Snow Queen

So I heard about the snow in Utah....No snow here just cold. But that is not what this blog is about. It has been decided. We are going to make the Snow Queen's (from the Nutcracker) Castle for our gingerbread house. I don't know if she had a castle but if she did it would look something like this..



Less purple more blue and of course lots of gingerbread. Our castle will not be as elaborate seeing as I've never made a gingerbread house before. How hard could it be? After all I did make this...



OK, enough of the bragging and in all honesty it's not even close to perfect. If anyone has some good tips on making gingerbread houses I'm all ears. Suggestions welcome!

Slip'N'Slide

Here is the video of the slip'n'slide from the wedding. Love it! Great memories were/are made doing this.

Things I Love about Iowa

1. I love all the church history out here. It might not be the biggest place to learn about the Mormons, but there's lots of fun things.

We recently visited the Kanesville Tabernacle. This is the spot where Brigham Young was sustained as a prophet. It's a neat little log cabin building. They let Lincoln play the organ that's over 100 years old.

Every year they have a gingerbread house display that is open to the community. Our stake puts on the event, but anyone can enter. Lincoln and I are teaming up with the Smiths (this great couple in our ward) to make ours.

The theme is: Stories, Songs, and Rhymes of Christmas Time. It doesn't have to be the birth of Christ Christmas. It can be anything. We want something really unique. Any suggestions would be great!

2. Cheaper gas. The average price of gas that we've paid is about $2.50. I have to drive about ten minutes to work so this is nice.

3. No sales tax on food. It's wonderful. I swear we save so much money on grocery shopping. The tax is only on goods not services. So we still have to pay tax if we go out to eat, but that's not very often.

4. Same sex marriage! Just kidding. But really, I just learned it's legal in Iowa.

5. There's lots of trees out here. Everything is very pretty we've really enjoyed exploring. The other day we visited the pedestrian bridge. It goes from Council Bluffs to Omaha across the Missouri River. It looks really cool. I didn't take this picture obviously, but I like how you can see on both sides of the river. The side with all the buildings and lights is Nebraska. The dark side with the trees you can't see is Iowa.

The ZOO

The Omaha zoo is the coolest. They have a HUGE desert dome. You get to walk around as if you're in the different deserts in the world. Some of the animals are just walking around with you (mostly birds). Underground they have a nocturnal and swamp exhibit. In the swamp all that separates you from the crocodiles is three feet, a net, and a railing. Super cool.

They also have a jungle exhibit. Same concept as the desert one (except giant bats instead of just birds flying around). The monkeys just swing from trees right in front of your face. No net, no fence and no glass. They could jump on you if they wanted. The Sloth in this picture is about two feet from Lincoln. I think he wanted to pet it.

This Jaguar did not like Lincoln. He kept circling and hissing!
The rain forest bridge. There's a waterfall on the one side.
Looking through the waterfall

Lincoln trying to see what the bird is looking at.

This is a gorilla just hanging out by the window.

Home Sweet Home

I finally uploaded pictures, so there's a lot of them.


The first set is our rainy day. Lincoln had his first D.O. interview in Des Moines. It's about two hours from Omaha, so he drove. We only have one car, so I went with him. I spent most the day shopping and I went to a really neat art museum.

On our way home we stopped in Madison County. You might know of a famous bridge there? Yep, we went to see it.
We also went to see the birthplace of John Wayne

As you can see in the pictures it rained...no, more like poured a tsunami on us. It was fantastic! I love the rain. I made I made Lincoln stop at a park so I could jump in puddles. And of course I found something better. A purple dinosaur. It was one of those rocking ones on the giant spring. The best part about it was that it held two people. Not just kid sized, but adult sized people. About the size of Lincoln and myself! Oh what fun it was.



And what is a small town without the small town dinner and pie? We had the French Silk Pie. mm..mm...good.

This is our new bed. I love it! When we first got married we slept on a full that sunk in the middle. Then we moved into Grandma and Grandpa Andreasen's. They had a queen that also sunk in the middle. Now we have a new bed and it's just right.
This is our living room the first day we moved in. Pretty much everything we own is in this picture.
The drive out here was about 16 hours. We did stop one night to split it up a little. Still, it's nice to get out and stretch your legs a little. We took pictures at all the important points of interest. We only missed one. The Welcome to Iowa sign is a little difficult to get a picture of. It sits above the freeway right over the Missouri river. I don't think you are supposed to stop on the bridge.




This is our moving van. Most of it's Lincoln's!
Kim and Cory came and helped us load everything up. It didn't take too long, but it did rain. No surprise there. Ask Kim, it always rains when one of us tries to move. The kids were very cold. The next time we will see them is Christmas in Disneyland!!!
We had a list of things we wanted to do before we left. We didn't have time for most of them. This is our hike to Mt. Naomi. We packed a lunch to eat when we got to the top. We were unpacking the bag and we found $100 bill. It's not unheard of for someone to find a dollar here and there. I once found $20 in an old winter coat, but $100!? YAY!