Aunt Vicki's Coming! Aunt Vicki's Coming!

Keith's sister Vicki is coming to visit this weekend. Actually, she's been going by Victoria more often for the last few years, but I don't know if I'll ever get used to that. She's always Vicki to me.

Anyway, we're cleaning and figuring out what to do with her while she's here. Vic's an easy houseguest. No pressure to impress or please or entertain. She already said she would be happy to just hang around the house relaxing and reading. But since it's her first visit here, we figure we need to show her the basics of our new home, so we're trying to establish what the basics are.

She'll see our new house, of course, and our new furniture (although the girls' new beds are supposed to be delivered tomorrow morning and probably won't be put together before she leaves). She'll go to church with us Sunday morning before she leaves, so she'll have the Sunnybrook experience.

She made a point of trying to be here during one of Eastin's basketball games so she could see her play. That's the kind of aunt she is. :) We'll also find some time to take her to our neighbor Pam's purse and jewelry shop: The Jewelry Lady. The minute I walked in there, I thought of Keith's sisters.

We'll drive her up to Le Mars to see Keith's office, to go through the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Museum (ooh, ahh) and to get some ice cream at the Blue Bunny ice cream parlor. It really does taste better at the parlor. And they offer some of their specialty items there, items that Keith and his food service division sell to restaurants but that you can't get in the grocery stores. Yum, yum. I'd better be down my one pound for the week tomorrow morning.

And the girls will want to take her to their new favorite restaurant: Hu Hot. A Mongolian grill just around the corner from our house. Way too close, because I love it as much as the girls. And an all-you-can-eat Mongolian grill is not good for the diet.

All in all, I'm looking forward to a nice weekend. If only it were a bit warmer. That prediction I made about snow on our property until March 1st? Well, I think the last bit of snow on our front lawn melted JUST in time for more snow to fall yesterday. If it weren't so cold out, I really wouldn't mind though. The roads are clear . . and the hills and valleys are actually very beautiful with a light blanket of white.

Yes, friends, there are hills and valleys in Sioux City. Lots of them! You really need to come out and visit. We'll take you to Hu Hot . . and the Jewelry Lady . . and feed you some great ice cream!