It's been an eventful several weeks since I last wrote. I have had my brother here for a little more than a week, made a 2,000 mile roundtrip to Cedar Rapids for John's high school graduation and now my dad is here for several days helping to finish up the quad. I feel like I need about a week's worth of sleep to catch up with myself, but that won't be happening anytime soon.

Andrew spent a good deal of his time (while I was at work) helping a few guys from Iowa hang trim in the quad. His many projects with Dad around the house have made him pretty handy when it comes to construction and home repair.

We spent a lot of our free nights playing Scrabble at Starbucks, which I'm proud to say I won all games. The weather was beautiful and it was so good to have him here. I also drug him all over town to take photos. We went to a local festival and checked out some abandoned spaces which I am adding to my photo collection.

The "worst" part of his visit was our 15 hour trip back to Cedar Rapids. We went to bed around 10 p.m. and were up again by 2 a.m. to leave by 2:45. So early! The initial hour wasn't too bad but after a few hours when Andrew was sound asleep I was glad I have a box of Cheerios to snack on to keep me awake. We were in Jackson, MS far too early for Starbucks to be open so we settled for a McDonalds for some coffee.

We realized by the time we got to Memphis that we were making very good time and decided not to stop for lunch anywhere but to keep moving and eat the Wheat Thins we brought along. We did have to make a Starbucks stop, but I was totally bummed that the one in Arkansas was closed and I had to wait until much farther into Missouri. We also gased up again in St. Louis and made it home by about 5:45.

I was so tired that night and the next day, but it was a good trip and we had some fun along the way. Stayed tuned for Iowa trip and graduation updates to be posted soon!