A Quad City Wedding and Weekend

It's only a little over 4 hour drive from Rochester to the Quad Cities, but a rain/snow mix caused us to leave even earlier in order to make it to the 2pm wedding of our friends Mike and Anna. 

Picturesque snow covered trees outside of Carolyn's apartment 

The weather improved the closer we got to the Quad Cities and we made it with plenty of time to spare before the wedding. The wedding ceremony was held at Augustana Chapel, which is located conveniently just down the road from Brandon's mom's apartment. As anticipated, the ceremony went off without a hitch and we enjoyed congratulating Mike and Anna afterward. It was also a short and sweet ceremony (the best kind) so we were able to return to the apartment as we awaited the beginning of the reception. I took advantage of this time to take a nap. 

The wedding reception was at the Blackhawk Hotel. Upon first hearing the locations of the ceremony and reception, I felt this was the truest Quad City wedding I'd ever attend. Why? Because, the ceremony was in Illinois and the reception was in Iowa. The event would cross the Mississippi just as the Quad Cities do. 

Congratulations Mike and Anna!

At the reception, Brandon introduced me to people he knew and then caught up with them on life. It was especially nice to meet Mike's parents whom Brandon knew well from spending hours at their house and going on family vacations with them. I believe the highlight of the reception for us was seeing Mike dance. Brandon couldn't recall Mike ever dancing. It was a fun time, and we're incredibly happy for Mike and Anna. 

Enjoying the reception at the fancy Blackhawk Hotel

On Sunday we were able to spend time with Brandon's mom. We went to church with her and afterward spoke with a lot of people from Brandon's childhood. After a big lunch we spent the rest of the day relaxing. In the evening we treated ourselves to the Quad City favorites of Hungry Hobo sandwiches and Whitey's ice cream as well as watching Spectre, the newest James Bond movie. It was a great way to wrap up our time in the Quad Cities before heading back to Michigan the next day. 

On the Road from QC to Denver

After spending several days in the Quad Cities we left on Friday, January 22nd, to head further out West. We left around 10:30 am so that we could stop for lunch at a gas station near the Amana Colonies. Generally, lunch at a gas station doesn't sound appetizing. But being near the Amana Colonies this gas station has really good sandwiches made with meats, cheeses, and breads from the Amish. I was skeptical when Brandon took me for the first time on a visit to Lincoln a year and a half ago, but he's right...the sandwiches make for a delicious road trip. 

 Gas station near the Amana Colonies with a delicious secret

Delicious sandwich loaded with Amish meat and cheese on some German black bread

After just six hours down I-80 we were able to stop in Lincoln, Nebraska for the night. We're so thankful to have Brandon's brother and his family living in Lincoln to visit with and help break up this leg of the trip to Denver, Colorado. We had fun catching up with family and learning how to play the game Zombie Dice. We were even able to see Brandon's dad as he drove in from South Dakota to coach our nephew's basketball team on Saturday. 

After a wonderful evening and morning with everyone we were torn between staying for our nephews' basketball games that afternoon or getting on the road to Denver. Our friend Nate had already flown into Denver the day before, and we didn't want to keep him waiting too long. So we decided we should head out. It's too bad the basketball games weren't earlier in the day. But, we'll be staying in Lincoln for a month this summer, so we can look forward to watching our nephews play a lot of baseball. 

So, we continued down I-80 to I-76 to Denver. I have to say that the seven hour trek felt much longer than that to me. Maybe it was because we had already driven six hours the day before. Maybe it's because I'm not good at sitting still. Maybe it was the somewhat monotonous scenery. I'm not sure. But, we made it safely to Denver and were thankful for good weather and traffic all the way there. Upon our arrival we were warmly welcomed by Nate and his parents. Shortly thereafter we began planning what days would be best to drive into the mountains to ski and snowboard and make good use of our Copper Mountain passes. More fun to come! 

Buffalo Bill Cody cut-out contributing to the Nebraska scenery 

Lovely sunset in Eastern Colorado highlighting our dirty windshield

Our January QC Visit

The first stop of our road trip was of course the QC. We had spent a little bit of time there during Christmas. But that was a whirlwind of family get togethers, not leaving much time to catch up with our friends in the area. So we wanted to make sure we fit in some more time for them before we head further out west. Plus we also thought it'd be nice to hangout more with my mom and grandma without the holiday busyness. 

During the mornings and afternoons we did a variety of different things to keep busy since most the people we wanted to hangout with worked during the day. Katie crocheted some more and managed to complete her afghan! We went over to hangout with my mom at her work a couple times. We also made it out to my Grandma's place a couple times at the fancy Fountains. There we caught up on life, ate lunch once, and even managed to track down plane tickets for getting to Spain since we were able to use the fancy Fountain's WiFi. So it was both fun and productive: Win Win!

Just chillin under our newly completed afghan! 

Also, since it was bitterly cold and we still needed to get in some exercise, we decided to take up the typical retirement activity of mall walking, sampling the scenery at both the North Park and South Park malls. For what it's worth, North Park was way better since the recent renovations on South Park are just dumb. They at least still have Chick-fil-a and an Orange Julius. But I am quite proud to say that I resisted the temptation to get either. We did however pick up a couple of sugar cookies from Old Town Bakery (not in the mall) since our efforts to get one were thwarted the last time we attempted. If you've never had one or it's been a while, its worth a visit for sure! We even had them brought in by my mom for our wedding all those years ago. 

Katie with her cookie. Exciting times!

Our free time wasn't all fun and games though. We ran errands. We had to deal with more insurance stuff as well as get our car checked out by a mechanic. But the good news is that there really did not seem to be any additional damage from the accident we had the week before. Huzzah!

[Disclaimer: The rest of our QC tales are sadly lacking in the picture department. I missed the opportunity to picture document tacos, a cat, and fun times with some super awesome friends. For this I apologize. Hopefully my words will paint a good enough picture for us all.]

In terms of the times with our friends, on Monday we hung out with my good friend Mike and his fiance Anna. We met them at Mike's place and ordered the QC delicacy Harris Pizza. It was quite delicious! We even got two free pizzas since the first two were a little burned, so they made us new ones and let us keep the old ones too. If you've never had Harris Pizza, you are missing out. Since it had been awhile, we all chatted a lot and caught up on life. It seemed like there must be lots to catch up on since the first thing we learned when we walked in the door was that Mike has a cat! Technically it was Anna's cat, but still, seems like something Mike would have mentioned to me since we usually chat online once a week or so. Their cat's name is Zahra, and she was awesome and super friendly. She especially liked Katie, so much so that I'm pretty sure Katie wants to steal Zara. Watch out Mike and Anna! :) We also watched some episodes of Parks and Rec and ended the night by doing a kickboxing/martial arts workout video since that what they do on Monday nights. It wouldn't have been too bad except for the pizza sitting heavy in our stomachs. But it was still a fun way to live life with them for at least one night. 

Tuesday night we met up with our friends Auzie, Kristy, and their two kids at La Flama Mexican Restaurant. The food was great. We ordered tacos! Though good tacos are easy to find in the QC since there are so many great Mexican restaurants. It was really nice to catch up with them. We exchanged stories of the last few months. We were especially eager to share with them about our time in Melbourne given that we someday hope to return to Australia with Auzie and Kristy. After all it is Auzie's homeland and they are just an awesome couple who we want to take everywhere with us. Our time with them was too short, but that just means we all the more look forward to the next chance we get to see them again.

Wednesday night we met up with our friends Liz and Christian at a new burger place in town called Central Standard. The burgers were quite good, but we felt their $3 charge for changing/"upgrading" our sides without telling us there was an up-charge was a bit lame. But at least again we had a great time catching up with two very awesome people. Afterwards we went back to their house to see their dog Ren and catch up a bit more over a little beer tasting. Good times were had indeed! Hopefully we'll get to do some travels with them in the future as well.

Thursday night we were treated to appetizers and dessert at TGI Fridays by my mom. She was given a gift card and wanted to take us out for a food adventure. It was tough to pick what we wanted, but our choices ended up being quite delicious. Afterwards we picked up the movie Tomorrowland from RedBox to watch that evening. It ended up being pretty decent. 

And that covers our time in the QC. It was a great visit! We took off Friday morning and continued our road trip onward and westward. Thanks to all our friends and family that we got to see while we were in town. I know we missed several people, but hopefully we'll get to see you all next time. 

Cheers!