We decided in February or March that Des Moines would be the destination this year. Barb lives in Ankeny, Jim & Mandy in Urbandale and Josh & Keely in Johnston. The rest of us would travel to Des Moines. Barb got us discount coupons on the Ramanda Inn in Des Moines (with a waterpark) and booked rooms for the majority of us there. So . . . on Friday the 13th I traveled to Ankeny to get ready for our BIG vacation!
Barb and I met Glee, Ron & Mike and Beth, Karsten and boys in Boone. There is a railroad destination there that everyone thought the boys would enjoy. Jackson is really into Thomas the Train and anything with his trains! We decided to meet for lunch at a place called "The Whistle Stop." Barb and I got there first and checked the place out. Thumbs down!!! Too small and it closed already at 1:00 and it was already almost 12:30 when we got there. After confering with Ron, Glee, Mike (& his GPS) we decided on the Colorado Grill. Turned out to be a great place.
One side of the table. Waiting for our food!!! Tristan found Grandma Glee and spent a lot of time next to her whether it was eating, walking, swimming, etc. He's definitely her shadow!!!
Bets and Ron debating on what to order! Food was good!
We found the train place (and for the life of me I can't remember the name of it) but everything we wanted to do we couldn't. We had decided earlier to take a ride on the trolley only to find out it had broken that morning. No trolley ride! Bummer! And this was one of those hot, sticky days!! But we found some trains and train parts and took some pictures. Barb and Jackson climbed up on the cowcatcher of an old engine.
None of the train cars were open to tour but we had the kids (Barb and Mike included) climb up on this car for a picture. Don't they all look excited????
Since the train event didn't quite work out the way we wanted we decided to head to Ames and Reiman Gardens. We toured the butterfly house. What an intersting place to visit. The butterflies are beautiful but so is all the flora and fauna!! It was pretty cool checking all this out. When we left we had to make sure we didn't have any hitchhikers on us (butterflies).
Ron, Glee and Mike exploring the butterfly house!
A really cool thing at the gardens in July is a LEGO show. I think there were like 17 different LEGO projects throughout the Gardens. Here's the first one we saw . . . a beautiful huge butterfly.
Jackson and the world's largest LEGO Gnome! He was really cool!!!
And here we have a huge bee! Wouldn't want that thing to sting me!!!
One of my favorites was this LEGO rose. There was a printout of each project that told how many hours it took, how many LEGOs, etc. A very interesting show!
We found some musical tiles to play on. They really were pretty cool. That's me, Jackson, Glee and Tristan trying out our musical talents!! We'll never win any contest, but we sure had fun!!!
This was one of the most life-like LEGO displays we saw! Just stick someone behind that handle and it looks like they're ready to mow!!!
It was very hot that day (hasn't July been that way the whole way through?) but we managed to see the majority of the things there. I finally found a bench by the lily pond and waited while the rest of the family finished their tour. Looked like rain part of the time and we were all hoping but nothing happened!
We said good-bye to Ames and head into Des Moines. Barb left me off at her house and got the rest of them checked into the hotel in Des Moines. Barb and I (actually Barb did the majority of the work) hosted a BBQ on Saturday night for the family. Little did we know that the air conditioner would decide that was the day to poop out! But we all survived.
The continuing story of our vacation in the "BIG" city on the next blog!!!
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