Meet Me in St Louis 2013 edition

I can wax poetic about my best friend forever. Like, seriously, I adore her. I will never be able to thank her enough for that weekend 11 months ago when she picked up my broken self at the airport, threw me into the car and took me back to her house for Thai and Hugh Grant movies.

This pretty much sums us up

I will never forget that I slept for the first time in months at her house. That I laughed again--I really laughed--because my nephew is hilarious, of course. She saved me.

The thing about best friends is that you can just sit with them and be happy. You can tell them things you swore you would never tell anyone, things you'd bury deep inside you, and then, you tell them and they understand and they get it and they hold your hand and they want to fight for you. That, that my friends, is Sara. I'd be lost without her. (honestly, I can't talk about being more than an 85 minute plane ride away from her, I just can't).

In July, I took a weekend off work and flew up to see her and the fam. As you know, Les Mis is my favorite thing in life (besides the Matthew McCounahey Reliant Energy commercials, my gawd) and Sara and I have been trying to see the damn show together for 3 freaking years. When I discovered it was showing at the Muny in St. Louis, and our Phantom, Hugh Panaro was the lead, I immediately emailed her and we made plans.

We were so excited! Never mind we'd just seen each other in April for the Renaissance Faire, which, I still owe you pictures of the rest of their trip to Texas... Ooops... Besides, we could see each other like every single day and that would be ok.

St. Louis weekend was a blast!

I got to see a Cardinals game from behind the dugout--I cried when they sang God Bless America. We had way too much fun eating hot dogs, singing Take Me Out To The Ballgame and cheering on the Cards. It was such a perfect "all American" night and I had so.much.fun!

Baseball and the Arch? Hello, Americana. 

On Saturday I got to play puppy wrangler for a bit when we took the pups and kiddo to a puplet fair out in the country. Mally showed off her skills on the agility course. Sage was just bribed with food.

My three favorites in life. Please note Mac's face. 

HOW CUTE ARE THEY?!

I got to hang out with my nephew, who is, seriously, the coolest kid ever. He's freaking hilarious and I am telling you, has the world's best unimpressed face--which, he totally gets from his mom. And I love it.

Seriously. Cutest kid ever. 

Because I'm a really rad aunt, I made up a game: pulling duct tape off my mouth. He loved it!

Later, we had a divine French dinner to celebrate my moving to England (irony?), then trekked off to the barricades together (!) where we cried a lot and even got shushed by a very grumpy gent next to us.

Ryan called this our prom picture. I didn't even realize we were color coordinated! BFF style!

I mean, we shouldn't be surprised that we were shushed. We sang the whole time, laughed, cried and shared those very special moments that you can only have with a best friend. Hell, Sara even snapped a picture of Hugh Panaro and Norm Lewis signing together onstage. If you are a stagey one like me, you KNOW how big of a deal that is. I was literally left speechless my their performances that night.

Don't worry, our seats were much closer--this was just walking to our seats

We laughed a lot, we ate too much, the usual.

On Sunday, we went to Grant's Farm to entertain Mac.

Standard Aunt A being obnoxious and Mac not caring 

But, it was really so I could feed goats.

I GOT TO FEED GOATS! BABY GOATS!

Or, he could feed goats. Whatever.

And, see the horseys. Again, for him or whatever (read: ALLY WANTED TO SEE ALL THE ANIMALS)

Note that Mac and I match and Sara and I are wearing the same shoes. NOT planned. 

It was the perfect weekend.

Especially since I got this gem:

And this little sweet pic:

We were talking about the goats. Duh. Or, I'm clutching him while telling him about the goats and he's trying to escape me. Either or. 

As per usual, I cried when she dropped me at the airport, but, I am so grateful for the times we have together, no matter how short. And, I'm uber super duper excited for her to come visit me in London and we will repeat Broadway Birthday Extravaganza, but, in London, baby!!

Sara, Ryan, Mac and random assortment of pets, thank you for the BEST WEEKEND EVER, I love you guys oh so much and miss you already like crazy. I'm so lucky to have y'all in my life!
xoxo