The Mighty Mississippi

This past weekend Mike and I dropped the kids of at Grandma Linda and Grandpa Curt's and headed up to northeastern Iowa for a weekend with some college (callege, for some of you) friends.  It was my first overnight away from Drew, and it was fine.  It sounds like he didn't sleep super well at Grandma and Grandpa's, but I don't think he did too badly.

Anyway, of course Drew took a wonderful nap on Friday, so we left later than we wanted.  Why is it that whenever you want a long nap, they take short naps, and when you're ok with a short nap, they sleep forever?  So, we got a little later start than we had planned, but I think that turned out to be an ok thing.  While we were on the road to Guttenberg, our friends Troy & Jenny, Arch & Jenn, and BJ & Carey were already out enjoying the river.  Somehow the jetski got flipped and, from the sounds of it, two couples (who will remain unnamed- you know who you are) nearly went to divorce court over the whole ordeal.  The remaining couple sat nearby slamming beers trying to deal with the stress of the whole situation.  So, thanks, Drew, for taking that long nap, and letting your mom and dad avoid the major stress of the day!

When we did get up to the cabin, we went out in the boat and Mike, Carey, BJ, and I think Troy did some tubing.  Troy had to work pretty hard to get Mike and BJ thrown off the tube (Carey wasn't up for a wild ride), but eventually he succeeded.  After playing around in the boat we all headed into town for dinner and then back to the cabin for a campfire.  Our friend Dave met us at the restaurant, but he had to leave his lovely wife behind because there was nobody to watch their kids.  We missed you, Laura!  And don't worry- Dave wasn't any more obnoxious than normal!

Saturday morning there was a little rain, but once it cleared up, the guys headed out to golf while we girls sat around being lazy.  It wasn't too hot, so I decided to go for a quick run, and I got back just after the guys and just in time for lunch.  We then got our suits on and headed out on the boat again.  We took the boat up by Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin, hit up a couple of sandbars, played a cornhole tournament which the Burggraafs won, although in this case the Burggraafs consisted of Mike and Dave, because I just felt like laying out and getting some sun.  The guys did some more tubing and water-skiing- I guess none of us girls felt like getting in the water.  Even Arch got on the tube, which is big because as he tells us about every 5 minutes, he can't swim.  Mike stood ready with his life jacket on while Arch was tubing just in case Arch freaked out when he got in the water.  We ended Saturday with some Casey's pizza, which still seems weird to me.  For those of you who are like me and aren't from Iowa, Casey's is a gas station chain around here, and Iowans swear by Casey's pizza.  I think it's weird to get pizza from a gas station.  Sorry Jenny O, but I don't think it's the best pizza ever.  The crust was really good, though.  

Sunday we all headed out early to get back to our families.  I think a good time was had by all.  Getting together with those friends always feels like hanging out with family; we know each other so well.  We bitch at each other, we laugh with each other, and everything else in between.  People (mostly Arch and Dave) get inappropriate, and we all just blow it off and we're still friends at the end.  We've known each other so long and done so much together that we're totally comfortable with no make-up and no showering.  It's nice to be so comfortable with friends.  Unfortunately, I had my camera with but didn't take any pictures.  I hate it when that happens.

We got back to the boys Sunday at lunchtime, just in time to see Pa (Mike's grandpa).  He and Zach had just gotten done doing some fishing, but they didn't catch anything.  Zach seemed to have had a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa over the weekend.  I'm just glad to be getting back to a regular week and to not be gone this weekend.  We've been out of town the last 3 weekends, and this weekend Mike is golfing in Atlantic, so I guess it'll be some long days for me, but at least I'll get to sleep in my own bed and try to have some semblance of a routine.  Hopefully we'll get to take Zach to the Iowa State Fair, and I'll get to write about that later.