So Sunday morning, Shannon and I pack up a gift and head down to Cedar Rapids to go to her niece's birthday party. we drive and listen to music, we head up 151 rather then I380, cause Shannon's Sister (kim) and Husband (mike) live on the west side of town. So the trip was fairly unventful.
We get there and park, we're a little bit early, cause I was worried about traffic and other nonsense (there was traffic, but not so much that the flow slowed down too much). So we sit around and wait for the rest of guests to Arrive. So eventually friends of Mike, show up and they bring their two spirited little boys.
A little later, Shannon and Kim's parents show up and then a bit after that, Mike's mom and step-dad.
We watched Shaylee open her presents (lots of clothes and princess things) and then we had a Disney Princess Cake with ice cream. It was pretty good cake (a little dry) and the birthday ice cream was interesting (it had like ribbons of cotton candy in it).
After chatting with Shannon's and Mike's folks we headed out and went to the north side of twon, just outside the Cedar Rapids border of town to Nathan and Jenny's house they bought over there.
The lot for the house is huge...I think maybe 2 acres. Nathan has a big honker of a riding mower to mow it. They also have an invisible fence for their dogs set up on a portion of their yard. So after a little clean up of Taylor (part one of the tripple poop experience), Nathan and Jenny took us on a tour. While on the tour of the yard, Taylor stepped in dog poo in the yard, and nobody noticed until we had gotten up from the basement and through the upstairs and back to the main level again, so she had tracked a bit of it through the house (part two of the triple poop experience). So obviously the shoes came off. Nathan then noticed that Taylor's shoes had tracked on his pants so he went to change (part 3).
So that was pretty funny.
Nathan and Jenny are still in the unpacking mode, so there are lots of boxes and etc around the house. But it is a nice big house with a nice big yard. It does have it's problems, but I think that's more due to the fact that it was vacant for a year.
Nathan made us a nice dinner (broiled steak encrusted with bredcrumbs and a sauce (with mustard in it), zucunini, and red onions). We also had a nice wine with the dinner, it was from Slovakia (red).
We talked about lots of things and stuff, from seeing people from high school (one guy came and worked on their fireplace/heater/furnace) to working on the house to moving, to the job, to produce in stores in iowa. It was fun. I really enjoy spending time with them...I didn't really realize how much I missed 'em.
At around 9, we said our good bye's and headed over to My parents and said hi and talked for a bit. We tried some of jed's bread (good, but still a little dense for a whole wheat bread) and some of my mom's homemade grape jam (from vines in their yard).
We headed home from there after stopping at a gas station.
On the way home, we talked about the wedding and the reception. We have gotten asked by a few people (old Geometry teacher from High school, and Mike's Parents) about the wedding and wanting a reception, and given the 60 person max if we have the wedding and reception at the place we are having it, then it kinda causes a problem. Cause once we get past pretty direct family, the 60 people is pretty much met. And just listing close friends and co-workers, we easily got to another 40 or 50 people too (and these are people I would feel kinda guilty if I didn't invite). So we are debating about moving the reception elsewhere. I think we will talk in earnest about this tonight.
*sigh* So much for pulling this off on the cheap.