Before I get into this week’s five, I just want to mention that this past Wednesday, December 2nd, was the 14th anniversary of the day I moved to NYC! I can’t believe how long it’s been! Okay, now for my Friday Five.
1. Garden Glow at Missouri Botanical Garden: this is a super fun annual holiday light show that I finally got to go to for the first time while in St. Louis for Thanksgiving last weekend. The show has one million lights (literally!) and allows you nighttime access to the garden. There are kiosks throughout that sell kettle corn, hot chocolate (with hard mix-ins as an option for adults), beer, and wine, and plenty of holiday music to listen to as you stroll around. The show runs through January 2; if you’re in St. Louis I highly recommend you check it out!
2. Blood and Sand: this is a members-only downtown St. Louis restaurant and cocktail bar. My friends are members so they took us there for drinks last weekend, and it’s a really cool place. The cocktails are delicious, but if nothing on the menu strikes your fancy the bartender will whip something up for you based on your preferences. You can visit the place without a membership as long as you call ahead and make a reservation. It’s another St. Louis place I recommend checking out!
3. The Exorcist House: some the events that inspired The Exorcist actually took place in a suburb called Bel-Nor outside St. Louis. Somehow I’d never been by there to see the place, so I took my husband and my brother for a little drive to go check it out. I felt like bit of a dick driving by and taking a photo (it’s clearly occupied), but I guess I’m not the only one to ever do that. So…here it is, a cute, innocuous-looking two story brick home.
4. The Painted Bunting in Prospect Park! Still exciting, so he gets to make my list for this week. 🙂
5. Darth Vader and Friends mini eco journals: I spotted this four-pack in a gift shop at LaGuardia airport while waiting for our flight to St. Louis on Thanksgiving Day, and I thought they were so cute I had to buy them. The image below shows the cover design of each journal. I let my husband pick one (he took Chewy/Han), then let my brother pick one (Darth Vader), am giving Luke and Leia to a friend, and will keep C-3PO/R2D2 for myself.