Missouri/Colorado Trip - The People

We recently took a two week trip, traveling to St. Louis, Missouri for a New York Life Convention, then onto Colorado Springs, CO to see my youngest sister and her family, and finally making a one-day stop in Iowa on our way back to Pennsylvania to see my other sister and her family. What a wonderful trip! This post is about the special people that we were able to spend time with on our journey....the next post will be about the places we visited. Above, my dad and step-mother came to St. Louis to spend time with us.....
The pictures above and below are of the Campbell family: Kris (not pictured), Jennifer, Benjamin, Jonah, Abigail, and Nathanael (the baby). I have a long friendship with the Campbell family....I grew up with Kris, met Jennifer when they were living in Alexandria, Virginia, and we have managed to coordinate trips back to Iowa to see family and keep in touch since they moved to Illinois. On this trip, we stayed overnight with them the first night, then they were able to come into St. Louis to have dinner with us another night.

While we were in St. Louis, I was able to meet my cousin's wife, Katie, and their children at the Botanical Gardens. What a treat to be able to spend time with family we do not see very often! We missed seeing Steve, but had a great time with Katie, Dacia, Tucker, and met new baby Chanel.
Now, to Colorado.....my youngest sister, Sheila, and her husband, Kurt, and their family - Silas, Nathan, Abby, and Selah (the baby) graciously hosted us while we were there. How do you get two sets of children, seven kids - ten and under - to sit still for a picture? While they are watching TV!
Finally, the Iowa "day-trip" to spend time with my next younger sister, Carla, her husband, Richard, and their children - Isabelle, Wade and Will....yes, identical twins. In small town Iowa, Carla and I received several questions about whether we were twins...I don't know how Carla felt about those questions, but I loved it because it immediately shaved four years off of my age!

A big thank-you to Josh Westurn and Mike and Chelsea Johnston.....our Pennsylvania neighbors and friends who watched our house and took care of our dog!