Iowa: a first

Rainbow near Grundy Center, IA

I'm half-Iowan, if that makes sense. My mom was born and raised there, and I grew up there too, partially. We get back often - a few times a year - because of these roots, and to see the people we love who are still there.

First stop, three hours in.

Squash face

My latest trip to Iowa was a first though. I went there alone, with my two boys. I have a small clan of  good, old friends from the Iowa days who I wanted to see. My friend Malissa now lives in Washington and was going to be back near our old hometown for her sister's wedding. She e-mailed the other three of us to see if we could make it out. I am the only other wild card, being second-furthest away in Michigan, while Teri and Deborah both live in Iowa. At first I wasn't going to go. I had just been there with my family the month before, and I knew my mom couldn't come with me this time because of a surgery she was scheduled to have. So I dismissed it.

But then the e-mail responses from my friends continued to come in, saying "I'll be there!", and I thought to myself, what's stopping me from going alone with the boys? Deborah comes to Michigan alone with her three kids to see her sister all the time. I felt inspired by her. If she could do it, so could I. Thirteen hours each way? Meh. It was do-able.

Blue skies and big trucks

Rain over Minnesota

Windmills were a common part of the landscape

My little creeper. And my glasses are crooked.

Last stop - relief from one of Theo's two meltdowns.

So I did it, it went amazingly well, and I was inwardly a tiny bit proud of myself. I feel like I could do it again sometime, no sweat.

One major thing that helped were two great little kids' albums by the 90's band, They Might be Giants. We checked out both the ABC and 123 records they had made from the library (Jude is currently obsessed with letters and numbers), and both Jude and I were singing along with every word a few hours into the journey.

Also, the big sky and massive cloud formations were incredible. I have probably 20 photos on my phone of the various stages of storms rolling in and out, and it was breathtaking.

Lastly, it helped that we stopped to stay overnight with my lovely grandparents eight hours in. If we hadn't been able to do that, it probably would've been a deal-breaker on taking this trip. What ended up being a fifteen-hour journey would've been a wee bit too much to ask of my small-ish boy-children.

Jude with his Bedstemor ("Grandma" in Danish)

Hanging out with my friends was so great. There's always that catch-up period, but a few hours in we were talking over each other like we always used to do. My friend Deborah's sister, Heather, said to her, "Do you realize you guys are constantly interrupting each other?" We laughed and agreed that we still manage to hear what everyone else is saying. We're just excited by each others' presence, I guess.

Seven of the ten collective offspring

Deb's Jackson with Theo

I sadly did not get a photo of the four of us together, but I did snap a couple of our multitude of offspring. Malissa has four, Deb three, Teri one, me two. We tromped around Sioux Center, Iowa with our ten collective children for an afternoon, hitting the park, a huge open space in the mall (because it rained for awhile), and a coffee shop.

We're seriously discussing having our next reunion in Las Vegas, a destination that usually wouldn't interest me, but with these women (and maybe without the kids), I wouldn't say no :)

Best in All the Land...

Posts to this blog have been sparse lately - sorry. I'll make up for it. One of my excuses is that Jude and I were whisked away to Iowa for four days in my mom's white Geo for a Dieken Chick Reunion of sorts. We busied ourselves hanging out with our parents, grandparents, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins, most of whom had never met Jude. We had *awesome* weather and spent a lot of time sittin' and spittin' on my grandparents' back deck and watching sunsets over the corn fields.

Jude was a gentleman despite being out of his usual eating, napping and night-time routine. You can say you'll keep them on a schedule while traveling, but you just won't, so forget about it. He was up partying with the rest of us until 11 pm most nights.

He also got to spend time with other babies; a novelty for him since he has no siblings or cousins and only occasionally gets to see the neighbor baby. He stared open-mouthed at little Asher and Eden like, "Excuse me, but I'm usually the only small-bodied creature in the area. Can you tell me where you get off?" He had a perplexed look on his face much of the time, which I coined Cheerio Mouth because his tiny lips form an "o" to go along with a knitted brow and flared nostrils. It's unique, or maybe special, that look. We got much amusement out of it.

I guess I could write more, but you can just look at these pictures instead:

I'll leave you with the lyrics of the song my mom insists on singing whenever we cross the Iowa border. (Part of this tradition is to call someone -- the likely victims being Jono or my dad -- so that they can hear us singing it and know where we are.)

We're from I-o-wa... I-O-WA!

Best in all the land

Joy on every hand

We're from I-o-wa...I-O-WA!

That's where the tall corn groooowwws.