Quik Update from Iowa

After a wonderful couple days in Northwest Iowa we have now been in Pella for a couple of days. We had a great time in Northwest Iowa as we saw a lot of people. We spent the first two nights at my Grandpa and Grandma Van Essen. We went mini golfing and played some fun card games. Of course there are always some new games to learn at their house. Have you ever heard of Strut?? It is an interesting game. The next night was spent at my Grandpa and Grandma De Yager's house. This was their first time meeting Cayden so that was fun. Cayden really enjoyed watching my Grandpa mow the lawn and crawling around on the floor with daddy. I never imagined Matthew would be crawling on the ground . . . so fun to watch the two of them together. On Thursday evening we went to the Pizza Ranch in Canton to meet with a lot of my De Yager side of the family. It was nice to catch up with a lot of them.
On Friday we drove back to Sioux Falls so we could meet with some college friends for supper. We went over to Seth and Tiffany Steensma house for some pizza. They had a little baby boy two weeks after we had Cayden, so it was fun to see them together. Basically one baby would cry and then the other would think he would have to cry. Finally Cayden has a boy to play with! After supper with them we drove back to Sioux Center (home of Dordt College) to stay with our other friends Bret and Kristi Van Wyk. We spent that evening and the next morning with them. It is always so much fun to catch up with our friends from college, knowing that nothing ever really changes when we get together! Saturday after another wonderful meal at Pizza Ranch we drove back to Omaha to drop off our rental and then Matthew's brother picked us up. So the past couple days have been spent relaxing and hanging out with Matthew's family. It is nice to be in one spot again for awhile.
Since Cayden has started crawling he is very interested in exploring, it is so crazy that he picked it up so quickly. I am sad to say that we now have our hands full as we can't leave him alone for a second otherwise he tends to find the places he can hurt himself. Plus he is now trying to pull himself up on different objects, I think he would rather just walk :). We tried giving him peas yesterday and he gagged and spit them out. Matthew wanted to give him the worst tasting vegetable first so that he will possibly like vegetables. Matthew thinks that if we start with the good things then he will not want the gross ones. Hmmmm . . . we will have to see what we try next but I don't think peas are going to be his favorite.
Today we are going to meet with some friends for lunch (Matt and Tara Schuring). They actually live in CA too but are visiting Pella at the same time so this makes it so easy to meet with them. Then tonight we are heading to Iowa City to visit some more college friends, Scott and Nicole Kallemeyn. I will have to post pictures when I get home but I am sure I will have plenty of pictures after our trip!