Loess Hills Autumn

Last weekend, Seth and I decided to take an afternoon drive around Glenwood and Mills County to enjoy the beautiful fall colors. It was an amazing afternoon and I was thankful that I was able to capture some photos what we saw.

I started in our front yard. It turns out that our three little trees along the driveway are absolutely gorgeous in the fall!

We started out heading south of town.



Seth took me down a rather treacherous road that he had discovered on a previous drive (he loves to drive around and explore country roads).

Notice the evergreen tree leaning precariously DIRECTLY over the road. YIKES!

It was strange and amazing and I loved it!

It led to an adorable little bridge and a clearing in the woods.

We continued along past some incredible views of the terraced farm land.

We saw these in several places - dark windy branches with bright red leafed plants growing up between them.

We ended up at the end of the road at a little cemetery. Some of the stones had been replaced with newer ones.

And some looked to be the originals.

Seth and I are fascinated by old cemeteries.
Headstones like these never fail to break my heart though.

"We loved this tender little one
And would have wished his stay,
But let our Father's will be done
He shines in endless day."


We passed through another "tunnel" road on our way out.

And passed a front yard that housed a long horn!

These are some of my favorite things that we saw along the way.

Signs like these:

That stand before bridges like this:
(notice what is... or isn't... on the other side)

But best of all:

That's right. "Quackenbush".
Why oh why can't that be the name of our street???

Snowed In for Christmas!!!

On our way up to Seth's parents' house Tuesday night there was freezing rain/wintry mix/sleet or whatever you want to call it.Wednesday morning there was 1/4 - 1/2 inch of ice coating everything outside.Thursday afternoon the snow started.

We went to church at 1pm, then went to visit Seth's grandmother at the care center and made a stop at Walmart. By the time we were on our way back to the house (about 4:30pm) there were several inches on the ground and the wind was kicking up some serious drifts. At the top of every hill we drove over the snow was blowing so badly that visibility dropped to zero. We got back to the house to find that the power had gone out. It came back on at about 5pm and my mother-in-law was able to finish the turkey that had been in the oven since before we left for church. We had a hot dinner and opened some gifts.

The "kids" (my husband, his two brothers, my future sister-in-law, and myself) hung out in the basement playing Kelli's wii and a pretty awesome board game called Encore. Just after we finished the game, the power went out again (about 1:00am). We figured that was a good sign we should all go to bed.

This morning we opened presents, enjoyed a Christmas cookie breakfast, and then a cheese-and-cracker-with-summer-sausage-left-over turkey-sandwich lunch. We all took naps and awoke around 3:30pm to find the POWER HAD COME BACK ON!!!

So now that I can get online, here are some lovely photos of the snow here in western Iowa:

The ice and snow covered tree in the back yard:

The driveway:Check out the cows! And I thought I was cold!

a not-so-smart person who tried to drive their car up the big hill:

It's still snowing and we're going on 18" (not counting the drifts!)
The good news is that Seth and his dad drove in to town and Seth feels pretty confident that we will be able to make it back home tomorrow.

In the mean time, I'm definitely enjoying the whitest Christmas I've ever had!

MERRY CHRISTMAS
to you and your families! I'm praying that you are enjoying a blessed and joyous celebration of our Savior's birth!

Some overdue photos of the snow

About two weeks ago Iowa got hit with a ton of snow. You may recall my post about the three snow days in a row that I had that week. In that post I included some photos of our driveway and cars under 10-20 inches of snow (depending on the drifts). I also promised to post some pictures from our drive around town that day. Well... two weeks later, here they are!

Our street:

The hills of Glenwood, Iowa:
Downtown Glenwood:

We're up at Seth's parents' place right now for Christmas and they're forecasting 12"-18" of snow by Saturday morning (on top of the 1/4" - 1/2" of ice that's already coating everything.)

It should be an interesting drive back to Glenwood on Saturday morning... at least it's only 90 miles!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Taking my holiday temperature

I have always prided myself on my ability to wait until after Thanksgiving to turn on my Christmas mood. I would walk by the holiday aisles in Kohl's and Hobby Lobby shaking my head at how crazy it was for people to start decorating for Christmas before Halloween was even past. I had very strict rules about waiting until December 1st to listen to any Christmas music. I love holidays, but I have always taken them one at a time. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. No blending. No mixing. One. at. a. time.

Then I moved to Iowa.

I have written about at least once already, I am working on adjusting to the weather up here, which is a bit of a challenge considering I had finally started to get used to the weather in St. Louis just in time to move away. Don't get me wrong, I love it here in Iowa! I love our new town, our church, my job - all of it. But I'm having a bit of trouble with the weather.

October temperatures in Iowa are too much like December temperatures in St. Louis and it's throwing off my internal Holiday thermostat! Halloween is still 4 days away and I am finding that I am getting a bit itchy for Christmas. What the heck. Seriously.

I was running errands in both Kohl's and Hobby Lobby this evening and I actually caught myself looking longingly at the Christmas aisles, and even - gasp - wandered down a few! And even worse, had to tear myself away from the stocking hanger display (which got me really excited because we actually have a mantle piece now from which to hang stockings!) while chanting to myself "It's not even Halloween yet. It's not even Halloween yet."

I have also noticed that when sitting at my desk at work and scrolling through the playlists on my ipod I've been lingering a little too long on the "Christmas Instrumental" mix. It is far too tempting. I'm even considering removing it temporarily until after Thanksgiving as I'm becoming fairly certain that I won't have the will power to last another month without taking the plunge.

I brought up this whole weather/holiday conundrum to Seth tonight. He said he likes that it gets cold earlier because then Christmas is in the middle of winter instead of the beginning. "You'll get used to it," he says.

Used to a winter that's long enough for Christmas to fall in the MIDDLE?!?!?!?!

I think my Christmas itch might be least of my worries after all...

Welcome to Iowa

Seth and I woke up this morning to about an inch and a half of SNOW on the ground!

Just to clarify, it's October 10th, it's 31 degrees outside, and it's snowing.

Wow.It's so strange to see snow on the ground when the trees still have their autumn colored leaves on!

It's all relative I suppose...

I lived in Chicago for 6 years. During those years I got used to pretty cold winters, lots of ice, snow, and wind. I got used to short springs and autumns, and very. long. winters.

Then I moved to St. Louis and all too quickly forgot all about the Chicago weather. Suddenly spring started in March instead of May and leaves didn't start to change color until the middle of October. Even though winter was much shorter and somewhat milder, I still complained. I remember complaining to my mom on the phone about how cold it was and she laughed at me and asked what happened to the "Chicago girl".

Now I'm in Iowa and summer is definitely over. The high when I left work today was about 45 degrees with really strong winds. I'm starting to get a little nervous about winter up here. If I went from Chicago winters to St. Louis winters and turned into a wuss... what does that mean for me going from St. Louis to Iowa?!?!

I'm trying to channel Chicago and prepare myself for the months ahead... but I'm thinking it's not going to be pretty.

a specatcle unlike any other

This is homecoming weekend for Glenwood High School in my new home of Glenwood, Iowa.

My previous experience with high school homecomings consists of a football game and a homecoming dance. And that's it.

Well apparently not in Glenwood.

Ever since Seth and I arrived here in mid-July, we've been hearing from people about homecoming. "Oh just wait til homecoming!" "Have you heard about our homecoming yet?" At first I thought it was just a highly developed sense of community pride, but as the big weekend started to approach, I began to realize that it was so much more than that. Here in Glenwood, homecoming is probably only second to Christmas in terms of preparation and celebration.

First, there's the parade. People begin planning for parade floats before school even starts. The parade has a theme and all floats must be connected to the theme. This year's theme was "Going Green" (as in environmentalism - not the school colors, which are in fact black and gold). Allow me to introduce you the various categories of parade participants:

1. The Authorities
The mayor, the city council members, school administrators, etc.

2. The Alumni
There are floats for every class going back in 5-10 year increments all the way to the class of 1949. (Plus, the 25 year class of 1984 got to go around the route twice)

3. The Royalty
There are various types of convertibles, ranging from 90's mustangs to 20's or 30's cars with jump seats down in the back, which carry the varying levels of Glenwood royalty. There's the reigning homecoming king and queen, the candidates for this year's king and queen, and several of the kings and queens from the alumni classes (see #1). There's also the Outcast King and Queen ("Outcasts" are any people who didn't graduate from Glenwood High School. They also have an "Outcast Dance" after the football game.) and the Keg Creek Days (a local festival held in August) prince and princess who can't be more than 4 or 5 years old (see photo to the left).

4. The Kids
Now I would have expected that perhaps each school would have their own float in the parade, but no. Every grade has their own float, and every student rides on their grade's float. Even local daycare programs have floats.5. The Bands
Two middle schools and the high school.

6. The Churches
Our church was the only one with a float in the parade this year. Which means we won the prize for best float in our division.













7. The Businesses and Organizations
Some examples: local restaurants, the after-school tumbling program, boy scouts, etc. (I didn't get to see this part of the parade as I jumped on our church float as they entered the square and missed whatever came after us)

The parade route includes three sides of the town square (one small block that is home to the county court house) and the entire parade lasted over 90 minutes. I think what I found most shocking though, was the amount of people who came out to see the parade. Every inch of the parade route was plastered with people in their Glenwood black and gold - at 1:00pm on a Friday. The entire town was shut down. Every store front was covered with encouraging messages for the team. And I must admit that I, too, took a half-day off of work so that I could witness the spectacle for myself.

After the parade, people went home to rest and freshen up for the JV game, followed by the varsity game. The stands were completely packed, but we were lucky enough to find some people from church who happened to have space in their section for Seth and I. We sat between the star player's grandmother and a local beauty shop owner. It was a wonderful game and the Rams won 17-0.

The game was immediately followed by a complete fireworks display that lasted almost 15 minutes. It was hard not to get swept up in the charm of the moment. Sitting in the football field stands after watching the local team with the homecoming game with beautiful fireworks bursting overhead and every child in the town sitting out on the football field.

In the words of little orphan Annie, I think I'm gonna like it here. :-)