Sunrise in Iowa and more...

We're back from a fantastic family road trip and have nothing but good things to say about the J-Man and his ability to travel ten hours in each direction strapped into a car seat in a car without a DVD player or TV. (We never had DVDs to watch while road tripping as children so we had a hunch he'd be fine...)

Unbelievable, really. He just watched out the windows, told us what he saw ("cow ih kai" = clouds in the sky, "neeeeyyyy!" = horses, etc.), and played with some toys along the way. We spent a lot of time singing, reading books out loud and he even napped...a lot!

The best part of the road trip was when he woke up in the middle of the Iowa cornfields to gorgeous red, orange and pink sunrise, looked out his window and said "WOW." He got the awe of nature gene! Yay!

We arrived in St. Louis, Missouri on Friday afternoon, ready to party with the family. My cousin Ben married his awesome fiance Colleen in a beautiful ceremony on Saturday afternoon and it was clear that all was well with the world for at least those few moments, if not the entire evening. They are perfect for each other and perfectly happy! (Did I snap a photo of the couple? Nope. Sorry!)

Here's what we did see though:
Jackson and Daddy playing in the hotel swimming pool...a lot!
Grama and Cousin Gigi in the pool too!
Jackson seriously enjoying the jelly at First Watch, where we had lunch Saturday (great food!).
Some of the gorgeous floral arrangements from the wedding...lots of natural things like apples, lemons and seeds/buds were used. Beautiful!
The calm before the storm, literally. Here we are at the wedding when Jackson was being all shy. Then he got a burst of energy, ran around the reception hall all night, refused dinner in favor of play and CRASHED HARD with loud tears. Who can blame him? The party started at bedtime! (Notice the green handknit sweater he's wearing...the bride LOVES green and he fit right in!) Dan and I did get to shake our booties a bit before our escape back to the hotel, thanks to Grama. We LOVE wedding dances!!
We learned that a king-sized bed is nice for initially going to bed with your toddler, but he'll ultimately steal all of the pillows anyway. He went for my side the first night, Dan's the second and slept horizontal across both of our pillows the third night.
We stopped at the New Pioneer Co-op in Coralville, Iowa for some snacks and couldn't resist this t-shirt for the J-Man.
Upon leaving the food co-op, my eagle knitting eyes spied this sign tucked way in the back of the strip mall. Knitters, you just KNOW when a yarn store is present. Y-A-R-N. Can't miss it. (This photo is blurry but zoomed way in...I saw it from much farther away!)
So I bought this lovely mohair/wool blend in a hand-paint made just for the store at Crazy Girl Yarn Shop. Lovely store! (They even had bison hair yarn...talk about luxury - so soft!!) This is called "evergreen" and I think it will be another sweater (or vest, if I don't have enough) for Jackson.
And with the yarn store mojo going, I couldn't resist pulling us off the highway to visit Beads & Beyond in Cedar Rapids, Iowa either (no web site). I picked up this gorgeous Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn in "Dusk". (As usual with the camera, this photo doesn't adequately capture the glory of the colors...)
Speaking of knitting, you can get a lot done when you're in the car for 20+ hours and hanging around a hotel room with a knitting sister and cousin! The second sleeve of my Organic Alpaca Cardi is 10 rows from being done (left the rest of the yarn at home), another sock for Jackson is done and I started my nephew Tommy's Christmas stocking. It's truly amazing how fast circular stockinette goes when you're staring at cornfields. (The white line is for the after-thought heel.)
It was cold enough on the way home that Jackson actually needed his wool socks that I knit. I loved seeing him wear them with his new rocket Robeez.
I loved seeing this even more!
__________________________
We listened to the soundtrack of "Rent" on the way down through Iowa since we hadn't heard it in so long (Dan and I saw it on Broadway in NYC on our honeymoon!). It was so fun to get back into the awesome music of the show, especially "Seasons of Love." So imagine how surprised I was to hear the band at the wedding start out with "Seasons of Love" for the prelude music! It set the tone for a fantastic wedding for a beautiful couple. Congratulations Ben + Colleen!!