Down to Iowa and Back

The girls and I spent last week visiting Nana and Papi in Cedar Rapids. I was a little nervous about making the four hour drive in the car by myself with the kids. They have been known to be awful on our trips to Wisconsin so I had very low expectations about how well the trip would go. But I learned four hours is much much easier for them than 6.5 hours. I was armed with a couple new movies they had never seen. They ate lunch, watched a movie and promptly slept for a couple hours. Then started watching a new movie and we were there! It was really great! Same thing on the way home.

We had a lot of fun at my mom and Dave's. We spent quite a bit of Sunday outdoors playing in the fall leaves and on the neighbor's swing set. Ella is so funny. I told her in the morning that we were going to take a few pictures outside after Lily's nap. She was all cranky about it at that point. Then when it came time to take the pictures, she was ready. And continued to be ready for a while afterwards. :-) We went next door to play and she kept posing herself and saying, "Picture Mommy!". I actually got some very cute ones. If only she was like that all the time!

We did a lot of shopping while we were there. We played at the mall play area in Cedar Rapids on Monday. We drove a little ways and visited the Coral Ridge Mall on Tuesday where we went to the Barnes and Noble story time and then the Iowa Children's Museum. We went to the museum last year and Ella had a great time, I figured Lily would really be into it this year too. We went to the grocery store, a pizza parlor, the arts and crafts room, a motion room, a hospital, a farm and a visit to Indonesia. The kids really had a great time in each area. After several hours of play, I figured it was time to go home. We were walking out of the mall and Ella said she wanted to play in the play area. Both of them played for another hour! It was 3pm by the time we left! Lily usually naps at 12:30. I can't believe she made it that long without getting cranky.

Wednesday we visited the Cedar Rapids Public Library for a story time about Owls. It included books, songs, and finger games. Ella had a great time! Lily and I walked around and looked at books for most of it. I had an enjoyable kid-free dinner with my friend Molly on Wednesday night and got caught up with her. Thursday and Friday we did a bit of shopping and just played around the house. We returned home excited to see Andrew Friday evening.

All in all, it was a really fun trip. Thanks Mom and Dave! And hope you guys are getting your house back in order. :-)

PS. New photos up in the Oct. & Nov. photo albums.