Iowa Curiosities & Dellit adventures

On Monday night, Dani and Bobby stayed over night for a sleepover since they were on break from school. My dad called on Monday night and said that he and Mom were going to Marshalltown in the morning to see a dog (Mom is on the hunt for a rescue) and he asked if we wanted to come.

This sparked a whole day of adventure.

I got Brad this book for Christmas. Since we want to see as much of what Iowa has to offer as we can, I thought this would be a nice addition to our travels.

The kids have no certain time to be home, so in the truck we hop, with Bob behind the wheel...

We decide to meet my parents at Grandpa's in Gladbrook, and then follow them to Marshalltown. Since we couldn't get together for Christmas, we took Grandpa one of his gifts....

When we got to M-town, we went to the rescue league and visited dogs (heart melting.....) and then to eat lunch with Jessica and Curt at Applebees. We told them about our intentions at side tracking a bit on the way home to see our first "Curiosity" from the book. (Brad scoped the Marshalltown section of the book; We now consult the book and the atlas every time we leave town). Well, they both have seen it and assured us it was nothing exciting....And of course, we went anyway.

Well in true Dellit style, we made funny memories while visiting the site, even though the site itself was relatively uneventful. We were in Toledo, at the corner of 30 & 63 at the Bronze Cow & Calf, made in honor of the lady who makes the butter cows at the state fair.

The statue is at the very top of a hill, that has no sidewalk or anything and has a snow bank completely surrounding it. So, Bob and Dani have no boots, so how do we get around this? Brad goes first and makes big shoe prints, carrying Dani the whole way. Bob and I follow in his footsteps. How none of us fell, I will never, ever know. The adventure up and down the hill was as fun and funny as the cow and calf themselves.


Brad and Dani on the way down the hill

The sign at the top of the hill


Who doesn't want their picture taken with a bronze cow...don't be jealous.


We can't let the fun end there...we stop back to see Grandpa again for a bit and then head out because the dogs are probably close to crossing their legs by this time.

We are passing through Traer on the way home, and we decide that Dani and Bob need to see the winding stairs in Traer? Why? Because it will probably make a good story later on...Besides, who doesn't want to see the winding stairs...again, stop with the jealousy...

Christmas & Quelfing with the Heides

The Christmas part:

On Monday night we had part II of our Christmas with the Heides. I was not prepared for round 1, as some gifts were still in the mail, so we did another round - I just like to call it making Christmas last longer...

Dani's loves her new scrapbook kit.

Bobby is OBSESSED with John Deere. Seriously, he should get paid for all the marketing he does for them.

Dave & Char - I love the idea of this book; The Story of a Lifetime is book where you journal things as answers to questions all throughout the book, either as a couple or as family and you can pass it on as an heirloom to your children. It is the neatest idea I've seen in a long time. The fact that Brad's mom is no longer around to tell us family stories inspired me to get them one....I wish we had one that she wrote in....

The Quelf part:
Quelf? Yes, Quelf. So it's a game that Brad got me for Christmas and it's totally random & totally hilarious. Here is some of the craziness from our afternoon...


Brad had to tape "Quelf" to his head & then didn't want me to take his picture.

Charity had to read something backwards while pinching her lip.

Bobby had to take pictures of us with his invisible camera and say things like "Work it" until the timer ran out.

Dave lost a round and his penalty was to hold a spatula in his hand for the rest of the game. Just when we thought it didn't get funnier, Dave had to make toilet flushing sounds each time someone else got a penalty.

We were rolling, it was so funny....

And this was all sober...Can you imagine the non-sober version?

Christmas...kind of....

Due to a few people being sick and the wonderful weather we had, we decided to postpone our family Christmas and will have it in January when Tiffany is back.

So we had a scaled back version instead. I had set the TiVo for all of the Christmas classics and started cooking after lunch time to the sounds of Clark Griswold hanging his Christmas lights. We made a turkey breast, green bean casserole, and I attempted sweet potatoes and homemade cranberry sauce for the first time (courtesy of the Thanksgiving cookbook from from William Sonoma that Tiff and J-rod gave me a few years ago...boy were they yummy! sauce and the potatoes, that is.

I invited a friend from work who just started about 3 weeks ago. She wasn't going home for Christmas and I could not allow her to spend her entire Christmas in a hotel. She came over for dinner and we subjected her to the movie Elf, which is always fun! Then after dinner we had a date with Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson.

We braved the ice and blowing snow to see the new movie Sherlock Holmes. We all loved it! Brad and I thought it was probably the best movie we had seen since The Dark Knight. I loved how they filmed some of the scenes and told the story...Guy Ritchie did a great job with it.
If you haven't seen it yet...it's definitely worth going to in the theatre.

After we finished the movie, we finished off the night with one last classic, the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol. It's probably my favorite version...

As for our Christmas decorations...Don't be surprised if you come to our house and the decorations are still up. It can't be Christmas without decorations...So up they will stay until Tiff is finished with her trip home. :)

A Sunday In

It's a great day. The Cowboys won yesterday, we have football on , I opened Christmas cards from family and friends, the dogs are in a cuddly mood and the Christmas lights are on. It's a great day to finish my indoors to do list before heading out tomorrow to do the rest of my shopping.

It has flurried off and on today - this is what it looks like outside.

I will spend today finishing our holiday letter, making Chex Mix (It's coming, Tiff & Melissa!), finishing my shopping list, and now am enjoying some hot apple cider.


I love apple cider this time of year. In Virginia I drove 45 minutes one way to a farm market in Grandy, NC to get the best we've ever tasted. As with a lot of things this year, I was on a trek to find the same quality here.


I tried out a health food market in Cedar Falls a couple of months back. Lo and behold, they have some fantastic apple cider made right down the street in Vinton. There is something about buying food from local farms and markets...I love it.

My cider in a great winter cup that Tiff & Jarrod gave me for Christmas a few years ago.


My winter gear


The beef stew is in the crock pot and the water for Brad's hot chocolate is on. He has been out clearing he driveway and came in looking a little like an icicle.


Happy Sunday!

A day with a friend and sweaters

Today Brad and I went to Kelly's office so I could get an adjustment at noon. Then we all trekked out in the whopping 7 degree weather (feeling like -2) to the Olive Garden for lunch. We caught up on everything we've been doing since the blizzard and about Kelly's adventure in buying a new car. She had an appointment at 2:30 at the car place.

She was feeling a little nervous about the process so I offerred up Bradley to go with her. :) Of course he did and I went home and attempted to finish my Christmas gift list....fairly successful, but only after Kelly and Brad got back and she gave me like 10 great ideas.

Then we headed to the Starbucks drive thru for a yummy, warm coffee. At this point it was now 2 degrees. After securing our warmth in a cardboard cup, we stopped at Scheels, scoped a new treadmill, got Kelly some warm wool socks, and grabbed a few Christmas gifts.

Of course, we weren't done yet. Then to Younkers for some shopping for her dad. I got Grandpa a couple of things and a few sweaters for myself. Living in Iowa means you have to step up the level of sweaters that you wear. The normal thin, sweaters do not cut it. You must go to the SWEATER section. Now, in this section is also where the horrible, ugly sweaters live, so you have to really comb through the section and find the ones that are warm and cozy without being ugly and over-frumpy.

Kelly asked the check out girl if she had any coupons and got herself 20% and then asked my check out guy if he had any, and got me 20% off - sweet.

Gotta love a deal, right, Kelly? :)

One Minute Writer Winner

Check it out!

I occasionally (not as much as I'd like) stop by One Minute Writer and spend a minute writing.

I found out today I won the daily award for a post a while back!

Tana will be so proud :)

http://dellit.blogspot.com/2009/12/one-minute-writer_03.html

One Minute Writer

Today's Writing Prompt: Welcome
Imagine you are a guest, walking into a home where you feel perfectly welcome. Describe what you see, feel, hear, etc. that makes you feel so welcome there.


smiles
hugs
yummy food
glass of wine
good friends
comfort
help yourself
lose track of time

One Minute Writer

Today's Writing Prompt: December

December can be a crazy month. What is your plan for making December 2009 into the month you want it to be?

1 word: balance