Unexpected Trip: Day 2

Tuesday was the day of the funeral. It took place at Zion Lutheran Church in downtown St. Louis. This was the church my father and his family grew up in, supported, and had a gazillion memories of. I remember many times going to the church for a service or a lunch gathering. My great Uncle Elmer and my Grandparents were very involved - such a beautiful church, the stained glass windows were just as amazing as ever.

Zion Lutheran

After the service and the processional around downtown St. Louis in the car to the cemetery, we all gathered for Grandma's last wish - celebration of her life with some good food and company.

Outside the restaurant

It was actually very good food (in a really bad St. Louis neighborhood). We were the majority of the people in there - it was early Tuesday - so we got our food fast and ate it up.

Toasted ravioli. A St. Louis tradition.



Numm.

The specials were fried chicken (which my father got) and chicken dumplings - we decided this was a special sign from Grandma because we had Sweet Sue's chicken dumplings like almost every time we went to visit her and Grandpa when they lived downtown (when I was younger). Never quite tasted as good when not at Grandmas...

Del and Gina - with a fried pork chop

Oh and there was chicken dumpling soup as well. Yep.

The L clan.

***

After lunch, we all split up and my family headed to Ted Drewes on the way back to where we were staying.

Outside on a Tuesday afternoon. It's always busy.

Mind you, we were already completely stuffed with lunch (ordered three toasted raviolis for just our table), and Darin was about to burst. Yet, he still got a mini strawberry concrete. He's a glutton for punishment.

Poor Darin. Luckily he's not lactose intolerant.



The family. We looked kind of bleak.

It was a pretty sad day all around, but fun memories were made.