I'm a loser baby...

On Friday I helped with promotion by talking to shoppers at the local Fareway. We were in the corner between the butter and the milk. The people who passed had to either go up the aisle right before they hit us or they had to pass directly by us. 80% of people turned up the aisle, most avoiding eye contact after they did the initial glance to see if we had something they were interested in. When we did talk to people, the most common response was, "I'd love to, we'll have to see what the weather's doing, though. I hear we're supposed to get some snow that day."

Yesterday we had host family day. My host family took my roommate and me up to Dubuque for the day. We had lunch at the newly renovated Star Brewery before heading to the Mississippi River Museum. Dubuque is beautiful, it pretty much looked like the set of Gilmore Girls if set on the Mississippi River. We ran into lots of friends in the museum. It's always cool to be in a place for the first time and run into familiar faces. On the ride home we stopped (after Dairy Queen) in Bellevue near the locks on the river. We went up to Bellevue State Park (where my host parents got married) and saw the beautiful view from the top of the hill (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyskye218/2270614808/). We took the scenic route home and watched the sun set over the snow from the van. We saw deer and even wild turkeys! When I got home we got to feed the pigs (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyskye218/2269853173/in/photostream/)before settling in for a night of movies. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

Today we did indeed get snow. The day started off with ice so slick that our host dad had to take the skid loader out twice, once to roughen things up and once to lay salt. After that we were able to make it in to Maquoketa to the theatre. Near lunch time it began to snow. Well, snow would be an understatement. There were blizzard conditions for a while. We were wondering if we were going to get an audience other than our host parents, who really had to come anyway in order to pick us up. We ended up with a decent crowd, though. I guess the conditions cleared up a bit and the snow was easier to drive on than the ice.

After the show our host family and some family friends went out to a Mexican restaurant. The food was delicious and after eating my burrito they came out and set a dessert by us. Not having ordered one, I was a bit confused... that is, until I saw the staff come out with a sombrero. They placed it on my head and sang a Spanish song to me followed by "Happy Birthday." They took my picture in the hat and had me put it up on their designated birthday wall. So if you happen to be stopping by Maquoketa, make sure to check out my picture at the Mexican restaurant.

On our way back the gravel road, which makes up a mile from the highway to the farm, was so icy and covered in snow drifts that it took our host dad 3 trips to get us all from their friend's van to the house. The truck only holds 3 people and the van didn't have enough traction to make it to the farm and back. When I got back I realized that my water bottle had fallen out of my bag on the way home. (I know, two lost posts in a row!) When my host dad went back to get the back load, they checked the van to see if I'd left it there. I hadn't. We called the restaurant to see if maybe it had fallen out on my way to the car. It hadn't. We decided to take a trip back out to the highway to see if it had fallen out when I transferred vehicles. We noticed the neighbor farmer had plowed with his tractor since our last run, which made the roads easier to navigate but didn't do much for our hopes. As we neared the highway we saw my lovely blue bottle right in the middle of the road. Hurrah! Somebody's watching out for me. Let's just hope I start watching out for myself.

Happy Birthday mom!
~Molly

P.S. - My mom has mentioned that she was unable to figure out how to use the comment feature. For any who are interested (the more you write, the more I write) look at the bottom of each individual post. There will be a link that says "0 Comments" or whatever number of comments there are. Click on that and you can add a comment.