The longest winter ever

I can't believe it's still winter. Just like Kauai's forecast was always 77 and sunny, Iowa's forecast has been 2-4" of snow and a windchill in the single digits for the past few months. I know this is a record-breaking winter, but why did it have to be the winter I move back from Hawaii? At least give me a mild winter to ease my way back into things...

My parents were in Des Moines last week to sell some cattle at the Beef Expo. While the Beef Expo is nothing new to our family (I'm pretty sure we have pins from the '80's), it was a first time for my dad to be broken at the Expo. He got along pretty well with his walker, but Mom enlisted the help of some good cattle guys from Northwood to help her out. And Allyson and I took turns helping out as well. The sale went fairly well for good ol' MDF farms (that's us); Mom was glad to get rid of 5 head of cattle and we were all glad to get Dad home in one piece.

Rick took me to the Cheesecake Factory for Valentine's Day on Friday (we figured it would be less busy), and I finally got to see Juno--I'd been wanting to see it before I left Kauai. I loved it. It's right up there with Little Miss Sunshine. Saturday was fairly uneventful and Sunday brought, can you guess, freezing rain and snow. That kept us in, but our landlord finally fixed our broken pipe--it split right along a seam. Pretty cool. I'm just excited that I don't have to go downstairs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Allyson and Chad went home to help Mom out this weekend with the cattle and got into an accident on the way home last night. Both are fine and the car only lost a side mirror and suffered from scratches, but it could have been a lot worse. They were on the interstate at car #25 in the ditch when a semi crossed the grass median and both of their lanes of traffic, the trailer hitting the passenger's side of their car. Chad thought quickly and drove into the median and back out so they wouldn't be hit more severely. Scary though. My family has been in a funk lately--I hope it's over!!

The lab calls to me. I wish I knew what it was saying.