St. Louis trip

Earlier in February, I had a continuing ed. conference to go to in St. Louis.  My friend, Shalini, who is also a Nurse Practitioner decided to come up and go with me!  It was more of an excuse to get together for a weekend in St. Louis since she lives in South Carolina and is getting ready to move to Hawaii!  So Elly and I went up on Wednesday afternoon to pick Shalini up at the airport and then we did a little shopping.  My mom came along too to hang out with Elly while we were at the conference and the fact that she gets free rooms at Harrah's is pretty nice too!  She came up later that night and after shopping, we met up with her and had a nice dinner at the hotel. 

We didn't have to be at the conference until the afternoon on Thursday so we used the morning to go to the zoo!  The weather was unusually warm so it worked out great!  Elly loved the zoo last summer, but I think this summer will be so much better!  She had a great time!  Here's some pics from our day...

Elly in the petting zoo



 Checking out the hippos!

Grammy and Elly posing by the snake

I always take a picture of the elephants...probably because my dad always did since elephants are his favorite!

 Check out all the spit on the camel!  Gross!

Shalini got a group picture on her camera that I am going to have to get a copy of.  I wish I had taken more pics this weekend.  I wasn't feeling great and was super tired because the night before I left, I stayed up most of the night with a friend in labor.  It was worth it though, she had a precious baby girl and I was beyond honored to get to be a part of it!  But because of being tired and getting sick, I was a little off all weekend. 

After the conference that afternoon, we had another great dinner at the hotel.  Elly did not sleep good in the hotel and getting her to bed both nights was awful...I'm thinking maybe she had a touch of what I had?  Who knows!  We went to the cofererence all day on Friday and my mom and Elly did a little shopping and then headed home.  I dropped Shalini off after the conference and came on home.  It was a great couple days, but it went by way too fast!  I can't wait for Shalini to move to Hawaii so we can visit her there and have lots of time to hang out!