from toasty iowa

a few months ago, jonathan was watching msnbc on tv, and he yelled to me, "shelley, isn't that michael g on there?"

and yes, it was michael g, who was being interviewed on national tv.

yesterday morning, at about 5:30 a.m., jonathan leaned over to me at the airport and said, "shelley, isn't that art leonard?"

and indeed, it was. art (who is doing all the music at our wedding and possibly even the reception) was on the same flight as us to salt lake city. he was accompanied by his wife, kristina, and their two kids...and what was the coolest surprise? kristina showed me all the prints i shot from their wedding while we were on the plane!

after an eventful landing in salt lake (which involved a freakishly scary landing and subsequent mini-takeoff because the plane ran out of runway to land), we flew to des moines and headed to grandma's.

tiffany and her family, my aunt darcy, and grandma and grandpa hosted a fabulous dinner with my very favorite meal, maid-rite! tiffany wants to remind everyone how awesome iowa is... :) and i am now writing how awesome she is. it's been so much fun to be with her and her son, jj, and her husband, travis, who is also a geocacher like jonathan.

grandma wants me to tell you "all about my wonderful, wonderful grandparents". for the record, she standing next to me as i type. grandma even picked up fresca for a round of fresca myascas. it was good stuff. we played a few rounds of cards and caught up. it was a mini-version of meet the parents. it was so much fun.

before going to bed, grandma told me, "shelley, i've decided you can keep him." :)

we introduced jonathan to cracker barrel for breakfast, and tiff took us to culver's for lunch...stella would have been proud. we found diet mountain dew and cheese curds. my cousin, tara, came out for the morning to see us. i can't wait to welcome her back out to the northwest in december.

the forecast for today is 90 degrees. can you believe it?

it's out to uncle jim and aunt deanne's tonight in urbandale for dinner with the rest of the fam.

tomorrow, it's up to do the 'meet the fockers' in ames - where we'll have lunch with jonathan's cousins (who also live in iowa!) and his aunt and uncle - who are out visiting from rainier for a month. isn't it a small world that we have family within an hour and a half of one another in the middle of the u.s.?

we're late for dinner, because i'm blogging, so i'll sign off. but first, i want to give grandma some e-props, because she actually has high speed internet here at the house!

time to get my flip flops on for the bbq in the hot sunshine!