Christmas in Des Moines, Day III

It is currently 9:40AM in Iowa but our bodies are still kind of set at 7:40. Susan is still sleeping and I am letting her. She did the bulk of the driving yesterday and deserves some alone time with her snoozing.

I had to get up early to move my car out of the driveway. Our hosts, Margaret and Phil (Susan's sister and brother-in-law) needed to get out. Phil had some stuff to do and Margaret wanted to break out the snow blower and take care of the 6 inches of snow that had fallen.

I don't want to tempt the fates or anything, but we have always had incredibly great luck on this drive to Iowa. We've never had any problem with weather. It looks like we did it just right again this year. 

I should not get cocky because we still have to drive back!

I have two and a half days to complete my Christmas shopping so that is where my head is. What I am talking about?! I have two and a half days to START my Christmas shopping.

7:55PM: We went out to lunch at a place called the Waterfront. Do you get the irony in that? We're in Iowa. And they have a restaurant called the Waterfront. To be fair, there is a man made pond out the back. In spite of the location, they have really good sea food. I had scallops. Tastey! 

Afterwards, we bounced around to a few places so Margaret could do some errands. We ended up at Dahl's grocery store and purchased assorted items for dinner...and beer.

I think I'll be buying some select bottles of booze prior to our return to Washington. It's much less expensive here.

We ended the evening watching the latest James Bond film, "Skyfall".

The plows are already cleaning up the streets but it is going to be cold for the next few days. It is currently about no degrees,