What a great surprise it was to have a full day in Iowa with my family on Wednesday! Our original plan was to fly in Wednesday afternoon, but we came in very late Tuesday instead to avoid weather and had a whole day to hang out.

We slept past 8:00 (!!!) then said goodbye to our nephews before they went to school. They didn’t know we were there, so it was a surprise to see us. My mom (their nanny) didn’t know we were in town either so it was a surprise for her as well. Even though the AC/DC concert was the next day, I hadn’t communicated with my dad about how we were getting there, because I had no idea. Even though we flew to Iowa, I didn’t know if we’d be able to fly to Minneapolis. We didn’t know when we went to bed Wednesday night either. It would be a weather-based decision we’d make the next morning.

I’m getting ahead of myself though.

When my snis got back from dropping the kids off we went to Reader’s Cup for coffees,

then we hung out at her house for a bit, then all got HuHot for lunch. We hung out after lunch, then went over to my older brother’s house to play on his dirt track.

They have a bunch of fun toys – go-karts, four-wheelers, dirt bikes, modified lawn mowers.

So I had to give them all a try!

Not the lawn mower though ha ha.

It was so much fun. And ended up being a beautiful day there! I’m really glad we got to do that.

We got pizza and hung out at my snister’s after. I was so happy I got to see all my siblings and most of our nephews and niece! It was nice to catch up.

We did a tiny bit of flight planning that night. Basically the weight and balance – with three people in the plane we were going to have to pack very, very light. Including light on fuel – that was why we didn’t have the FBO fuel the plane. More on that in the next post though!