Is this Heaven?

No, it's Iowa.

Mom and I took our annual October trip out there to see my grandparents and other extended family. Highlights were Amish people, my last baby shower with my aunts and girl-cousins on the Dieken side, and 16 hours in the car with my mom blabbing about pretty much everything on the planet (we usually don't stop yapping the whole way there and back).

Jono always makes fun of me when I say "We went to the Amish." It's how we've always said it. What we mean is we're driving 35 miles out to Jesup to farm-hop and buy their delish cookies, pies, pickles and jam. We went in a small caravan made up of my grandma, Mom, my aunts Brenda and Bonita, and my cousins Nick & Kristle with their two kids, Devin and Eden.

At one point we were in a barn digging through a bunch of vintage stuff sitting out on farm trailers. The Amish Mom came out and asked when I was due, how old I was, and if this was my first. She told me she'd just had her seventh child. Amish Pops was away at the horse sale, and she wouldn't sell me an unmarked red vase I wanted because she had "gotten in trouble" with him last time for selling a valuable item for a few bucks. It was a cool vase, but I didn't want to push it with her and start begging.

At another farm there were three Amish kids hanging around staring at us - two little girls and a tiny boy. We learned the tiny boy's name was Wilbert, and I about died. I wish you all could've seen him with his blue shirt and suspenders and big straw hat. He was about two feet tall and had huge brown eyes and a little mouth that was puckered into an o-shape. There are certain little boys that I find irresistable, and the fact that his name was Wilbert put me over the edge. He waved at me once.

Mom got her first whisk ever at one of the Amish general stores and replaced her measuring cups and spoons, of which she has lost half over the past ten years. I kept grabbing basic kitchen items I knew she didn't have off the shelves. We took a picture to commemorate this grand moment for her. (Mom = not a shopper. We had to explain to her why a whisk is more useful than a fork for stirring up eggs and the like.)

Last stop out there was the "Bent n' Dent" grocery store. Though Grandma kept saying "Scratch n' Dent", like it was a place to scratch n' sniff canned goods. (I love her!) It is what it sounds like. Canned and other packaged goods that are bent and dent, and therefore cheaper than Aldi's (it's possible, but probably overkill).

My aunts are hysterical. I laughed so hard on Amish Day that I was afraid I'd go into labor while Gordito's daddy was eight hours away in Michigan. We talked about so many inappropriate things it was unreal. The next day all of us had sore throats. We were worried we were getting sick, but as it turns out we were just laughing too hard.

This is the last trip I'll be taking in awhile, so I savored it. Pics below. The baby is my second cousin Eden, and I think she stole the show.