Sioux Center, Iowa is about 10 hours from Highland Park. Woo road trip. Thankfully Kinsey and Greg let me stay with them on Tuesday night so I could break up the driving. (see previous post)
So wednesday morning I drove up to the CRapids and lunched with Kinsey. Mmmm Pancheros. (insert mental image of your favortie pancheros meal here) I always like to order the chicken burrito; with rice, pinto beans, chicken, hot salsa, cheese and occasionally some guacamole. Oh and some Pibb Xtra. There is seriously nothing better than Pibb or Dr Pepper when it's a fountain soda. It's like no one can get the right balance and it's always extra syrupy. I love it.
Once I'd dropped Kinsey off at work again, I was off! Oh! I'm gettng a head of myself though. I forgot to mention the Carnie Caravan I saw on I-80. Yes, that was exactly what it sounds like. First I passed a truck towing one of those food stands you see at the fair. Then a truck with go karts. Then Tilt-a-Whirl seats. Then a little kid rollercoaster. It was awesome!
So as you could probably guess the drive across northern Iowa isn't overly exciting scenery-wise. The afternoon started out sunny...
Then it got cloudy...
Then it rained.....
In reality I enjoyed the drive quite a bit. It's nice to have a bit of open road and good music every once and a while. Once I got west of Fort Dodge I had a really great view of the countryside around me. This was especially nice after the rain started clearing. There was a really cool break in the clouds where you could tell the sun was setting.
The pictures don't really do it justice.
By the time I got to Sioux Center it was sunny again!
Ok, I know. You don't really care about what the weather was like. So moving on....
Once in town I met up with Amy and the Van Gorp family at Pizza Ranch for dinner. Wednesday night we just sort of sat around and marveled at the dog (pony) that Lianne and Mike were adopting. It was a full size Great Dane named Chance the ninth. He had papers and everything. (Unfortunately they ended up not keeping him, but Chance was fun for the few days he was around.)
Thursday we decorated the church. (Remember how I fail at taking the right pictures? Yea I didn't take any of the actual church.) I will do my best to descirbe it all though: Amy's wedding colors were brown and light blue, so at the very front of the church everything was done in those colors. There were boxes covered in appropriately colored fabric, on which the candles sat, then a huge line of chistmas lights wrapped up in white tulle draped to create a proscenium look. Lianne and I made bows out of tulle for each of the chairs along the main aisle and then added ribbons to match the wedding colors. Someone found these great fake votive-y lights for the floor along the main aisle. They even flickered a bit like real candles would! These candles were loosely wrapped in matching blue tulle, which made them more eye-catching.
After decorating, I went to Le Mars with Amy and Lianne to their cousin-in-law's baby shower. With the ice cream capital of the world so close to home, of course we went to the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Parlor. I was going to take a picture of the big sundae statue out front but got distracted by the cool thing the sun was doing as it set....
Friday morning we all headed to Dordt college to decorate the reception hall. Amy had ordered 400 white roses from ecuador for her center pieces. While they looked awesome, it took a lot of work to put all 40+ vases together.
From Right to Left: Amy, Jenna, Lianne, Mindy (Seth's older sister) and Janene (Seth's mom).
They also put all the boys to work filling vases, wiping them off, shuttling them out to Kinsey to set up on each table. In the end they turned out pretty great.
We also had a napkin folding party, where six of us sat around a table and folded all 240 napkins into these nifty little silverware holders.
The saucer and doily (sp?) are for the fudge cakes Lianne made. She was definitely a rockstar, making 4 of 6 batches all by herself. Each batch of fudge had to be cut into 40 circles each of three different sizes so they could be sugared and then stacked into these neat little towers. I only had to do one batch and I found it tiring.
Pictures of the cake...
Saturday morning, we snuck in a bit of pool time before getting ready for the wedding.
I mostly just love the inflatable Seahorse in this picture. (Sorry Greg and Andrew) Over the few days I was in town, I definitely got my fill of pool time. And raft wars. I think I still have bruises. I know I still have bruises from all those cannonballs I did off the top of the slide. (ask me later about my splash size as a ratio of pain theory)
Amy brushing her teeth before getting her dress on...
The bouquets....
(white roses and blue hydrangeas)
The head table at the reception....
The food at the reception was amazing! I'm always a bit skeptical of catered food, but this stuff was seriously great. I loaded up my plate big time.....
(if only my fruit hadn't fallen in the gravy!)
After everyone had eaten there was a slideshow of pictures and some old home movies of both Seth and Amy. Then the floor in front of the head table was cleared for dancing. Lianne's husband Mike had recruited his brothers to help out with DJ-ing. At one point they were having some sound issues which lead to this great picture....
(Matt and Chris are standing, Mike and Brian sitting)
Amy and her dad dancing...
Kinsey and Greg watching the fun...
The center pieces with the candles lit.....
All lined up....
Leftover cake for breakfast!
I did also stop and take a picture to use as my new desktop wallpaper. For all those times I miss the corn fields.
All in all the whole trip was a lot of fun. I forget how much I miss everyone until I get to see them again.
