Week FIVE!
Week five was a busy week with visits to both coasts of Iowa visiting Grammy and Grandma Margie and Grandpa Dave. It was a whirlwind for sure but filled up our hearts and we are spending today recovering. :)
I took the kids to my mom's house on Tuesday. We left fairly early as the kids were so excited to be going somewhere. Months of being at home have taken its toll on them for sure. I didn't realize how special it would be to go somewhere for our first overnight since COVID started. I planned an alternate route back home (Hwy 141) so we could stop at a fun park (Fowler Forest) for lunch and hiking. However, when we pulled it, it was all chained up and closed. I was so bummed! We got out of the car anyway to stretch our legs, eat our lunch, and use the restroom. On the way to Moville, there was a detour and I thought I could just figure out the way home but I ended up going for at least 10 miles on gravel roads. Oof! It was quite the tour of Woodbury County, I'm sure my dad would not have been amused. :) We drove by the old junior high in Climbing Hill; I wonder what it was like to go to school there when my dad was a kid.
We had an awesome time at Grammy's house: making cookies, rice krispie treats, and playing on the slip and slide. Baby Gunner (and Uncle Sam and Aunt Nikki) came over and we had homemade ice cream! It was so good, and we remember Grandpa while we made it. I'm sure he would approve as the ice cream maker was a wedding gift.
It was so so so good to catch up with Sam and Nikki as well as see baby Gunner. I think our days of calling him baby are limited: he is a big boy! We watched him crawl and stand up to get toys he wanted as well as sing and talk. The girls had fun playing with him. My favorite was seeing him put down the flaps on the animal pop up toy: he did not want those little animals to be out! :)
Hopefully, we will see everyone again sooner rather than later. I know it was a lot of work to host my whole crew but the girls said they wanted to go visit Grammy "so she wouldn't be so lonesome." I hope we achieved that goal!
Thursday was a hot, hot day so we decided to visit the Riverside pool in Sioux City since it was OPEN. Yay! However, there was a miscommunication on the hours so we had a little bit of time to kill before we could swim. We took a nice tour of Sioux City, visiting Grammy's favorite discount store where all the kids looked at every toy before selecting their treasure, and then we visited Trinity Heights. I had wanted to visit here was a while and it was beautiful. I would recommend not visiting on a 95-degree day at high noon but it was a nice (and free) detour anyway.
Finally, it was time to swim! We had so much fun! I was thankful the waterslides were open and that there was so much room for the girls to swim in a huge zero-depth entry pool. They capped the attendance and even though it was busy it seemed like everyone kept their distance. I was especially impressed with the nice lifeguards: it is not often you see teenagers enjoying their job and interacting with little kids. It makes me miss being in school and working with young people every day. We stayed for the whole three hours and got our fill of swimming for sure. We were pooped afterward and enjoyed an awesome Casey's pizza for summer.
You may notice from the photos that there was a popular friend at Grammy's house this summer: Normie the cat. He was so patient with the girls and let them pick him up, cart him around, and push him in the stroller all day. The girls were thrilled and it was fun to see them love on him.
We also visited the Dorothy Peacut nature center at Stone State Park as I had never been. It was so beautiful! It was nice and shady in the play area and we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch. The nature center had just opened up and while a lot of the hands-on exhibits were closed it was neat to see the live and stuffed animals.
Michael and I climbed up to the top of one of the bluffs: what a view!
I ended my trip with a stop to get a coffee and ran into my middle school basketball and track coach, and drivers ed teacher. I was reminded of so many memories with Mr. C. and it renewed my faith how important good teachers are to young people. The hours he spent trying to help a terrible athlete learn to play and an anxious driver learn the rules of the road are not lost of me. I remember his advice to me in middle school track, "quit running like you are dragging a piano behind you!". :) I think of all the times teachers could have made me feel terrible about things and instead, they encouraged me to be my best...this is the foundation of my philosophy as an educator. We don't teach our subject, we are teaching kids. Okay, enough about that- I could talk for hours!
On Friday we headed home, and then we headed for Muscatine after Scott got home from work. We got to stay at Scott's parent's new house for the first time and the kids had a fun time. The girls have special bunk beds there and they thought they were pretty big because of it.
On the fourth, we enjoyed spending the day with Scott's brother's family and it was awesome to catch up with everyone. It was a hot day but we stayed cool in the shade while the kids ran in the sprinkler.
At Aunt Julie's house, the kids made another furry friend: Julie's aunt's dog that she was dog-sitting. She was an elderly retriever named Ellie and she loved the kids. Again, the girls were absolutely thrilled!
It was a really nice time and I especially had fun catching up with my quickly-turning-into-lovely-young-adults niece and nephew.
I hope you had a fun and safe holiday and are finding ways to connect with loved ones. See you next week!
