First Annual MIDWEST roadtrip

It's softball night for the hubs.  That usually means catching up on laundry for me and then doing one of my "guilty pleasures".  It can be watching a chick flick, reading a great book for a few hours or blogging.  All of these are much harder to do with the husband around and so I have come to look forward to my solo Monday nights.  I am VERY glad, however, that I am not gearing up for 5 days a week by myself with the kids like I was last year at this time.  Our new town has begun to feel like home.  I still catch myself saying "Ankeny" when I mean to say our new towns name but other than that I am feeling more at home.  So anyway.....onto the "Monday night my husband is gone and kids are coming out of their bedrooms every 5 minutes because they know daddy the enforcer is not at home" convoluted blog post...

We just got back yesterday from a week long, FIRST ANNUAL Midwest Road Trip.  Yes, I am putting it out there that we will do this every year from now on.   It was awesome.  The kiddos and I left last Sunday to head back to my home town for 2 days.  We had a lot of fun with my parents....went out for ice cream, parks, etc. but my favorite thing we did was take the kids out to Camden State Park (check another state park off of our list!) which is where I grew up going to in the summer.  I have so many good memories from this park and my kids love it to.  Great park with great trails, a river (which was too high to play in), and a pond that was full of minnows, tadpoles, aquatic insects, some turtles, snails....lots of fun things to try to catch and/or observe.  We built waterfalls, caught minnows and snails and just had a good old time at my old stomping grounds.

 

 

 

Next stop:  Sioux Falls South Dakota.  We visited one of my close friends.  I hadn't really hung out with her in over a year because of all the craziness that was going on last summer with moving, etc so we got there Tuesday morning and just hung out for awhile and chatted.  It seriously felt like our conversation picked right up where we left it a year ago.  Our girls have had "playdates" since they were 6 months old and they are now six.  The girls did not stop playing with each other from 10 a.m. Tuesday morning until 12:30 Wednesday afternoon.  I don't think there were any squabbles to speak of.  We had fun climbing rocks at the Falls park and going to the Great Plains zoo. 

 Seriously....look at this fence they have for the alligator....does this look safe?  My friend Annie and I could not get over the lack of fencing they had for these guys!!

 This peacock lost a feather and we got to keep it! 

 

A VIP tour came through and did not feed all the branches that had been allocated to the giraffes so they let our kids feed them for free....score!

 

Such good times....was good for my soul to see Annie again.  We really grew as moms together (since we met when our girls were so young) and we have had good times and tougher times in our relationship but have always remained friends.  We are already planning on seeing them next summer.  Craig picked us up and off we went to his parents house in Nebraska.  Now, we love visiting his parents...always have, but something changed from last summer to this and that is they bought a house on a lake. 

 

WHOOOO HOOOOO!!  So now, visiting Grandpa and Grandma is not only packed with the fun of seeing the grandparents but we are on a lake. 

 

 Have I mentioned my kids love the water? 

 

So mix together great visiting time and floating in the middle of the lake

some time in the sun

Add in some squirt gun sessions with daddy:

Lots of jumping off the dock and playing in the sand

And Craig letting loose after not having any vacation for 2 years.

 

 

And you could say we had a good time.