Mid-May (11-14th) we traveled back to the midwest to attend my grandma's funeral. On the morning of May 11th, we got up at literally the ass crack (2:30am Seattle time) to catch a 5am flight to Denver which then shot us over to Des Moines. In Des Moines, we were able to meet up with a partner from my old firm who I would say is the sole reason I have stayed in public accounting (everyone has one of those people in their lives). I haven't been back to Des Moines since we left in 2005 so it was interesting to see the city again and of course, it was great to see my old boss, too. After we had lunch with him, we drove the 1.5-2 hours to Denison, Iowa. This was the hometown of my dad and where my grandparents lived for YEARS. I'm not even sure how many... 70 maybe? I spent much of my childhood there but again, haven't been back since probably 2003 or 2004. It was good to be back.
After getting settled in to the bed and breakfast we were staying out, we met up with my extended family for dinner.
...where my dad ordered pancakes and got two that were probably twice the size of his head. Now THAT is what I'm talking about when you think about pancakes.
And no, he did not even come close to finishing them all. We crashed that night as Justin and I were supremely wiped.
The next morning we woke up to this view at the B&B. Iowa is really pretty gorgeous. And a couple more to follow:
After eating breakfast (AMAZING, btw- I literally ate about 5-6 pancakes), we got ready for the funeral. Man, I was so much smaller then!!
And one more. We headed to the funeral which was a really nice service. I read the blog post I had written about my grandma during it. It was really very touching and cool to see how many lives she touched throughout her life.
After the funeral, we headed to an old favorite Iowa golf course to play golf- Manning Manilla.
Also known as the official place Justin became totally and completely infatuated with the game of golf. A few more pictures of our day of golf to follow... sadly, I didn't get any pictures of my mom or I. I think we always teed off at the ladies tees so I just forgot. Oh well.
After golf, we drove our rental car back to Des Moines and then headed home to Kansas City. It was a LONG drive. We were all wiped when we got home. The next day we celebrated mothers' day with a big BBQ at my parents house and then took it easy until we left Monday afternoon. It was a great long weekend in the midwest, despite the unexpected reason for initially going there.
