In St. Louis

Hi! Jake and I arrived in St. Louis on Sunday night. We had 3 checked suitcases, 2 carry on bags and a stroller with a car seat for the plane... phew! I had to take apart the stroller at the security checkpoint, thank goodness a nice woman offered to hold Jake while I was dismantling it since Mike was not with us.

Jake was an angel through all of it, the only time he fussed was when he was still hungry on the plane. Christy and her son, Nick, met us at the airport and we had an interesting experience loading her car, haha!

Monday Jennifer S took us to my dad's house to pick up the car he is giving us. He signed the title and wrote a Bill of Sale for the DMV. We got Jake strapped in and then I drove that boat from South County back to St. Charles.

That evening I helped Jennifer S remove the wallpaper border from one of her bedrooms. She's 5 months preggers and barely tall enough to reach the ceiling on a step ladder. We finished removing the wallpaper border together before 6pm! I can't wait to see the room when she is finished, she is going to paint it blue with floating clouds, oh la la!

Yesterday I registered the car and got plates. I had to go to FOUR places! First, to the Assessor's office in downtown St. Charles to get a Statement of Non-Assessment which means I did not own any property in St. Charles in the past 2 years. Otherwise I would have had to bring a receipt for my paid personal property tax before being able to register the car. That was accomplished in 10 minutes, there was almost no wait, although on the way there I veered off from the Yahoo directions twice... and had to find my way back to the correct street. I was not very familiar with this area before I moved to Arizona. It doesn't help that the streets around here change names every 5 miles or less... Then I went to get the emissions test. There was absolutely no wait at all, I drove right in and it was done in 5 minutes.

I'm staying with Christy and her family, she was watching Jake for me along with 3 other children and her daughter during this time, so I headed back to feed Jake and put him down for a nap.

The third stop in registering the car was to get a safety inspection. You have to go to a garage to do that. I called around and the first two were so busy, they couldn't do it until next week. The third garage said, "Can you be here in 20 minutes?" W00t! I packed Jake in the car and headed over. That inspection took only 15 minutes.

The last stop was the Dept of Revenue to get the plates, it was right across the street from the garage. I only had to wait about 5 minutes, then I presented the SIX documents required and walked out 5 minutes later with plates! Even though none of the stops took longer than 15 minutes, which was SO awesome, with the driving time and all of the unexpected detours (heh!) it took 4 and a half hours. Which isn't so bad with all of the places I had to go.

Next week I can get my MO drivers license when Mike gets here with my birth certificate and SS card. He reserved the moving truck yesterday :)

Today my agenda is to call apts, do laundry, and give Jake a bath... he's been sleeping in a crib for the first time ever this week, he seems to like it!

Ok, gotta go, this is already a novella. ~Adria