Rodney came back and picked us up with the tow truck. We all rode in the cab of the truck, which I had never experienced before. He then rented us a 1994 Dodge Caravan to get us back to St. Louis for the night. It only went about 60 MPH so we were kind of concerned that we weren't going to make it back to St. Louis. But we did, and my parents and sister made it back to Hermann to pick up their car. But that added on at least 3 hours to their trip home on Sunday. It was a great Vander Meulen family adventure. When I jokingly asked at dinner what everyone's favorite part of the day was, my mom said her favorite part was sitting by the old school house and hearing the bell chime 2, 3, and 4 o'clock! We've had many funny experiences in our family before, so I'm glad I could experience another one. It had been awhile.