Our Vacation

I'm finally posting some pics from our vacation! This was our first family trip with the girls. We took them to Des Moines (to keep travel time brief!), and visited Adventureland, Blank Park Zoo, the Botanical Center, and the Science Center of Iowa. Lots of stuff to cram into just a couple of days! We had a really good time--the girls did very well on the trip and enjoyed themselves immensely! :)

I only took the point-and-shoot into Adventureland, because I knew we'd have to leave the stroller unattended a lot. Here is my super-cool daughter steering a boat at one of the games:


I noticed that most of the rides the girls could go on involved going around in circles. It was nauseating! They rode by themselves whenever possible, but since our younger daughter is 2 inches shorter than the minimum-for-riding-alone on most of the rides, one of us usually had to ride with her. We took turns...here I am riding the puff dragon. (ugh) Photo courtesy of her daddy:


Our older daughter desparately wanted to ride the train. The whole time we were there, she was keeping tabs on that train. Finally, she got her wish!


At the zoo, photo opportunities abound!
In the Discovery Center they have a rope bridge that goes across a little stream. I was sure there would be no amount of coaxing to get them both to go across, but turns out they loved it and crossed it several times!




Getting a closer look at some turtles


I love this shot of my oldest...it was so fun to look at the fish with her!




This was really neat--there were quite a number of baby ducks in the water, but they all came scrambling up the bank and surrounded us! At first the girls were a bit skittish about it, but then they got a real kick out of feeding them up close. So fun!


Lots of colorful carp. We travel for hours to go to a zoo, and the girls get most excited about the ducks and fish. Hmm...


Stopping for some lunch. The light was perfect where we were sitting!




My younger daughter happily went into the tunnel to see the prairie dogs...
I digitally removed from this photo the arm of a boy who came running through and shoved her down immediately after this pic was taken :(


Here our older daughter is pretending to be eaten by a hippo (actually a water fountain)


Yes, I got roped into riding a camel! Oh goodness, was that um...interesting. LOL (photo again courtesy of hubby)


Before we left we let the girls play on some of the play equipment. Our little one loved going down this slide over and over!


The next morning began with a trip to the Science Center, where we did all kinds of interesting things. Again I only took the point-and-shoot there, since I wasn't sure how much light we'd have inside with all of the exhibits.

One of the things the kids most enjoyed was building a fort with them caged inside. Come to think of it, we liked that part too :)


We also built rockets. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I built my rocket in half the time it took hubby to make his, AND mine went further. Every time. :) (smug expression here)


We stopped briefly at the Botanical Center before heading home. By this time the kids were a little crabby and we were exhausted. It was nice to walk around the gardens for a little bit, though!







Resting :)




They had a sprinkler going on the lawn, so daddy thought he'd be funny and call the girls over to look at something right when the sprinkler was about to hit that spot. They were so surprised when they got wet, but they of course giggled hysterically and wanted to stomp in the puddle and got wet again!


...and a quick pic of the whole family before we left!