Anniversary Getaway Day 2

Bill spotted this along the way - kind of backwards?
After spending the night near Boone in Ames, we went to Main Street where there are several neat shops and it happened that there was a Farmers' Market too.


I had found this street once before and knew I liked the store called Cook's Emporium. This inside picture is of the chocolate shop. They had some tasty gelato. I sampled chocolate almond. I thought the name Skunk River Cycles was interesting in the next photo.

































After leaving Main Street, we found another Farmers' Market next to the shopping center. This pasta stand was interesting. They have over 40 types and flavors of pasta like Sweet Red Onion Linguine, Jalapeno Pepper Fettuccine, Garlic Chive Seashells, Basil Garlic Penne and Spring Medley Orzo.

Boone Scenic Valley Railroad Dinner Train

We arrived at the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad & Museum yesterday in Boone, Iowa at 5:00 ready to board the dinner train and depart at 5:30. This is the train in the first picture. It's a two hour trip going through the Des Moines River Valley.

In the 2nd picture, we're going over a 156' tall and 729' long bridge over Bass Point Creek. It was built in 1912 and 1913 and replaced a wooden trestle. The pictures just don't show how far down the ground is! You had to just not think about how old it is and how heavy the train is! Click on the underlined link in the 1st sentence to go to their web site and see a better picture of the bridge!

























































































For our meal, we had a choice of Prime Rib, Chicken Marsala, Roast Pork Loin, Salmon Steak or Five-Cheese Lasagna. We both had the pork loin. Everything was very good! But look at that monstrous piece of cheesecake!

Since this trip was for our anniversary, we booked a private cabin for our meal. We didn't really want to sit at a table for 4 with strangers. We're glad we did, but as you can see in the last picture, all of the couples had tables to themselves since it wasn't full on this day.

They also do a Dessert Train and Picnic Train.

This was Bill's first ride on a train! We both really enjoyed it. We stayed in Ames last night and looked around there this morning. Pictures of that next!

Ames and Boone are very near Des Moines which is about two hours away from us. Near enough to go to once in a while but far enough away that Bill promises Des Moines will never spread this far north like cities tend to do.

Boone Scenic Valley Railroad Dinner Train

We took a two hour ride on the dinner train last evening for our anniversary. It was a nice little trip and really good food. Pictures later!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 4th anniversary! We can't believe we've already been married that long, but so much has happened in four years. Both of our dads passed away a few months after our wedding, we built a new house and tore down the old, the triplets graduated from high school and are now in college, Glenn & Amy sold their business here and moved to Dallas, Bill's brother bought a house, Diane had another baby, we have some new farm equipment and I've learned to drive some of it, we've been on some nice vacations.

You can still see a picture of our wedding on the web site for the Miss Dubuque yacht that we got married on - click HERE. We were so lucky to have perfect weather that evening for our wedding cruise and it ended with a nice sunset just as we were pulling into the dock. We always wish we could do that same cruise again with that beautiful weather and the same people on board with us and just enjoy the ride and scenery. Some of our guests mention to us every now and then that they wish we could do that again. It was one of the best weddings we've been to!

Rolfe P.E.O. Chapter Wine Tasting

It's been a busy past few days! My P.E.O. sisters and I have been busily getting ready for a wine tasting fundraiser that was Sat. night, and Mom has been here and we've been babysitting two little girls including a couple of nights overnight.

These are all pictures of the wine tasting.








This is Julie Wurr from Heart N Home in Laurens who did the program for us. She sells Iowa wines in her store which is what we sampled. During her program she teaches you everything you need to know about wine and more!

In between each wine sampled, we had an appetizer that our group prepared and including a chocolate cupcake topped with cherry sauce & whipped cream to go with the dessert wine.

























Joanne, Sharon, Peggy and Karen.










Me with sister-in-law, Karen. You see her comments here once in a while.

We also had a folk singer, Andy Juhl. He sang while people arrived and throughout the evening.





Me, Mom and my niece, Diane.

Our P.E.O. group helps women continue their education and also helps women in our local communities. It was a successful fundraiser and a good time was had by all.

New Year for Stampin' Up! Starts 7/1!

All of my Stampin' Up! customers are excited at this time of year - the new catalog comes out! I've been getting mine ready to mail and sent them out yesterday. We have five new In Colors (Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Wisteria Wonder and Island Indigo) so I labeled and included samples of them for everybody. Some of our current year stamps are retiring so check my web site and get them ordered before the end of the month!

We've had about 7" of rain in the last five days - enough! Actually a little too much. Mon. night I was in the storm room again and Bill was out spotting. There ended up being quite a bit of wind damage in the area when it was all over.

We are lucky that we're not near any rivers here. Southwestern Iowa is really having some major flooding problems with levees breaking.

I put this picture of the apple pie I made on the 18th as proof that Bill had apple pie (again). He's always saying that I never make him apple pie. He would eat it every day if I made it that often.

Speaking of pie, today we went to the memorial service for a friend's mother. She was a great cook and pie baker. Everyone here has stories of going to her house and being fed a full meal no matter what time of day and of her delicious pies. For her memorial service, she wanted a country dinner at noon, catered, with homemade pie for everyone - and that's what we had. My job was cutting and plating the 21 pies and it took me that many pieces to decide which one I wanted (strawberry - yum!)! There was pumpkin, peach, blueberry, rhubarb, strawberry, apple and pecan. It was a nice service with about 165 attending - and staying for dinner! The family took her body to a country cemetery in a wagon pulled by a team of horses before the service.