Twas the Day before

We woke up this morning with a bit of a hangover, or as Susan likes to refer to it, "feeling Small".


We went out to a local music pub called the Gas Lamp to listen to the band that Susan's nephew Neil plays in. They didn't go on until 10:30 so we had to listen to a horrible band that was on before them. Very young and loud. Thankfully, Phil had earplugs for us.

Anyway, it is a bright sunny day in Des Moines and there is no chance it will be snowy anytime soon. Bad for Christmas but good for our return trip.


On Thursday, we went to Amana, Iowa. It's about a 90 minute trip near Iowa City. The Amanas are known for their hand crafted crafts. It's not Amish, but very close.

One of the best things about the visit was lunch. We ate at this restaurant called the Ox Yoke (I think) and they serve food "Family Style". I guess that means that you eat a lot of food cuz that was definitely what we did. Fabulous mashed potatoes and even more fabulous gravy...and plenty of it.

During the trip we passed a wrecking yard for combines. I've never seen that before or even conceived of it. But of course, there has to be a wrecking yard for combines. They get old. They wear out. They get into high speed collisions during harvest.


I ordered Susan a laptop on line for Christmas. I was getting very tense because it was very difficult to communicate with the shipper about sending it to Iowa while all my billing information was in Spokane. Fortunately, it arrived yesterday and it looks to be a nice computer. I'll find out more about it once Susan opens it.


We are decorating cookies today so I guess I had better get prepared for that holiday fun.