As I wrote previously, I had quite the experience traveling to St. Louis. Well, I had a really great time once I finally got there!

Holly and her mom were great hostesses and made me feel right at home (after dinner and a bottle of wine at J. Buck’s).

Friday night, Holly and I had crafty time while watching Will Ferrell movies (like Step Brothers and Blades of Glory).

On Saturday, we went to St. Charles, Mo., which is a cute little town with fun little stores. It reminded me of Cedarburg or even parts of Door County here in Wis.

While it was a nice, warm 70 degrees, it was also raining buckets.

We went to a paper/craft store (surprise, surprise) called Rock Paper Scissors. It was adorable and even carried some of Holly’s Pink Paislee products!

After stopping at a cute little pet shop, Cyndi found this lovely ad in a pet circular:

I don’t really need to add anything to that, do I?

Anywho, Saturday night we went to Blueberry Hill for drinks and the “Brew in the Lou” gathering Patrick O’Brien organized. I first “met” Patrick when he worked for MyFoxStl.com. Now he’s a big shot at WUSA in DC.

So we finally got to “meet” in person which was pretty cool. I also met his former colleagues Jill Hampton, Vera, TtotheP and AprilStl. Unfortunately, I do not have photos of them. WTH.

It’s pretty funny, because I already “knew” most of the people at this gathering via Twitter. I would have to say that the majority of people I follow on twitter either reside in the Milwaukee or St. Louis areas… which is odd since this was my first trip to the Lou. I also got to meet Raquita, SandyShores, CosmosGirl, GaneshaXi, LindseyMastis and a few others. Even Teresa came out for awhile. If I missed anyone, I apologize.

After a few too many beers (ok, a few pitchers, of which I drank most), Holly and I hit up Steak ‘n’ Shake then returned home.

Sunday was a recovery day and boy were we lazy!!! Finally, mid-afternoon we got our shiz together and I helped Holly get things set up for Lollipop Smiles. Here’s one of the photos she took of me:

I have about 12 photos from this session I will share in the coming weeks. If you’re clever, you can probably find about 1/3 of them by checking out Twitter or Facebook or some other social networking sites.

Holly also took some fun shots of her brother Jake, his fiance Andrea and Holly’s dog Jack. Check them all out in Holly’s Lollipop Smiles Flickr Set.

On Monday, I forced Holly to take me to the Arch which was pretty cool. We went up to the top but stayed for less than 10 minutes. I don’t do well in confined spaces! I have some photos from the top but I haven’t edited them so you’ll have to check out my Flickr photostream for those later this week. In the meantime, enjoy these obligatory Arch photos:

I <3 this girl. She’s a fabulous person and an awesome friend. Thanks for showing me a great time in the STL.