Iowa City

Welcome to Iowa City!! I am going to be taking a bunch of pics of the city and here are the first post of them. Iowa City is a really neat place. It is definitely a cultural center. They have an Arts festival (occurred when I first got here), a Jazz festival (which started on Friday and ends today), a sand castle building contest, a Franz Liszt festival (I am all over that when it comes) and I am sure many more festivals.

Here are the pics:

There is a ped mall downtown lined with trees. I enjoy walking there a lot.

In the ped mall there is a water fountain where kids (and adults too sometimes) love to play in the water on a hot day. I love to watch them and how carefree they are.

I love this statue- So sweet. Enough said.

Ok- Is this not one of the coolest things you have ever seen!!?? There are at least three of these around downtown that you can just sit down and play. They each have covers to cover them up. Anyone can just sit down and play what they want. I have played on this one- and although it is not the most in tune piano- the idea of it- is awesome!

Speaking of awesome- This bookstore is right down the street from where I live. It is a fun book store and it has a piano inside it that you can also sit down and play almost any thing. I say almost anything, because on this piano there is a note that says "No chopsticks or Heart and Soul." HA HA HA(there might be one other song I cant remember- but you get the idea that these songs were played a bit too much).

These two girls are in my branch and have come here for the medical program (of which the U of Iowa has an excellent program). They are quite busy but one night wanted to get some dinner. They invited me and we went to a place right by my house called the Hamburg Inn. It is an old famous diner that has really good diner food and their desserts include pie-shakes.... which is where they stick a slice of pie with some ice cream and mix it together- amazing??? YES! Presidents and other important people have stopped by here to eat. Cool place.

And finally- yes, this is a jazzercise place that still exist- I thought jazzercise was totally 80's and 90's... but they still got it in Iowa. Not really that amazing- but made me smile.

My home in Iowa City

This is where I live! It is an old two story house that is right downtown which is SUPER nice. Not only is there stuff to do downtown, but the buildings where I will be doing a lot of schoolwork are down there.

I live on the second floor. It is a good place, but I decided I wanted to live somewhere else for the school year, so I am searching for a new place. But for now, here I am! There is no A/C in our place and that was hard when I first moved in. But I thought, Hey I could do without it for two months. I'll just get a good fan and use that. I thought about a A/C window unit, but when I first saw them and saw how expensive they were, I decided to try and tough it out. HA! I was SO wrong... Iowa City was probably laughing at me saying, "Mwa ha ha ...Just you wait Ms. Alyssa..." I lasted a couple of weeks. I wasn't sleeping that great (crazy dreams) and it was just really hard to be in a hot and humid room. So with my first paycheck I spent the best 127$ and got an A/C unit. It makes a world of difference! Bless you who ever invented A/C window units! You rock!

Anyway here are some pictures of the house and my room

This side is where my bedroom is- second floor- It now has an A/C unit in the bottom half. The windows are really tall. I bought some curtains at a thrift store but they are still like 6 inches short... like I said, tall windows. But I am grateful for them though- they let in beautiful light.

This tree holds an a ridiculous amount of birds who on occasion love to start chirping really really really early in the morning (and at other times of the day). But since I have gotten the A/C unit, I haven't heard them as much...

Bed and the fan- the fan now resides in the kitchen (to provide some (emphasize the SOME) relief while cooking! :-) The temple picture is the only one hanging in my room right now (more will hang where ever I live next)- glad I have it here! Thanks Kim!

There is the tree from my window.

There are my curtains (for one window) :-) and desk.

Mormon Handcart Park

I am really enjoying being in Iowa City. Yes, it is hot and really humid some days, but it is good to be here.

There is a lot of things to do and see. One of these cool things to do is go to the "Mormon Handcart Park." I had heard about this park and went out to find it one Sunday.

A neat fact is that Iowa City was the place to where the saints who would come by handcart outfitted and made their carts for the trek west. The park really isn't a park with a huge patch of grass to sit on, but rather a nice path that on one side of the trail is covered with trees and grasslands and the other side has trees, but it is bordered by some of the U of Iowa practice fields. There are a couple of benches and tables with some patches of grass,

but most a nice walk way. It was very peaceful and wonderful.

This park is where the saints camped and worked before heading west. How cool is that!? It was really neat to walk along this trail and think that saints worked together here for the journey west. I am so grateful for their sacrifice. It was such a hard journey for so many inexperienced saints. They had great faith and they had the fire of the covenant. They were willing to anything to follow the prophet and the will of the Lord. I hope that I can be like them and let the fire of the covenant burn in me like fire unquenchable.

It makes you wonder if this was a clearing where saints camped... Maybe... :-)

I love this picture. It just makes me think of faith in every footstep and enduring to the end.

There was only one downside to this park... the MOSQUITOES!!! Oh my goodness! I got bitten multiple times the two times I went there! It is like mosquito-ville there. They are everywhere around that place, which is sad, because it would be a wonderful place to go sit and think... I did buy some excellent bug repellent... hopefully it will help when I go there again. Wonderful park!

Is this Heaven?... No, it's Iowa!

While Dad was here helping me move in, we contemplated going to the "Field of Dreams" movie site that is somewhere in Iowa and that the farm was in a small town called Dyersville and was about an hour and a half away. Dad didnt have much time as he had to get back on the road, but we thought it would be worth it! So we drove over there and it was raining almost the whole way. The lay of the land was so beautiful! It is so green out here and the fields are just beautiful to behold.

We got there and the rain stopped we were so grateful! So when we got there, it was exactly what it looks like in the movie! A little dirt path, white house, barn, fields, and of course... the baseball field! The corn was just starting to grow, but it was still cool. I’ll have to come back in late summer to see the corn all grown… I’ll have to see if baseball players will come out of the corn…

It had a gift shop that Dad and I spent a while in shopping there. Dad did a run around the bases and we had fun taking pictures. We only wished Rob could have been there. We all know how much Rob LOVES baseball and enjoys "field of dreams" and hopefully he can come up here one weekend. We picked up some dirt from the field for him... weird I know, dirt...but he loved it.

We had a great time and it was well worth the time to drive out there.

P.S. It is also up for sale, if you want to buy it... if you have a couple million dollars :-)

Here are pictures of the site

WELCOME TO THE FIELD OF DREAMS!!

Here is the farm

These were on a board that had a bunch of different information about the movie

The farm was just what film makers were looking for...

Like my fake baseball bat? (and my purse right behind....)

Dad did a run around the bases and here he is hitting home!

Although he didn't slide into home, here is a great pose for you guys...

(he did this before he ran the bases, but I thought it fit well with the run around the bases)

I think if Dad could play with a baseball player..., it would be Sandy Koufax

If I could play with any baseball player.... um.... it would probably be my Dad and brother Rob... I know cheesy, but that is who I'd pick. :-)

The Beginning....

Hello blogging world. :-) I am excited to start this new blogging thing. I wanted to start this blog because I will be far away from a lot of my family and I thought that this would be a good way to keep others updated on the happenings in Iowa City.

Well, the first blog posting I wanted to write about was my trip TO Iowa City. It was not that exciting, but there were some cool places/signs and funny (note-worthy) experiences. Dad drove out with me on this adventure and he is a great travel buddy. I took my car so we were in separate cars. The good thing is that we had the walkie talkies and talked back and forth throughout the trip.

So really... the trip is not that hard. Go on I-80 and go east until Iowa City. That is pretty much the whole trip. The trick is to keep yourself focused on the road and on more interesting things. The problem is there is there are not that many exciting things through Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa (at least not along I-80).

To keep me awake and alert I listened to "Fire of the Covenant" by Gerald N. Lund. If you have not read this... GO READ IT NOW!!! It was so amazing to hear this story of the handcart pioneers again. It was very interesting to hear this story on this trip, because the handcart pioneers outfitted in Iowa City. So I was traveling what they traveled (except backwards...). I was very blessed to be in a car. Their faith and perseverance is incredible to me and their stories and trials of faith built my faith as I listed to it. I think was really hit me this time was to let the "Fire" of our covenants burn inside us always to help us overcome any trial.

So the trip... Here are some fun facts, stories, and pics of our trip.

Cool rock formations in Wyoming

***There is a town called Wamsutter, Wyoming and Dad told me that it is his favorite town name. He wants to name the next child in our family that name. I dont know how Mom feels about that. I mentioned maybe they could name their dog that and nickname it Wammy.

***We passed the world headquarters of Cabelas somewhere in Nebraska (of ALL places... NEBRASKA???)

***Hastings, Nebraska is the birthplace of kool-aid (because you either farm out there,...or you invent stuff....) hence Kool-aid.

***We passed a town called Ogallala and it had the WORST SMELL IN THE WORLD!! I dont even know how to describe it. But the smell went on for miles. It was like horse, cow, pig, farm smell all put together. It was so strong it was causing headaches! So this town wins the smelliest town award on our trip. (Although Dad traveled back the same way and didnt smell anything).

***Established in 1868 is the town of De Sotto, where John Wayne was born.

This is SOOO exciting isnt it!? :-)

***Dad and I have come to make two places to eat a tradition: Wendy's and IHOP. Both are excellent. I love the OJ at IHOP and I love going there with Dad. It is just an enjoyable time to sit and talk. We got Wendy's a couple times and we got the chicken nuggets (which are actually really good) and of course we got frostys. WE LOVE frostys. When we were driving Dad said after eating a frosty, "Even frosty burps are good." I couldnt agree more!

Cool bridge

FLAT land on BOTH sides...

We got to Iowa safely and I got all moved in. I'll write another post about the apartment and about downtown in another post.