Joe and I hit the road at 7:00 and were making great time until the oil light came on (just outside of St. Joseph, MO). The first place we stopped at didn't carry the correct synthetic oil (after Joe had to call the dealership to verify just what we needed). We were at that place for well over a half hour, and several people stopped to see if they could help... Nothing like the friendly midwest! We drove on into St Joseph and got it at an auto store there. We figured Joe could take care of that after we drove somewhere for me to go grab us something to eat. He was unable to get the cap off, though, so we had to drive back to the auto store to get help. All in all we ended up losing an hour and a half.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth and family took off at 7:30; ended up passing us while we were in St Joseph, and thus beat us back to St Louis. Such a joy to pull up to our driveway as not only were Elizabeth, Greg and Zoe there, but Jessica, Nick and Jay were there, too. (It was Jessica and Nick's anniversary). As you stated David, "watch out Kirkwood for the invasion of the VonderHaar's!"

SO WONDERFUL to be home and to get to start into some kind of new routine for all of us.