Saturday, July 14, 2012

Vacation Day 1

With all the "busyness" we knew was going to start this summer we decided our vacation this year would be a smaller one.  Last Spring we started planning a trip to Des Moines.  We have some family in the area so we thought it would be a good way to spend some time with them.  We had a blast and I think we should do it every year.

We took off this morning planning on meeting Joy and Barb in Boone for lunch and then visit the train place there.  We had a great lunch at a place called the Colorado Grille then headed over to the train place.  We had decided to do a 30 minute trolley ride but were disappointed to find out the trolley wasn't working.  Other than the gift shop there really wasn't much else to do there.  They have trains on the grounds but none of them were open.  We were slightly disappointed in this place.  We made the best of it by snapping a few pictures and then decided to head to Ames to visit Reiman Gardens.
 Barb & Jackson posed for a picture.
 We tried to get a family pic but someone didn't want to cooperate...
 Jackson checking out butterflies at Reiman Gardens
 Tristan looking for butterflies
 They had a really neat butterfly house at Reiman Gardens
 They also had numerous lego sculptures, they were really cool!
lego sculpture in the pond

Reiman Gardens turned out to be a hit!  Lots of stuff to look at and quite a large area to walk around.  After we were done there we headed to Des Moines to check into our hotel.  Barb managed to get us an awesome discount on our rooms thru her work.  It was a very nice hotel, picked mainly because there was an indoor water area.

Supper was a cookout at Barb's house.  Jim & Mandy and family came over too!  It was the first time I'd met Oliver, what a cutie!!  Joy had brought some bubble shooters for the boys, they loved them!

This is how Tristan ate his corn.  I'm not sure if it was too hot to hold onto or slippery.  He still got the job done.

By the time we were done at Barb's house it was pretty late.  We headed back to the hotel and pretty much went right to bed.

1 comment:

  1. Just realized I don't know how to spell Reiman Gardens. I think I spelled it Reimen or something like that. Oh well, those checking out my blog will know what I meant. I seriously love the picture of Tristan eating his corn! What a hoot!!! And agree, we should do this every year!!! What a lot of fun.

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