Iowa

Moving from South Carolina was a bitter, sweet experience. Bitter because we were leaving Mom and Dad Hooker behind, and all of the friends we had made in our two years there. Sweet because we were moving forward in Justin's education and one step closer to a career. We have been in Iowa for just over a month now and are enjoying our time here meeting new people and exploring a new city.
We have really enjoyed our new ward here. Our first Sunday we received 3 dinner invites, 2 of which we had to turn down. However, we have since been invited to several other homes for dinner! The people in our ward are so friendly. Also, 3 other families moved in about the same time as us who are all first-year students at DMU and they all have two children about the same ages as Kobe and Lily. We were asked to speak our first Sunday in the ward, so with that out of the way we should be good for at least a year, hopefully! We have also both received callings. Justin in the Young Men presidency and I was just asked to serve as Primary pianist (don't tell anyone, I won't be sustained until Sunday!). We both are very excited to serve in different areas than we have in the past.
We love our new home and have enjoyed Des Moines so far. There seems to be a lot of fun things to do here. Already we have been to the zoo, seen an Iowa Cubs baseball game, been to a lot of parks, shopped the downtown farmer's market (which is a huge event here every Sat. in the summer), went to the state fair, and my favorite thing we've been to so far--a Hot Air Balloon Festival.
In a city about 20 minutes south of where we live there is the annual Indianola Classic Hot Air Balloon Festival. I think they said it was the 2nd or 3rd longest running festival in the world. It was fun to watch the balloons fill up and then float off. It was a little windy so they floated off and away pretty quickly, but it was a cool experience.

Those are a lot of helium balloons and there is a man harnessed onto them. He floated off into the sunset!


Kobe watching the balloons fill up.


I thought they would all fill up and float off at the same time, but they took off one by one as soon as they were full and ready to go.



Lots of fun!!!

Now school has started and Justin is pretty busy with his classes and then studying. The kids and I miss having him around as much. We were pretty spoiled the past two years and especially this last summer, but we are trying to stay busy and enjoy the time that he is home. We feel really blessed that Justin can be working toward something that will bless the lives of others as well as our family. We know the Lord has brought us here and are grateful that everything is going well.