Coolest Ghosttown Ever!--Iowa

Well Rylin and I just got back a week ago from Iowa. We, along with my sister Heather, ventured to the land of rolling hills to see our sister Michelle. It was Rylin's first airplane ride so that was a big deal! She did great though...slept on all the take offs and landings. I do have to give a shout out to the Minneapolis Airport for being the nicest and most observant airport I've ever been to. They had a flippin quiet lounge with soft seats and tables to relax in...talk about treating people good! Any who, Heather, Rylin, and I finally arrived to Iowa and the party began. It was sooo much fun seeing my sister and her cute house that she has remodeled. The day we got there we did a little grocery shopping at Hi-vee where we found the best apple cinnamon cheereos made which were supposed to be for Rylin, but by the third day of being there they were gone and I think that Rylin may have had a couple hand fulls of them. Michelle took us to a delicious Thai Restaurant where we treated ourselves good. We asked the cook to make our food a hot level 2 on a 1-5 scale, but I think they wanted to have some fun with us and made it a level 5 because it was HOT! It was hilarious in the middle of dinner I looked over the table and Michelle had taken Rylins apple cinnamon Cheerios and was shoving them in her mouth by the hand fulls to cool her mouth down and all Heather and I could do was laugh. Oh by the way Rylin just got her first tooth!

The next day was considered our Very Funny, but Very Bad Day. It started out when Heather and I took a 3 hour tour of Iowa trying to follow Michelle's directions to Costco. When we arrived home Michelle was supposed to have the homemade bread done, but in fact she was just starting it. We had already gotten ready for the day, but we had decided that we wanted to go shopping, to dinner, and then to a local hair show so we wanted to get dressed up a bit. Let's just say a bit went a little over board and at one point Michelle looked like a drag queen, Heather was trying to look like Melissa off the Bachelor and was having no such luck, and I looked like plain Jane. We then left to go shopping, but as the day was treating us, all the shops had closed at 5 and it was 6, so there was no luck there and we only had an hour before the hair show started so we didn't have time to go sit down for dinner so we had Ted Coney's Island gyros for dinner. We scarfed them down and got to our seats to find that no one else was dressed up like us. Now for the hair show...let's just say that we WAY over paid for a production that 3/4's of it was the staff strutting down the run way in awful black outfit and their hair looked like any Joe off the street. Fortunately the money went to charity or else we may have picketed for our money back. Afterwards we wanted to drown our failures with a treat and Michelle had been ranting and raving about the best raspberry-peach milkshakes she had ever had, so we went to the shake stop and ordered these MARVELOUS shakes that really ended up being nothing but raspberry-peach syrup in milk. To Michelle's defense she did say that the one she had before was a 10 and these were like a 1, so it must have been who was making it that day. That was our day! We ended it in the hot tub where we reminisced about the day and just laughed!

Sunday was fun because we went to church and got to listen to Michelle teach her YW girls a great lesson and afterward we came home relaxed and made ourselves a FABULOUS meal and finished it off with games and dessert crepes that were to die for!

On Monday Heather, Rylin, and I slept in and packed a picnic. When Michelle got home from work that afternoon we went to the lake and ate our picnic. There we soaked in some sun and ended up meeting a random mentally ill man that began talking about things that strangers or anyone for that matter should never discuss. He talked to us for like 20 minutes and we decided that the only way to end the discussion was to leave. We decided that since we didn't get any shopping in on Saturday that we would go during the afternoon to some different shops. This is when Heather and I realized that Iowa at this time of the year is officially a ghost town because the shops were once again closed! There were like 2 stores open. One was a costume type store and we did get some sweet pictures there. That night we went to Centro's and there we ate and talked Heather into missing her flight and going the next day. Good times.

Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day. Michelle, Heather, and Rylin all had green to wear, so I was the odd man out that kept getting pinched. We went to breakfast where we all enjoyed green pancakes, green french toast, eggs, and bacon. It was fun because we sat with some random strangers and had a great time. Heather then had to catch her flight, but Michelle, Rylin, and I got to enjoy the St. Patrick's Day parade. Now that was quite an experience. It was a bunch of Irish Descendant Families that were drinking and throwing out beads like Marty Graw. My favorite float was the one that threw out real potatoes and cabbage at people. Hilarious! I loved people watching there. We were going to leave about half way through it so we could enjoy lunch before I left, but some Handicapped van blocked us in and we began panicking because we didn't know if the parade would end by the time I had to leave for my flight. I did catch my flight in time, but I don't think we will be cutting it close like that ever again.

Thanks Michelle for showing as a great time! We miss you and had a lot of fun. Glad you are home Nick and now we want to come back when we can see you both and it isn't a ghost town! ha ha.