Well, if you didn't know, I went to Iowa for a week and abandoned Ethan while he took his I.C.E. Exams. Iowa was great. My favorite thing was going to go see houses and talking with the private bankers. It helped me put together a plan of what we need to do over the next year to get into a house!!!! It looks like we are going to be able to afford a new construction ranch home with an unfinished basement. I showed Ethan the pictures of the style of homes being built and here are a couple of the ones we liked.

Other things I did . . . oh, we went to the country club and did water aerobics! It was so funny. Karen's friends are hillarious. I think the funniest thing was we got noodles and sat on them and paddled on them a little bit. The instructor called it riding your horsey... ride your horsey down the length of the pool and back!

Of course we saw movies and went shopping. Ann Taylor Loft has a ginormous sale and I got some really beautiful clothes. I did also get my hair cut, but didn't take any pictures of it, so I'll have to post that later, but it's really cute!!! What else, oh, Grandma Zmoos had a bunch of pictures of Ethan when he was little and put it together in a quick scrapbook. Nothing too fancy, but Ethan really liked it. I got one to put our wedding pictures in, so I'll have a project to work on. One of the other cool things we did, was Karen and I went to a fancy pants resturant. I had duck for the first time, it was pretty good, it was cool to see and eat off one of the pretty plates you see on TV or in the movies. Here's a picture of my duck!

Oh, and I saw this sign, you know you're in Iowa when ...

But, while I loved Iowa, I did miss Ethan. Apparently during his week long study session, he didn't eat a real meal and just snacked and he lost weight! Not healthy I know, but still! So I think he should publish a weightloss book... snack yourself thin!

Oh, I did miss my kitties and Lola. Karen bought Lola a toy so here she is playing with it. It took her all of about 2 min to rip it open and start destuffing it. She hasn't destroyed it completely yet, but she sure loves doing it!

Love you all.