Let's start this one off with something we all love: surprise presents. I've recently received two surprise presents that I am so thrilled about I just had to share with everyone. And, I'm quite inclined to think that if I hadn't made this crazy choice to move to Iowa I wouldn't have been gifted either of these items. So really, this move is already paying off! The first item of wonderfulness that entered my life is the ice scraper of all ice scrapers from my future brother-in-law, Dave. Check this thing out! It has the scraper side for, you know, scraping things (ice, I presume), and the other side has the industrial size brush head for the softer variety of snow. Then, on the back side of the big brush is a squeegee sort of gadget, which I can only imagine the number of things I will find to use that on. And, what you can't see is that the middle of the handle bar untwists allowing for the length of the whole gadget to extend, which is super awesome for short armed folks like myself! I haven't had the opportunity to use this bad boy yet, but rest assured that when the first snowfall graces us with its presence, I will be more than ready for it.

The other surprise gift I received is an item that I've had my eye on since before last Christmas and occasionally throw it's name out there to keep it fresh in John's mind. Apparently this paid off, since the other day the UPS truck dropped off a big box for me containing one of the greatest inventions for chill-prone loungers everywhere... the slanket! And now, being a proud owner, I can tell you that the slanket is everything I had ever imagined and more! Remember last time you were all snuggled up on the couch underneath your favorite super warm and soft fleece blanket and wanted to read a book or channel surf, but you couldn't because when you took your arms out they got cold? Not with the slanket, my friend! It's a blanket with sleeves so I'll never have cold arms while enjoying my favorite lounge activities! And just when it seemed like nothing could make the slanket any more awesome, they went and made the purchase of the pink one donate to the Save the Boobies (breast cancer research) fund! Internet high five to the slanket creators and corporation... you've really out done yourselves.

That's it for now. I've got some pictures and whatnot from this past weekend, but I figure I'll save those for another post. Not too much is new here... John is into his second full week of work and is enjoying it so far, and I'm still enjoying my free time while I continue with the job hunt. We both miss sunny San Diego and all of our friends very much! We hope you have a safe and happy Halloween!

What kind of person sets up a blog, tells everyone about it, posts only a few times and then goes MIA for a few weeks? I know, I know... but I promise I have good reason for it. Since my last post John and I have moved to Des Moines and are now officially situated in his sister's basement. Now, if you're like me, you probably hear "basement" and think dark, damp, and filled with creepy crawlers. But our little set up down here is quite the contrary. The room is painted and carpeted and all that, and if you didn't know any better you'd think it was just a room downstairs. So, we're nice and cozy and incredibly thankful of John's sister and brother-in-law for being so welcoming and allowing us to invade their home until we get a place of our own.

With John starting his new job this Friday, we thought it would be a good idea to tag along with his parents and go visit his sister in Minneapolis for one last weekend get-away before returning to reality. Plus, since the Travel Channel makes it look so awesome, I've always wanted to go to the Mall of America which is in Minneapolis also. It's pretty much just a regular mall as far as stores are concerned, except every store you've ever seen in any mall is right there all in one place. Also, if you have gargantuan feet and are in need of a new pair of kicks - this is apparently the mall for you. The extraordinary thing about this mall, much to my surprise, isn't the sheer enormousness of it, but rather the fact that they've shoved an amusement park right smack dab in the middle of it all. And I'm not talking about a roller coaster and a few kiddie rides - this place has enough rides, for both kids and adults, to warrant the purchase of an unlimited ride wristband. It's both ridiculous and fantastic all at the same time, really. Naturally, I was too chicken to ride any of the rides, but John and his sisters had a great time.

Since we had the free time, John and I decided to stay an extra day in Minnesota after his parents went back to Iowa. We had all sorts of extravagant plans to go on a river walk and climb some fancy tower to see all that you can see, but due the the rain that lasted the entire day we didn't get to do them. The day wasn't a total loss though. We ended up spending a good amount of the day driving around looking at different areas of the city and then exploring the downtown skywalks. I'm pretty sure they're exclusive to crappy weather areas, but these skywalk things are actually kind of neat. From the outside they look like hamster cage habitrail-ish walkways linking the downtown buildings together, but when you go inside of them there are all sorts of stores and food courts and whatnot. They even link to apartment and condo buildings, so if you lived and worked downtown you would never ever have to set foot outside if you didn't want to. I'm slightly facinated by them, to be honest. Here's a picture of me running in one. Despite the rain, we still explored enough of the city to run into several different statues of various Charlie Brown characters. I guess since that Charles Schultz guy is from the area, they figure they should put a character in every possible location. They even put one in the skywalk!

So now we're back in Des Moines and all settled in for John's first day of work on Friday. I'm still applying for jobs and have an interview next week, so hopefully I'll be employed in the near future. But, for now, I'm still enjoying my abundance of free time and my cozy sweat pants!

I leave you now, with the feeling of insane jealousy that we are only paying $2.59 for a gallon of gas!

Alright, friends. I've got bad news and I've got good news out here on the Iowa front.

The bad news? It's cold already. The locals will try to fool you and call it "fall," but I don't care what they label it, it's just plain cold. It barely hit 60 degrees out here today, and it was cloudy and windy on top of that. And, according to local meteorologists, this crisp chill is quite typical for this time of year which only means that it's bound to get even colder pretty soon. Gross.

Now for the good news... John got a job!!! It's a Social Worker 2 position with the State of Iowa, working in the Des Moines area. This means a few things for us, the first being that we won't go bankrupt or starving any time soon, which is always good. It also means that we'll be relocating once again (just a small move this time) to Des Moines. John's sister Casey lives in Des Moines with her family, so we won't be super loners, and the rest of his family will only be a short 3 hour drive away. Also, Des Moines is the capitol of Iowa (you should have known that already) and thus, the largest city in the state, so we figure there's bound to be a variety of activities for lonely big city transfers like ourselves. He starts in a little over 2 weeks, which means we've only got a limited amount of free time to do lots of awesome Iowa things, like have impromptu agrarian photo shoots...