dual personalities

My weekend made an interesting zig zag when daughter #1 came home on Wednesday night for a work event on Thursday and stayed until Friday morning. Then we drove back to JC together so we could do some Christmas shopping on Saturday.

We walked over to High Street to eat lunch. The capitol looked beautiful. That night we drank wine, ate some French bread and cheese…

… and watched a favorite Rock Hudson movie, Come September (1961).

That’s the one where where a quartet of hipster college boys take on Rock Hudson and lose terribly. A classic.

On Saturday we drove to Osage Beach and checked out the outlet mall–the four stores we like anyway–and did quite well. We braved the line to get into the Bath & Body Works to buy our 3-wick candles…Buy one, get one 50% off–such a deal!

When we got back to JC we drove around and found the neighborhood with the big old houses and also Hough Park with its serene lake and golf course in the middle of town.

Hough Park is named after Judge Arthur M. Hough who presented 50 acres to the City Council in 1917, requesting the land be used for the city’s first public park. I know you are wondering, but, no, Judge Hough was not a relative of ours–he descended from the Houghs that settled in Virginia. His father George Hough moved west to Jefferson City and helped establish the first Episcopal Church in JC. The name “Grace” was given to the parish and the name of the association was “Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen of Grace Church, Jefferson City”. George Hough served on the first Vestry and his wife, Mary C. Hough, was the first person confirmed there on April 17, 1841, by the Rt. Reverend Bishop Kemper.

We also drove around Lincoln University, which, you will recall, was “founded in 1866 by the men of the 62^nd and 65^th United States Colored Infantries and their white officers, for the special benefit of freed African Americans.” 

It has a very nice campus right in the middle of town.

We also went to Central Dairy and brought some coffee ice cream home to eat.

My plan was to take the Amtrak back to St. Louis on Saturday night. This was a good plan–unfortunately the train was an hour late and then halted (without explanation) for about half an hour outside Hermann, MO. This was quite disconcerting (especially when the lights went out) and caused several children to become hysterical and the already drunk group of young women in my car to become drunker. We eventually got going again and rolled in a couple of hours late. The OM was there to pick me up and I was very grateful to be home in quiet Kirkwood. So all’s well that ends well.

Meanwhile daughter #2 and her petite famille moved into a rented house–so exciting for them! I think they are pretty worn out from their exertions!…

We all made it to church again and I have to say the wee twins are making themselves right at home, which is the whole thing, right? They are very comfortable. They learned about Jonah and the whale (“It was a big fish!”). We discussed this lesson during lunch afterwards and I told them that this had actually happened to a man this year on Cape Cod. But this happened to Jonah because he was disobedient. We adults were treated to another slam-bang sermon on Romans 6: 1-14.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.  And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6: 12-14

Grace abounding–glory hallelujah!