Iowa!

Well...we were in Iowa this weekend for one of Ryan's work trips. He had to work overnight Saturday, so we packed up the car and the kids, and headed down.

It was a nice drive very little rain. Although I hear there was major rain/tornadoes here in MN. We didn't do much Friday. Just ate dinner at the hotel, and took the kids swimming in the ecoli infested hotel pool. (You can't tell that I don't like them can you?)

The first night the kids slept in the adjoining room together. It was not bad. I didn't sleep great, but it was ok.
The following morning we went the cemetery where my Godmother's parents and grandparents are. It was a really nice day. The last time we went there, we were joining Ryan on another work trip and Claire was very little. She was scared of, "That lady who keeps lookin' at me mom!" Of course there was no lady to be seen. And I could see the whole of the place, as it was a small country cemetery, with only a horseshoe drive. We left fairly quickly. It was not cool. But, in her defense it was during what I like to call, THE DIEGO INCIDENT.

Thankfully I believe Claire has grown out of her creepier-than-shit-little-Asian-girl-seeing-messed-up-dead-things phase. I hope so at least. There were no old ladies looking at her this time.

Afterward, we headed to the Science Center of Iowa. It's pretty cool. Similar to the Science Museum of Minnesota, only on a smaller scale and geared more towards kids MY kid's ages. It was great for them. They did experiments. And there was a place for little toddlers and babies. We spent a couple of hours there and then headed to lunch.

We went to a place called The Spaghetti Works. I thought it would be the same as The Old Spaghetti Factory here in MN. Not so much. I can't go into details, but suffice it to say, my daughter who LOVES pasta, would sell out her brother, father and mother for it, refused to eat her lunch. It wasn't good.

The day ended with a trip to the book store, and Target. It's not a day if it doesn't involve a Target run. The kids went swimming for 2 hours with Ryan. I stayed in the hotel room and did some reading. Yay! Alone time!!!

Ryan left for work at about 9:30pm, and I sat, hoping the kids would go to bed. Between listening to the hundreds of young boys at the hotel for a little league tournament, and the wedding in the ballrooms, I didn't think it was going to happen. OH MY FUCKING GOD was it loud. And, we were right across from the elevator. And lots of tween boys running around a hotel while their parents got drunk in the pool area.

But it settled down "kid" wise after about 10:30. Then the REAL fun began, as a drunk couple from the wedding stood outside my door, swearing at each other. LOUDLY. Of course I had to look out the peep hole. It's not called a peep hole for nothing. And I saw the lady slap her husband. Like...really slap him hard. She did it after he told her, "you fuck everything up you stupid fucking whore." It was really unnerving, and I wasn't going to do anything about it until I saw him cock his fist at her. So I quietly opened the door and scared them both. I politely told them I had two kids trying to sleep and could they please keep the yelling down. I think I caught the guy so off guard, he apologized and then told me his wife was making him so mad. But the woman kept yelling. So I said, "Are you ok? Should I call the front desk for you?" Then they left.

And..I went to bed. Claire insisted on kicking me throughout the night which was all kinds of fun. And then in the morning, Ryan informed me we were leaving a day early because the job he was doing didn't work out the right way and he would be coming back over ANOTHER weekend to try and get it finished. So we left.

The only highlight of the drive home, aside from the torrential rain that we encountered upon entering MN, was a guy, wearing the following t-shirt, walking into a Dairy Queen with his probably 10 year old daughter.


Keeping it classy in Mason City Iowa.