Day 7

Wow! I can't believe we've already been gone a week! We woke up late, so we hurried to the lobby for breakfast. It was a normal, regular, everyday, run of the mill, average hotel breakfast. We got in the car and did the same thing we've been doing for days now: drive. I'm getting pretty sick of driving. And I don't mean carsick. We stopped in St. Louis, Missouri to go up the Gateway Arch. I had to practically force Grandpa to go with me, but he really enjoyed taking pictures and was glad he went afterwards. The shuttles that took us to the top were as I remember them: tiny. We knew Grandma would get claustrophobic, then get scared of the heights, so she didn't go with us. It was pretty much how I remembered it at the top,but I had forgotten that the side walls actually slant outward. So far, in fact, that if I leanedover very far, I could sees both bases of the Arch! We had fun in the museum taking pictures. Then we went back to the car. Finally, we arrived in Kentucky! (Well, actually we were already in Kentucky. What I mean is that we arrived in the town in Kentucky where my Aunt Kari lives.) Aunt Kari gave the package Grandma ordered offamazon: amovie. It wasnot just a movie, but a graet movie: That Thing You Do. We ate dinner there. (It was sort of like fried chicken, I guess, but it was, somehow, thinner. Oh, also there was ham in the middle. It was pretty good, though.) I also got to see my cousins who I haven't seen in about two years. Natalie is eight. She's getting baptized later in our trip. That's actually why we came here in the first place. Natalie is in second grade, but is so tall, she could be in the fourth grade. Braden is six. He's diffinitely plumper than he was when I saw him last. Leah is four, and very cute. She is a mystery, though, like most four-year-olds. Tanner is two, he is also cute, and very rowdy. But what can you expect from a toddler boy? After dinner, Natalie dragged me to her room. She insisted we play Barbies. So, we did. She was some sort of pregnant mother who wouldn't let her husband touch the babies for a month, gave Cinderella's fairy godmother a large stick to kill her older children with, and called the police saying her doctor was trying to kill her babies by feeding them. Believe me, it got weirder from there. As soon as Braden came in the room, Natalie quickly threw all the Barbies in the box so we could play ponies. That game lasted about two minutes, though, because it was their bedtime. I left the room, got in my PJs, then went back to their room to go to bed. Of course Natalie and Leah wanted to sleep on the floor with me. That night was a very long night. Leah refused to let us turn off the lights, and threatened to tell on us. When she realized we didn't care, she abandoned that tactic. Instead she ran into the bathroom, grabbed a brush and a comb, and promptly began hitting us with them. I believe it was sometime around then that Natalie went downstairs to tell on Leah. When she came back up, she said to Leah, "Daddy says that if we tattle one more time, Emily will have to leave the room." (I love the kids, but at that point, moving rooms would have been fine with me.) Leah began threaten to "peepee and poopoo" on us if we didn't leave the light on. At some point during this, I was asleep. I wish I had stayed that way, but I didn't. I woke up to Lea threatening to tell again, this time having an audience who cared. I'm pretty sure she did that seven times before she actually told her Dad. He told her to sleep in her bed, and the night was pretty quiet from there.