CKC St Louis

I swear I'm better telling stories than typing them, lol. I need a system that will type out my dictation so that you are more entertainted, lol. Anyway, I was at CKC ST Louis 2 weeks ago and had a blast...and a long but very interesting story of events. I went with my friend, Laura, who was teaching CK classes there. She's from California and we've only met in person once, so it was so nice to have the opportunity to see her again. I had asked her ahead of time if she wanted to come to Chicago first to meet my family, then drive out together. She wasn't able to but I was happy anyway just to meet up again.

So on Thursday, I took the four hour drive down from Chicago to St Louis and picked up Laura from the airport on Thursday afternoon. We checked into our hotel in Collinsville, settled in a bit, then headed out to Chilis, then Archivers.

I was excited to go shopping there together. Laura doesn't have any scrapbook stores by her and Archivers is a scrapbooker's dream. She definately took it all in and we left with a bunch of goodies. We had a ironic moment in there at the back of the store. There was a Slice display there with the infomercial playing, and our friend Cindy was talking in the infomercial. Laura, Cindy, and I were Slice participants almost 2 years ago but Cindy was the only one out of the three of us who made the cut. That was too funny seeing here there!

We stayed up late chatting and the next day got up early so that Laura could get to her classes. That girl had back to back classes from like 9-4. She did a great job and had huge classes of like 50 people! I helped out a bit with the classes, since I had nothing else to do. And then did some shopping. I got to meet Kelly Purkey and Jen Jockisch at the Studio Calico booth and I purchased a ton of stuff there! Such beautiful products!

I took 4 classes total, two of them were the Studio Calico ones and came home with a lot of projects. The SC classes give out a ton of prizes: I won one in each class...stamps and some mist ;)

On Saturday evening...this is where the story gets pretty interesting...we left CKC to take Laura back to the St Louis airport, 20 minutes away, for her flight. As soon as we got on the highway we came to a dead stop in traffic. I was starting to get nervous, but was hoping that it was a fluke and that it would clear up. That didn't happen and I had to get off the highway, we were going no-where. I took a few wrong turns, then got on another highway and came to another dead stop traffic jam over the long, long bridge over the Mississipi....why its one lane is way beyond me! I kept saying "I'm so sorry" and all worried. Laura was all calm but quiet but I'm sure she was nervous about missing her plane. We were still over the bridge 30 minutes before her flight was going to leave and then I think it hit us that she could more than likely miss her flight. No one ever wants to have that feeling...I told her just before I dropped her off to please text me either way if she makes her flight. I told her that I would start driving home, but if she missed it (since it was the last flight out for her) that I would come back and stay another night with her. So I get a text 15 minutes later with the words "i missed it". I kinda knew that it was going to happen...I should have just stayed there but I think I was in denial.

Still with me?????

So we talk on the phone and she tells me that she's coming back to Chicago with me. What?? Wow! I was shocked but happy that she found a great solution. She figured that she could drive back with me, stay at my house, and fly out the next morning. I felt bad about the whole thing but we turned it around to a fun road trip with the two of us chatting each other's ears off all the way back. I turned the car around, picked her up, and headed home. I was dying to get our of St Louis and also dying to pee...like real bad. I don't know how I lasted that long, lol. We took a quick stop and then a little bit picked up McD's. I'm not a real fan but I just need some easy food. It was nice having company on the way home...here we were two good friends, who met on the internet and live 2,000 apart, driving through rural Illinois on a Saturday night, lol! We kept joking all the way there that this would make a good blog post and a great story. I know that she has already scrapped the second part of the story, which she is going to post on her blog soon ;)

Anyway, we got to my house at 1:30 AM and were greeted with Maui, my 1 year old hyper lab, who thought we were robbers or something. Maui was all over Laura, giving her tons of love, and wouldn't give her a break. Kendall got up to greet me. Laura got to meet the whole fam. We hung out a bit and she slept on the couch, since we don't have a spare bed. The next day, we left around 8:00 AM for her 10:45 minute flight. I live about 30 minutes away but you can never be too sure about traffic. The roads were empty and we got there quickly. I dropped her off and she made it super early. I got a text later that her plane was delayed 30 minutes...go figure!!! But she made it home OK. So we turned an unfortunate situation into a fun one. I'm so glad that she got to come to my house and meet the fam...even if it was for a short while ;)
You'll have to check out her blog for her layout and her version of the events. Thanks for listening to my super long story :)