Lost Island and Adventureland

Time to wrap up our Iowa posts before more summer fun is upon us.
Just a couple of the fun Destinations that Iowa had to offer us this year.
We spent a day at Lost Island water park in Waterloo. The kids loved it. My kids are pretty big fans of water slides and wave pools etc, so they didn't have much to complain about. Especially with so many cousins and aunt and uncle and even Grandma and Grandpa, who were all willing to take them on a slide or water coaster, or just for a spin on the lazy river.

Mallory, Henry and Claire spent quite a bit of time on the Lazy River with anyone who would go with them. Henry kept trying to convince Mallory to go down a few small water slides with him, but she was not having any of it. Finally he kept saying, "I don't know why Mallory loves the lazy river so much, but she really does."

Gavin and Macy floating along.

Even the babies had some good water fun, the other two took naps on the chairs by the pool, but not Wyatt. The little bit of sleep he allowed himself to get was only in my arms. He did discover how much fun it is to splash though.

Jade is already a beach babe.

The day after the water park we headed to Des Moines to Adventureland. There were a lot of things that I had forgotten about Adventureland from high school, and having kids helped us to find all of the rides that we would have never even looked at as youth. We definitely tried to pack a lot into the day and hit a wide variety of rides.
A nice spin on the carousel, got us all ready to go.

Gavin insisted everyone had to ride this thing called "G Force". Though this had nothing to do with talking Guinea pigs.After only a short time at the park Henry became obsessed with the idea of riding the bumper cars. It even reached a point where he was sitting alone on a bench yelling, "Mom, I Want to do the bumper cars, RIGHT NOW." It was certainly an awesome moment in parenting. But eventually we made it to the bumper cars and everyone had a good time driving around crashing each other.

Grandma's favorite rides are the Teacups...

(not as fun as I had hoped, turns out you can't use that wheel in the middle of the cup to make it turn faster, like the hamburgers on McDonald's playgrounds back in the day)...And the Scrambler. No one got too sick on it either.We were all wearing down part way through the day and Libbie was able to hitch a ride. It's good to still be able to fit in your Mom's stroller when you are almost 10.Just a little video of the baby boys at the end of the day. They were so tired, but still managing to be cute and mostly happy.

Super Long Drive

We just returned from a very long drive to Iowa for the Cardon reunion. We packed in as much fun and driving as possible and got home very worn out. Here are some of the highlights of our trip.
Proof that there were a few moments in the 20 hour drive that Wyatt was not crying.

Bright-eyed in the morning.

This was about the moment when Henry said, "Dad, are you just driving in circles?"

We got there all ready to jump into fun, like basket-weaving with Grandma.

And of course, hitting the Lego stash.

Down on Grandpa's Farm

I went to my first land auction while in Iowa, and learned quite a bit about current farmland prices and about how a land auction actually works. It was very informative and also a little exciting. It might have been boring if we hadn't had an emotional investment in the land being sold. One plot belonged to my cousin that her parents had farmed, about a mile from the house I grew up in. The other plot is what we all know as Grandpa's farm. It was land that had belonged to my great-grandparents and had been passed down. This area has a small creek and with a metal bridge running along the back and we spent many many days down by that bridge in the collective childhood of myself and my siblings. It has always been affectionately know as "The Creek" (or if you are my dad, The Crick).
After the auction, Caleb and I drove out to see the farm one more time. It had been pouring all night and morning and was very wet and muddy. I was dieing to walk to the creek, and luckily, some of our old neighbors drove up and must have seen the look on my face because they offered to loan us some mud boots. Much to Caleb's chagrin, I took them up on the offer and dragged him through the wet and mud to take some photos.

The Bridge.

The fabulous husband that indulged me on this little adventure that left us both blistered and water-logged.

Not sure how long this car has been here, but at least for my life time.

Proof that the corn was "knee-high before the 4th of July." Yep, that is me sticking out my knee.

We also got to hang out with these superb 2nd cousins twice removed.

What a great trip down Memory Lane... or the Lane at Grandpas. Very glad I got the chance to take part in this day and the events that seemed to be a bit like the end of an era for our family.

A Large Happy Family

We took these great pictures on one of our last days in Iowa, but in case our other adventures end up boring our readers.
All 24 of us. And we're even smiling.
The Cousins

Wyatt really loved the photos, especially after he hit his head on the jungle gym.

First Haircut

The insane humidity in Iowa finally forced us to cut off Wyatt's crazy mop of hair. I was hoping to wait until he turned 1, but it just seemed mean to leave him so sweaty. His Dad also got fed up enough to shave the homeless man beard, I think we were all a bit relieved to finally see it go.

I have grown to hate cutting my boys hair, so Papa was nice enough to do the honors. Wyatt didn't seem to mind it for most of the time, but then started brushing hair into his own mouth and got fed up.

More great looking grown up baby photos to come.

Amazing Race Cardon Style

Jeff (Papa) put together a great Amazing Race- Mount Vernon. We had to race around town for an hour looking for clues and doing challenged, that included ice cream eating and some Minute to Win It style events. I think we all had a great time. I totally luck out on my team, Rich had a natural intuition about all of the clues and we found things easily and quickly. We weren't the fastest in the challenges, but not the slowest either. We can in second, but we blame the slow couple that was ordering ice cream ahead of us and couldn't decide what to get.
Regrettably I didn't get a photo of Crystal and Ben's team before the left to start the race, but here are the other teams with our fab matching shirts.
Turns out Mara and Nathan were #1.Me and Rich- Yes I am wearing pink.Caleb and Rachel actively racing.Brennan and Stacy- the strongest team around.

And we Got Very Dirty

Today Caleb and I spent a super romantic afternoon together... We ran the Dirty Dash 5k. If you aren't familiar with the Dirty Dash, it is a race in which you convince several of your closest friends/siblings to join your team and do a trail run complete with obstacles and lots and lots of mud. In this case, we were the siblings/friends and were convince by Nathan and Stacy to join their team, which also included Stacy's brother, Jake, and his wife Hannah. Nathan is the tax guy for the guys that came up with this race, and I am quite sure they are making a killing. There were so many people and they ran the race in different heats all day long.

We had a great time. The course was tough (not sure how anyone runs the 10k) and we got super filthy, there were a lot of steep uphill climbs and just running covered in mud made it interesting. Then there were the obstacles... walls of hay bails to climb over, thick slippery mud to run uphill in, wooden walls to scamper up while being hosed down with a fire hose, and even some tubes to drop and crawl through. Somehow we were mostly just dirty from the waist down until we hit the end... the giant slip-and-slide (which served to remind us how painful a slip-and-slide can be) and the huge mud hole with mudslide at the finish line.
Here's our team a few minutes after the finish, when some of the mud had begun to dry.

The beard was perhaps not the best accessory... Caleb didn't really realize what the race entailed until I mentioned a few things about it on the drive up. He kept saying he couldn't understand what people thought he would be doing when they mentioned him getting mud in his beard, now he knows.

Stacy and Nathan- the Captains of our DBN Tax Team

Hannah and Jake, what a romantic pose.

How could you look at this handsome face and not believe that it was just a magical afternoon?

There were showers, or what you might call water hoses coming down from above with cold water for us to rinse off fully clothed. Since it was maybe 66 degrees in Midway, we got off some of the surface mud and then put on some slightly cleaner clothes to drive home. It was nice to get home and take a warm shower and wash my hair and ears and everything else about 3 times to get the rest off. It is safe to say that good times were had by all.

A Penguin and A Porcupine

Today was the day of Gavin's kindergarten class presentation. His very wonderful and creative teacher wrote an Opera from a children's book, and it was fabulous. The title was "Bessie the Messy Penguin." Our wonderfully talented friend, Lexi had the part of Bessie and she did great. There were also four other solo parts and Gavin was chosen to be the porcupine.

Now just a moment of reflection, this has been a big year for Gavin...
He started school, and happily ran off. I was happy too, knowing he would love it.
This winter he sat down and read "Green Eggs and Ham" to me, and I was amazed, and continue to be amazed, at how much he is learning and how well he is reading.
He learned to tie shoes and even became speedy at it, and I have been so proud of him.
He's grown about 3 inches since the fall. He loves foods that would be strange to most kids, and takes great care of his baby brother. I have witness him befriending people who might be viewed as being in hard situations, and plan amazing little family lessons about the life of Christ.

All of these have happened in a seemingly short time, and not once did I look at him and shed a tear. Until Today.
As I watched my adorable little porcupine come onto the stage in front of all those kids and parents and belt out his 4 lines with confidence and a clear strong voice. I just couldn't help the tears coming to my eyes. He has grown and changed so much this year and I just love the person that I am watching him become. He even looked over and returned my thumbs up as discreetly as he could. I was just so overwhelmed with love for my little baby who is now this big kid.
Luckily I am not just a huge cry baby and was able to appreciate the really amazing performance that they put on. I loved the dancing at the end of every presentation and I loved seeing Gavin trying to skip and dance around the stage in his costume. He had complained that morning about how hard it is for a porcupine to skip. What a great show.
His costume was great, all the kids loved it.

The deer, porcupine, polar bear and monkey.

A few extra penguins joined the photo.

All the penguins onstage.