Our Trip to Iowa Part 1

Some of you may know that Iowa used to be called "home" for me. I was born and raised there until my parents moved to Arkansas. A  few years later I was back in Iowa where I finished school, had a couple kids and went to College. I have a great deal of family that still lives there. Des Moines is only about 3.5 hours away from where we live now, so visiting is rather easy to do.

We went to Iowa to participate in the Van & Bonnie Chocolate Breakfast as a vendor. While there, we stayed with my girlfriend Carrie and her family. They live out in the country, literally in the middle of corn fields. It was nice to get away from the big city for a while.

Once we left Kansas City and arrived in Des Moines we visited my Aunt and my cousin. From there we went to Imelda & Jeremy's house. If your a blog follower, you already know who these precious two are. They moved to Ames, Iowa so Jeremy could finish his Masters in Bridge Engineering. I REALLY enjoyed my time with them. The first night Imelda made Indonesian cuisine. It was very good but spicy.

I got some additional tips on how they relate in their culture. Some do's and don't if you will.

• Take your shoes off at the door. Always!
• If you invite someone over for dinner it is expected to be completed BEFORE the guest arrive. So in other words our guys "hanging out at the BBQ" while the women finish up in the kitchen is a big "No!No".
• Guests offend their hostess if they help clean up after dinner.
• Indonesian food is cooked from scratch, make from fresh ingredients.
• Indonesian food is VERY spicy and usually fried.
• Indonesian food takes all afternoon to cook.

It was very interesting to learn these small things. I felt really weird not helping after dinner to clean up, put food away and do the dishes. However the next morning, Imelda invited us over for "American" breakfast and when she went in to bath Anders and get him ready for the day, I sneaked into the kitchen and washed the dishes!

 

Imelda and my baby Anders.

We spent the night at Carrie's. She warned us to bring warm clothes. Carrie lives in a farn house that was built in 1886. There is no heating ducts in the second story. Just radiant heat. Although we kept the door to Jordan's room (which he so graciously let us stay in while we were there) and there was a small space heater, when I woke up the next morning and told Hali it was time to get up~ I could see my breath! YIKES THAT WAS COLD!

 

At 9 AM in the morning, my car was registering -2 degrees! We had a heat wave, it got up to 4 degrees that day!

Thursday Night we got the opportunity to see Jordan Wrestle in a Tri meet. I had never been to one of these before! Jordan's highschool was the sponsoring school. Jordan is pictured in the red uniform.

 

This was Jordan's first  year to wrestle. We are very proud of him!

 

  

  

We also got to visit with my brothers while we were in town.

 

This is Hali with her Uncle Dan.

 

Our favorite "new" niece and  cousin Katie. She had just finished a cheer competition of some sort.

Needless to say we ran and ran the whole while we were gone. Coming home was a welcome relief!