Ball!

David and I traveled to Kansas again over the weekend--but this wasn't for the holidays.  It was to go to my uncle's inauguration celebration.

Friday night when David and I arrived, we were greeted by a fantastic brisket meal, my parents, my sister and her fiance, my aunt Mary, cousins Eric and Adam, Adam's son Wyatt, and Eric's wife LaNita.

It was a fun night-- Aunt Mary refused to tell stories about herself because my father is the "Chronicle of Time" and would re-tell any stories at regular intervals for the next thirty years.

True, very true.

Everyone was enjoying adult beverages except Wyatt (he's 10) and me.  Then Wyatt busted out a RedBull at 9:30 and I got jealous...so I went and got chocolate milk.  That's about as fun as I'm getting for a while.

The next day, almost everyone went hunting and I went to the clinic to play with Maggie. 

And I took a nap.  I'm exciting. 

That evening was the ball...look how snazzy I can get!

I don't think you can tell I'm pregnant yet...except my ta-ta's aren't fitting into anything.

I'm not usually so scandalous with my dresses...but this one cost $17 and the more modest one cost $70.

I can totally sacrifice modesty for $53 in savings.

Cher and Kyle arrived in Lyndon at 4:30 after driving in from Colorado that day...I think she looks awesome! 

And here's my Great-Aunt Delores, Grandpa, and Grandma Stainbrook.

We posed in front of the stage... because we're cool.

David was trying really hard to get a picture of this guy's jacket--who wears a denim jacket with a SILVER DOLLAR CITY iron-on decal on back to a ball? 

And here's the family of origin.... we never managed to get one we all the extended family, mostly because there were over 2,000 people at the ball and all of them wanted to talk to Sam. 

I think we look pretty good, though.

On Sunday, Kyle, Dad, Cher, and David (along with all of Aunt Mary's family) went to the Chief's game.

I could have gone, but it was cold...there was seriously no way I was sitting in the cold that long.

I blamed pregnancy.  It worked like a charm.

We were supposed to go to the actual inauguration on Monday, but a MONSTER storm hit Kansas Sunday night and the roads and weather were terrible.  So, we headed back early, hoping to beat the storm to St. Louis.  It took us 7 1/2 hours to drive was normally takes 5 hours, and it was rough going.  I'm a little sad we missed the ceremony, but we saw so many accidents...I'm glad we headed back when we did.

Today, the storm hit St. Louis and I had a snow day.  Maybe we should have waited until today to come back?