the pad

We made it to Iowa in one piece. But just barely. Our drive here was scary! And not because the children were acting like wildebeests in the backseats. I wish that were the problem. No they were pretty well behaved. Besides a few requests for food (which I fulfilled by chucking snacks at them over my shoulder) they quietly sat and watched Frozen...over and over and over for the duration of our trek here.  No the scary part of our drive was the weather.

But first let me share a few pictures from the first part of our trip. An hour in we stopped at our friend's parents' house and spent a lazy afternoon swimming in the pool. 

(Yikes! I am pasty white. First thing on my to-do list in Iowa is find some sun!!!)

 

We were blissfully unaware of the fact that we were about to drive into the eye of the storm. It was a perfect afternoon of sun, swimming, and snacking...all with our favorite people!

We hit the road in the early evening and I promised the kids a cheeseburger from McDonalds as soon as we got to Iowa. (Mistake #1.)

Turns out there aren't a plethora of McDonalds in rural Iowa. Who knew?!? About 80 miles down the road I finally spotted those beautiful glowing Golden Arches on the horizon. And for some odd reason I was feeling extra compassionate towards my children and decided we would actually stop and eat in the restaurant (instead of using the drive thru and me tossing their cheeseburgers at them). I also promised them icecream cones if they ate their dinner well. (Mistake #2)

After the slowest service, we were all seated and enjoying our burgers when the skies turned BLACK. Actually a greenish-black. I madly started texting Joe requesting weather information. Charlotte was trying to decide if it was lightning or if someone was taking pictures outside. Mysteries abound:) Upon Joe's suggestion, I quickly wrapped up dinner and loaded the kids into the van WITHOUT the promised icecream and made a beeline out of town. 

I assumed we were driving out of the worst of it. Wrong! About 10-15 miles down the highway (and in the middle of wide open fields) things got uglier. The sky was green. The rain was pouring down. And lightning was coming down on both sides of the van. The thunder was practically shaking my van.  It felt like a bad dream. A very bad dream. And then this popped up on my phone...

Shelter! Ack. I would have loved to taken shelter. I definitely felt like we needed shelter. But again we were in middle of a field with nothing in sight! So I kept driving and called Joe in a panic. He quickly did a little research and discovered (based on the mile markers on the road) that we were basically in the eye of the storm. Joe also suggested we find shelter! Since that wasn't an option I white-knuckled it and drove as fast as I could. (Can you drive faster than a tornado?!) It was a very scary 30 minutes before we made it to more normal looking skies. Still stormy. But just your ordinary appearing thunderstorms. 

But we made it. And I hope to never have a repeat performance of that drive. Never ever again thank you very much!

We are now living the dream in a two bedroom basement apartment. It's another fourth year medical student's apartment (he is away on a rotation elsewhere). It's a complete bachelor pad but it is sufficient for our family of five. Enough with the words. Here it is in all it's glory...

My only complaints about the place are these. The bathroom smells. Like a dirty bathroom. But it appears clean. Again with the mysteries! And second, there is no dining room table and chairs. Suffice it to say meal times around the coffee table have been interesting (and challenging)!

Charlotte's initial assessment was "kinda great" while Isaiah rated the place as "good". 

Our first full day here was filled with even more rain and tornado sirens! Enough with the bad weather Iowa. We want to get out and have fun! And by fun I do not mean exploring Wal-Mart as a family...though that was pretty fun. I think that activity won't be as entertaining the second time around. Just a guess.