cities and farms

the differences between the western suburbs of chicago and the van wyk family farm in iowa are quite obvious. but there are some things that i just don't think about...like thursday at practice. i let the girls scrimmage for the last few minutes. the score was 5-5 and i yelled out to everyone that there was only 3 minutes of practice remaining. "oh man, it's going to be a close one!" one of my players said. to which i replied, "it's a barn burner!" i got a blank stare from her and she's like, "what in the world is a barn burner?"

i always thought that was a pretty universal phrase and maybe it is. either way i found it pretty funny, considering that most of my players have probably never been on a farm before. that's probably why they didn't seem as excited as i was when i told them i had great labor day weekend plans. i guess going to iowa doesn't really match up to a weekend at the house on lake michigan in their eyes. that's ok...going back to the wide open spaces, no traffic, big starry sky iowa was a wonderful weekend for us.

matt and i definitely did not sit still on our four day weekend. early friday morning we left for my parents house, took an hour break from the car and then hopped right back in and headed up to sioux center with my parents. in the 20 hours that we were in northwest iowa, we saw brent finish 5th in his cross country race, watched 2 exciting dordt volleyball matches-both going 5 games, and got to catch up with a lot of good friends. we headed straight from orange city to pella to catch a tailgating supper put on by dordt and a pella christian football game. dordt was gracious enough to give my husband supper as well, even though he happen to be wearing his nw apparel. :)

besides being able to do all those things and see so many people again, there were some additional perks to the weekend....dad and mom paying for some meals on the road.....going to pizza ranch again....and matt feeling safe enough to wear his twins shirts. overall it was a great weekend and even relaxing among the many miles and busy schedule.

and last but not least, another highlight was seeing nate's dog sydney while she is still a puppy....

nate thought it would be funny to give matt a dordt baseball sweatshirt to wear at the football game.....so matt willingly allowed sydney to bite at it.