Port of Dubuque

Once Mom had recovered from her knee surgery enough for me to leave her on her own, Bill flew from Ft. Dodge airport (45 min. from our house) to Indianapolis, stayed a few days and then we drove home together. It's a 600 mile, 10 hour drive so this time we decided to not get up at the crack of dawn to leave and drive all day to make it home. We got the sheets in the washer and cleaned up the upstairs bathroom so Mom would be ready for any unexpected guests, and left around 10:30 to just drive about halfway.

Our first stop was in New Liberty, Iowa to see one of my long time Stampin' Up! friends, Nancy. She lost her husband to cancer a few years ago, had recently remarried and I had not met her new husband. You should check out her blog, This Old House in New Liberty . She and her husband have redone most of their old house and it looks great. I didn't take my own pictures for my blog since she has such good ones on hers. She's also very crafty. We walked across the street in their tiny town and ate together and then we headed through the country north to Dubuque to stay for the night.

When Bill asked me to marry him, we decided to get married in Dubuque since it would be a four hour trip for his family and friends and six for mine - kind of half way. When we rode the paddle wheel boat (last picture) on another trip to Dubuque, Bill had noticed the Miss Dubuque at the dock. So when we talked about getting married in Dubuque, we thought it would be fun for everyone to be married while cruising on The Mississippi! We checked into it and that's what we did. It was a perfect day on June 30th, 2007 for a wedding cruise!

Our picture is still on the Miss Dubuque's web site under weddings HERE. However, the minister was not theirs - he's Richard Clark, my minister and friend from my Carmel church, Central Christian. Richard and his wife were nice enough to travel to Iowa for our wedding.