A Week in Iowa

Nick and I made a trip to Iowa last week to be with family. As many of you may know, my beautiful (inside and out!) Aunt Melissa passed away after 6 tough months with aggressive cancer, so we were in town for her services, to see family. While we were in town, Nick's grandma passed away, so attended her services as well. It was an emotional week, but with family is where we needed to be. Heaven gained two hearts of gold. 

Here are some photos of the week in Iowa:

Typical midwestern beauty on our drive. 

The sunset from Aunt Melissa's - one of her favorite things. Out in the country where they live, the sunsets are breathtaking. 

My cousin Jenny and I enjoying the sunset. I wish I had photos with the rest of my cousins, but we didn't take those, darn it!

My dad gave the eulogy at Aunt Melissa's funeral and did such a great job. I'm so proud of you, dad! You put so much heart and soul into your words to honor your youngest sister, which you're always great with. You are truly one of a kind with such a beautiful heart (especially for your family :)) - we're all blessed to know you!

With all of the rain this season, the corn out back of Aunt Melissa & Uncle Tim's is crazy tall! I'm so thankful to have this man by my side through this journey in life. 

Once we were in town with Nick's side of the family for his grandma's services, we got to spend quality time with them too. We always love time with Hank! He's growing up so fast and is just the cutest. 

The church Nick's grandma and grandpa have attended for many years in Decorah, IA. Nick's parents were married here too.

From Decorah, we took Amber back to Des Moines to see her hubby Zach after being apart for over 2 months. It was fun to see this fam come back together and fun to see how excited Hank was to be reunited with his daddy. 

Another Iowa sunset on our way to Des Moines. 

Handsome boys!

My well dressed man. Did you know next week is our 5 year anniversary?! It's crazy. We've had some crazy 5 years, but I wouldn't want anyone else by my side through it all. Love you, babe!

Today's Pinspiration:

This poem was at Aunt Melissa's services, I really like it. We will miss Aunt Melissa and Grandma Kathryn dearly and wish we had more time with them. We know we will see them again someday, and I get teary picturing their bright smiling faces with our Healer in Heaven. I think they'd tell us to dry our tears and that they're ok and that all is well. 

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Cookies & Christmas

We traveled all over the place to see friends and family over Christmas and New Years (about 55 hours of driving.. whew! Luckily I wasn't the driver ;)) We had a wonderful few weeks celebrating the holidays.

Here's a gift I gave to some people this year - I was really excited about it! Pre-measured ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies. There are just a few extra liquid ingredients to add and you have EASY home made cookies. I thought about making a few jars for myself for days I want homemade cookies and don't want to mix them up :) Here's the "recipe" I used to make the cookie jars - they're super easy!

Got to see friends we don't get to see very often! Love these girls and wish we lived closer! :)

Got to visit my Grammy who we don't get to see very often. It was great catching up with her.

And got to see Midwest winter weather at it's finest!

White trees

White piles

White sunsets... oh my!!


My parents and Grammy. Notice my dad sporting his new Christmas sweater from his favorite kids :)

We spent some Quality time with Nick's family too

His Grandpa reading about Jesus' birth in Luke chapter 2. We also celebrated his grandma's 80th birthday that day! Those two are such a great and inspiring couple.

Pretty sky among our many car trips

We took a quick trip to STL to see Amber and Zach and I didn't even get a picture of or with them, but I did snap this one on the road! We spent New Years Eve with them and checked out their new pad! It was so great seeing them :) and surprising them with our visit!

A bridge between MO and IL - I've been loving the aesthetics of bridges lately... :)

Happy New Year! Let's make this year great one day at a time.

Our Move From the North to the South

A farewell happy hour with some of my co-workers - I'll miss them!

And the movers boxed everything up Wednesday

They were packing and moving everything from 8:00am - 3:30pm. We couldn't help them at all and it was very boring for us :) Oh, the rough life. We're SO grateful for all of the assistance free to us for this move.

And it's all gone! Our stuff is all packed up and in storage until we move into our new place in just under 2 weeks. It was sad to see our first place as a married couple empty, but we're excited to move forward too.

We got to see many beautiful views on our road trip! This photo is in Minnesota.

And of course, the beauty and comfort of the Iowa landscape...

Here's Kansas, day #2 of our drive, south of Topeka

The clouds were amazing south of Oklahoma City

It's a little hard to see, but there's a rainbow in these clouds!

It was hard to capture the red clay in Oklahoma, but this is a red clay river

Welcome to Texas!

More pretty clouds- what a photogenic day for these clouds! Can you tell what kept me entertained on this car ride? :)

The sky got dark as we drove into the DFW area

Then came the rain.

Not even 5 minutes later, the clouds and hard rain passed and blue sunny skies were back

The hotel we're at for 2 weeks until we move into our apartment

Our kitchen

Our hotel is very homey and even has an upstairs with a second bedroom and bathroom. We're definitely spoiled getting our bed made daily, dishes done, and trash taken out for us. Not to mention the complimentary breakfast, happy hour with snacks every day, outdoor pool and fitness room. Even with all of our temporary living benefits, we'll be excited to get into our apartment and get settled into our life here.

In the meantime, I'm on the job hunt here, wish me luck!