Dear Iowa Friends

I am glad to say we have finally returned from Iowa after one of our worst visits EVER!!! The trip started out bad on Friday night when we had to drive 40 mph starting around Lakeville, MN to about 20 miles North of Ames because of a snow storm (spring, please come soon). This turned our 3 1/2 hour drive into a five hour drive. Dylan was admitted to the hospital on Saturday for his pneumonia and we were finally released on Tuesday.

We gathered everything up and finally headed back to MN, quickly realizing this would be a completely miserable, 4 1/2 hour drive. Things went well until about Clear Lake, so we thought we would stop quick and feed the boys. We got back in the car and the crying began! It was Carter first, so we made a quick stop at Diamond Joe's Casino where Keith took him out of the car and swung him around in his car seat (should have just left me at the roulette table). Then right as he was falling asleep, it was Dylan's turn. We thought we could do the same trick as we stopped at the next rest stop past the MN border. No such luck. Another 45 minutes of on again off again crying passes, so we stopped at a Wendy's and I went in and held Dylan while Keith circled the restaurant. No luck, but we had to keep going. So he pretty much continued to cry until Lakeville, where I decided to hop in the back seat and at one last hope of sanity I decided to play South Park on Keith's ipod touch and it worked!! So, we had about 30 minutes of peace until we walked into the door around 9:30. We wouldn't have been quite so concerned and stressed during the crying, but we didn't want Dylan to have any set backs from his pneumonia recovery.

Anyhow, what I am getting at is, we are not driving back to Iowa or anywhere we are in the car for more than 30 minutes anytime soon. So if you want to see us, please come to Minnesota. We have a guestroom ready to go for visitors.

While we were in the hospital with Dylan, Carter stayed with my sister and my parents. One afternoon I met them at the mall to hang out in the kids area. Dylan totally missed out!

We thought the elephant might cheer up Dylan.

After seeing what the hospital used to suck out Dylan's nose, Keith bought an electric snot sucker from Babies R Us. It doesn't work quite as good as the hospitals.