No it's Iowa.
I still have never seen The Field of Dreams all the way through. I fell asleep the only time I've ever tried to watch it. Am I a horrible Iowan or what?
Anywho...
I believe we left off just before I babysat the Cleveland family.
Saturday was Jess and Mitch's high school reunion, so I got the kids all day :)
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| Little Monkey |
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| Cutest thing ever? |
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| Poor guy :( He had just put a bite in his mouth. |
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I know it's dark and you can hardly see what's going on, but I rocked Ada to sleep.
A precious moment for me that I had to document somehow |
Sunday I got everyone together for fishing :) A favourite pastime from my childhood. Don't laugh at the tiny fish. We're 'catch and release' type of people so it doesn't matter to us.
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| Avery Jo probably caught the most. |
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| Proud moment. Teaching Alexa to hold the fish and take the hook out. |
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| Reeled it in all by himself :) |
Everyone caught many fish (one of the nice things about our fishing location is how well it's stocked). It's almost too easy. After fishing we went to Jess's for some pizza and then called it a night.
Monday I made my family meet up at Sancho's for dinner, our favourite crappy Mexican restaurant. :)
Tuesday I went swimming at Jess's
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| Apparently it's too sunny :) |
Wednesday I went to Des Moines to visit James and do some climbing...
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| Pacman!!!! |
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| Selfies 4lyf!!!! |
Genius me, having not been driving for the 6 months in Sydney, completely forgot about this thing called a gas tank and the fact that you have to fill it. About an hour outside of Des Moines (2 hours from home and literally the middle of no where) my tank runs dry. At the point my car shut off it's temperature gauge said 99 degrees (37.2 Celcius) outside. It was about an hour later when the towing company showed up with a can of gas to put in my car. My car still wouldn't start :( The towing company went to get another can full. At that point I get a text from my good buddy Steve asking "My Dad wants to know if that's you on the side of the road near mile 196" (that is the exact mile marker. Confirmed by Ken). I start dying of laughter. Lucky me, the 5 minutes I spent outside my car while trying to fill the tank and start it my best friend's Dad drives by in his truck. Standard small town Iowa. Ken was nice enough to pull over at the next exit he came to and waited until the tow company got back with more gas and my car actually started before he took off and continued on his journey. An hour and a half and a gallon of sweat later and I was back on the road.
By the time I got home my Grandma Nancy who lives in Florida had arrived to stay with us for a week. YAY!
And I had fire out back with Steve and Paige and Andy. It was REALLY hot. But we had S'mores.
Thursday was the main event. The Good ol' Clinton County Fair. :)
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| Hehe :) Maddox and Me |
The fair was such a big deal this year because for the first time my nieces were showing animals!!!! Pigs to be exact. (Jess I'm stealing your awesome collage).
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| Alexa and Penelope; Avery Jo and Jack |
I was so proud. And Avery even managed to make it on the Channel 8 news that night!!!
It was so fun to walk around and look at all the animals with the kids. And watching them enjoy the cheesy fair rides brought back so many awesome memories of the fair when I was a kid.
The rest of my stay was filled with packing, organising, eating, and spending as much time as possible with all of my family.
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| Double Rainbow after our meal at Texas Roadhouse |
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| A MASSIVE field of sunflowers. A random find while spending time with my Dad :) |
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| Such an awkward picture :/ But I made sure to spend plenty of time on the bike. |
Saturday I babysat the Jacobi girls :) I didn't get any picture because I was apparently too busy having fun riding bikes up and down the road with them. And we went to the farm down the road to look at the baby bunnies. There was one that was hairless except for a moustache and eyebrows. It was the weirdest thing ever. They said it was just born like that.
Monday was my last day home. I planned a big dinner at my parent's house with my sister's and their families and my grandparents. But first I left a message for my Dad to see that morning telling him to hurry home from work so we could go for a good long last Harley ride before everyone arrived. It was so nice. We took all the good routes around Dewitt, and the weather was perfect.
Then my final dinner with my family. I requested sort of an odd one. I have yet to find beef in Australia that is half as good as what I was raised on back home. Pretty much the entire time I was home I was making sure to enjoy the fresh corn-fed beef I know and love. But there were some other family favourites I insisted on enjoying as well :)
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| Cheeseburgers and brats, Waflles, and a wonderful surprise, SWEET CORN! |
All of the food was delicious. The corn on the cob was a really exciting surprise because the season for it had only just started. We honestly didn't know anyone had any yet. YAY!
We enjoyed a little bit of family time. The kids played out back.
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| The corn doubled in height while I was home. |
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| Grandma Nancy! |
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| My loves <3 Grady, Maddox, Ada, Avery and Alexa |
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| My Role Models. Jessica and Teisha |
Goodbyes were hard. I miss my family. But they had to be done.
I spent most of the night packing. Tuesday morning we went to BestBuy and I bought a new laptop (mine was not working too well anymore). And then I was at the airport.
I've told the story of my flights back so I won't go into detail about that. What I will say though, is once we finally took off out of Moline, I could see DeWitt in the distance. It made me tear up a little bit. Only a moment later we flew over the plant my Dad works at. I thought about him sitting there, unknowingly as I said my last goodbye to him and everything I love and miss so much. I'm off on my own adventure now. But I will always look back happily and will never forget what I call home. I can't wait to visit again. :)
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