Saturday in the Colonies

It is a really warm November night on the Plains, after an unusually beautiful day.  The weather is strange for this time of year. It should be snowy, windy and freezing cold, but it was T-shirt weather today, about 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

I was really, really sick this week, and it is wonderful to be functional again.  I'm not sure if it was THE flu, but it was, in a word, nastay!  All is well now, though, we are all feeling fine!  Also, I got the good news that my 4.0 grade point average is still intact for my "College 2.0" experience.  The baby is coming along well, and will be here before we know it.  Sarah and I painted Asher's new bedroom last night, and he should be moving in to it in time for his birthday on Monday.  He is really excited about his birthday!

Today, we decided to go for a one-day road trip.  We drove to the Amana Colonies in Eastern Iowa, a couple hours away.  The Amana Colonies are seven villages that were started in the 1850s as a communal society for a Christian group from Germany.  They made or grew everything they needed and worshipped 11 times a week.  Nobody had wages, and they all ate in big communal kitchens. It continued like that until the 1930's, when the member ended the commune aspect, and placed all of the businesses into a corporation.  Now, everything from the smokehouse to the furniture factories to the brewery are still open and selling to the public.  Everything is made there, and really high quality.  They even still make some Amana refrigerators there.  The place is beautiful, with all the old stone and brick buildings.  The food is absolutely amazing.  We ate lunch there today.  I had German food and Sarah had ham.  They filled the table with bowls of every kind of side dish.  If it wouldn't have been way too much food anyway, they would have kept the dishes coming, too.  The food was absolutely incredible!