Our Trip to Iowa

This past weekend the boys and I got to take a trip to Iowa to see my brother, Devin, play two soccer games. He is a Senior at Dordt in Sioux City, IA and wanted us to come see him play before he graduated. We were happy to oblige, with the help of my parents. The boys were great travelers! The boys were very excited about getting to ride on an airplane. I was a little afraid that the excitement would only be temporary and that they, especially Ryan, would become scared. The excitement lasted though. Colin loved the little air fans, playing with the seat belt, continuously opening and closing the window shade, and looking outside. Colin got a little nervous when there was turbulence and he would just sit there and hold my hands. Ryan thought it was funny when we had a bumpy landing on our first flight. So glad it made him laugh though and didn't scare him.

We flew into Omaha and took a shuttle to a local airport where we stayed for the night. Colin didn't take a nap on either of the flights so my goal was to keep him awake and shoot for an early bed time. I was afraid he might get cranky, but he seemed to be pretty wired. We hung out for a little bit and Colin entertained himself with one of the trash cans while Ryan zoned out to some cartoons. I had ordered some pizza for dinner and managed to fall out of the chair while eating. I tried leaning over to try and pick up some meat that fell and apparently I leaned a little too far. Ryan thought that was hilarious. He was kind enough to come help me up though while he was still laughing. We headed down to the pool for some swimming, but the water was FREEZING. The boys swam around for about 15 minutes, but I noticed Colin's lips were even looking a little blue and he was starting to shiver. I felt sorry for him; yet it was quite cute. So back to the room we went for a really warm bath.



Friday morning we woke up and gave Grandma & Grandpa a call. They had been driving and got in about midnight. After breakfast and getting the car packed we started driving to Sioux City. After stopping for lunch I gave the boys a life saver and Ryan chewed his in about 5 seconds. I told him that he's not supposed to chew it, but suck on it. In all seriousness he looked at me and said, "But Jesus told me to chew it." I think we all laughed for about five minutes.

The rest of the weekend went by pretty fast. We went to Devin's first game Friday afternoon, then out to dinner. Saturday morning we went to a local park to let the boys play for a bit. I think they wore Grandpa and Devin out. Then we headed to Le Mars, Iowa to the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Shop. Apparently Le Mars is the Ice cream Capital of the World. Of course I married into a Texas family, and I currently live in Texas, so this would not be very impressive considering Blue Bell is the ice cream of choice. But in Iowa, it was a big deal. Of course my boys don't know the difference and to them ice cream is ice cream. Saturday afternoon the boys and I headed back to the park while Mom & Dad did some grocery shopping for the dinner they were going to grill that night. Then it was back to game #2, then back to Devin's dorm room for dinner. My parents made a feast for Devin and his 6 roommates, plus friends. They had salad, steak, chicken, baked potatoes, grilled vegetables, green beans, french bread, and brownies. Colin had tried tearing the brownie box open earlier in the day but was so busy playing with all of Devin's friends he didn't even eat one. The boys enjoyed all of the extra attention and I didn't mind the extra help either.

















Sunday it was back to traveling. All in all, the boys did great again. Colin decided to sing during half of the second flight. I don't think the man in front of us really appreciated it, but I figured that singing was way better than screaming. We had a rough ending to our day of traveling, but not due to the boys. That's all I'm going to say about that. We made it home safe, just later than we thought. I took tons of pics; yet not enough. Lindsey helped me out with taking most of the ones at the park.

I already missed Iowa today and their lovely 80 degree weather, cool breeze, and green grass. Wish we would have had a little more time to hang around, but life called us back home.