Sledding in Iowa

Our original travel plans this year were drive from DC to Katherine and Lee's house in Cleveland on Saturday December 19, and to drive on to Iowa the next day. However, on Friday morning we woke up to a forecast that called for up to two feet of snow to fall in DC starting that night, so we amended our plans, quickly packed the car, and hit the road on Friday afternoon to beat the snow. While this was clearly the right decision from a travel perspective, it saddened us (well Allen and Owen at least) to miss the blizzard '09. According to our neighbors (who thought they were getting a great deal when we told them they could use our house for their family who were coming into town, but ended up having an extra house to shovel out) 18" of snow fell in our neighborhood. It surely would have been great fun to play with Owen in the deep deep snow, but as a consolation prize, we did get about six inches of snow in Iowa, and went sledding at the pond with cousin Kent, and later in Iowa City with Olivia, Maura, and Sam. All and all, Owen's first real sledding adventure was a big success.