Vacation: What a blast.

For the last week and a half Elizabeth and I have been on a fantastic tour of Iowa and southern Minnesota. We first drove to eastern Iowa (very eastern, as in the very last Iowa exit before you cross the Mississippi and are in Illinois) to spend a few days with Elizabeth's parents and some of her extended family. Over those days we were also able to hook up with my brother and sis-in-law and their two little boys (almost two years old, and not quite 3 months). We had an absolutely fabulous time. Other than the scary car accident that my brother and his family were in (don't worry, everyone's okay), everything went swimmingly - including us (we swam one day)! We got to eat out and take some pictures with Elizabeth's family, visit her aunt's garden to pick some home-grown peppers, zucchini, and green beans, go to the zoo, attend a local single-A baseball game, take a swim, eat some Iowa staples (brats, sweet corn), and spend all-too little time with family.

The next leg of our trip took us up to the Twin Cities for a friend's wedding. Elizabeth got to spend time with an old high school friend of hers while I hung out with some old college friends at Justin's bachelor party on Wednesday. Thursday was a somewhat busy day spent picking up tuxes, trying to find our way around the cities, and attending the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Friday was WEDDING DAY! The wedding was absolutely beautiful (one of my favorites, if you're allowed to have favorite weddings?). It included the groom surprising his bride with his own guitar performance of Matthew West's The Day Before You (a song which I happen to LOVE). AND, it included the couple walking up the aisle at the end of the ceremony to the theme song to The West Wing (which makes a surprisingly good wedding walk-out song, in addition to being from the greatest television series of all time). I also got to see and catch up with a good group of college friends whom I already miss!

On the way home we decided to split up our trip a little bit, so we stayed at a cute little hotel in Lincoln, NE on Saturday night and slept in on Sunday morning before finishing up our trip!

Visiting Iowa always makes me remember how much I loved growing up there, and how great of a place I think it is. Some of the special things that we experienced on our trip that we don't get here are listed below.

Whitey's ice cream
Azteca [taco] salad shells

Family

Sweet Corn

Neighborly people (not that Coloradans aren't neighborly, but when my brother and his wife and kids were in a car accident by the side of a country road, no fewer than two dozen passers-by over the next 30 minutes either stopped or slowed to make sure no one was hurt and that help was on the way -- just the kind of thing that I suspect I wouldn't see here in quite the same way)

Lightning bugs

Other things we got to experience on our vacation that were WONDERFUL (except the second thing):

Homemade ice cream

I-80 road construction (it's not fun, but it's inevitable)

Fantastic wedding & seeing friends (including Justin's surprise song, and all of the West Wing thrown in)

A wonderful hostess for us (A friend of Elizabeth's from school growing up provided us with a place to stay in St. Paul and she treated us wonderfully, giving up her bed for us while she slept on the couch, cooking us food, and sending us off on our return journey with a bag packed with travel snacks. Thanks, Jill!)

Not sleeping in the same bed two consecutive nights for a week

So there you have it. Our vacation in a nutshell. Pictures will definitely be forthcoming. We got some good ones!