Half Marathon

After 12 weeks of training, Suzy (my sister), Maureen (my neighbor), and I finished our first half marathon. When Suzy brought the idea up to me late last year, I just kind of laughed. She slowly worked on me until I agreed. I never thought at that time I would be able to finish it or that I would enjoy it. Today was such a neat day.....the weather was great and I really enjoyed the entire race (minus a few hills). I am very proud of us. Thanks Suzy for encouraging me to do it and thanks Maureen for being my partner in training. I'm already looking forward to our next one!

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was a very exciting weekend in the Jost household. Rikki and I were confirmed in the Catholic Church Saturday Night and Sammy, in addition to being welcomed into the church, had 2 full days of Easter! Mama, Papa and Uncle Wade came to town. Between them, Aunt Suzy and Uncle Clay, the neighbors and all of the Josts (Todd's family and the 2 of us), Sammy was spoiled more than normal

Sammy Chilling with his glasses and his Easter Suit courtesy of Papa Jost

Enjoying a "Big Milk"

The Gauldin Girls looking good! (if i were to call them the Golden Girls, which way would that be taken?)

All the Gauldins

Family Pic before Easter Vigil

Sammy with the Jost and Winker Kids

Sam's birthday party

I know a lot of you will find this very out of character for our family but Sam's birthday party theme was Mizzou.....specifically Truman. I was excited when a few weeks before Sam's party, Gregg comes home and says that he found a "Truman costume" to rent. Talking the night before the party, Gregg all of the sudden announces, "you know it really doesn't look like Truman, right? It is just a tiger costume but I thought we could just say it was Truman". Let's just say, that Sam was not fooled at all by this Truman, in fact he was scared to death of it. It is not a bad looking tiger, but it was pretty scary.

Sam is in the pic with the tiger but not happy to be there (and would only sit there if an adult was with him, Thanks Aunt Suzy)

We could not talk him into this one above with the rest of the kid. It think we have learned our lesson on the life sized characters showing up to his parties. He was terrifed this year and last year by his surprise guests (last year it was Elmo). We are going to have to figure something else out for next year. We will look back and have lots of laughs though.

The spiderman pinata (Sam above, William below)

Out of all of the nice gift/toys he received for his birthday, playing with the cheap helium balloons we bought to decorate, were the high light of the night for him.

Sam turned 3!

I was giggling looking through these pics. We were trying to get a pic of Sam hold up "3" for his 3rd birthday party invitations. As I think is he case with most 3 yr olds, capturing a good picture was not exactly easy. Here are a few of the outcasts:

The winner was:

They probably will not like this pic in a few years but it is pretty darn cute right now!

We got to celebrate my birthday with my family and the Winkers. We enjoyed a dinner, beverages and a Tiger victory together. Sam, Ben, and Eli have become quite the little buddies and kept each other entertained for most of the dinner

Butterfly House

These pics are old but I am trying to do a little catch up. We enjoyed a cold, winter day off from work at the Butterfly house with Aunt Suzy. It was a nice little get away from the reality of the cold St. Louis weather. Sam thought all of the butterflies were pretty cool too!

The basement is finished

After months of work, excitement, frustration, picking out details after details, the basement is finished. We are very happy with how it turned out and hope to spend lots and lots of time down there!

Here are some before and after pictures:

Stairs/back of basement:

The workout area:

The entertainment center/shelving:

The bar:

bar/wine room:

The wine room: