A Trip to Iowa: Part Five

It's Alive! It's Huge!

For the last part of my Iowa trip, I got the grand tour of my friend Gardenmom's gigantic garden. Nick and I were both awed by the size of this garden. I cannot imagine the amount of produce she got from a garden this size. Wow. All the plants look so healthy, too--even in October. I didn't even realize that this much stuff would be alive this late in the season. Greg demolished all of our growing things about two weeks ago--said the season was over and we might as well accept it.

In fact, I think poor Nick was worried that it was going to swallow him right up. I do believe that this garden is at least twenty times the size of mine. The height of these plants makes Nick look downright tiny.

I think seeing this garden inspired me to make mine much bigger next year. I'll have all winter to work on my husband.  ;)  It would just be less grass for him to mow. Although I don't think I'd want one this big. Nick acted like he was in wonderland. He had this look on his face, as if he were saying, "Very strange place."



After our garden tour, I cleaned out my car, and Nick helped. You would be surprised at the mess one mommy and one toddler can make during a very long car trip. (Or if you know me, maybe you wouldn't be surprised.)

It was a really long drive, but the visit was definitely worth it. I want to make a trip out there again next year sometime, maybe when I can see more things in bloom. Nick loved playing with all the other kids best--he got mad when they had to leave. He was so happy and entertained all weekend. We really did have a great time.   : )

A Trip to Iowa: Part Four

Back to our day at the farm. Here's Nick riding a mini-tractor, with the help of Gardenmom's stepson. I meant to post these pictures on Wednesday, but my open house was this week, as well as a state audit at work, so I'm a little behind. Tonight I'll post the rest of the pumpkin/apple farm pictures. Here's another one of Nick enjoying the ride, and one of Gardenmom's son, who has gotten so big he barely even fit on the tractor! I love the determined look on his face, kind of like, "I am going to make this work, even if I'm too big."

Nick also wanted to use one of the old-fashioned push mowers they had for kids to try. Gardenmom's stepdaughter helped, and Nick got a kick out of trying to push it. He has a toy lawnmower at home that his has a little more success with.

The kids enjoyed running through the tunnel. Nick particularly enjoys being chased.

The above picture was the best one I could get of Nick and I together. Do you notice that he threw his shoe on the floor? Typical.

Tomorrow I'll be showing our tour through Gardenmom's gigantic garden. Nick was duly impressed.  :)

A Trip to Iowa: Part Three

Do Toddlers Usually Eat Apples Like This?

One of my favorite parts of our Iowa trip was visiting the apple orchard. It was more fun than I'd thought it would be, and Nick loved it. He is a master of pointing out the obvious, so he kept announcing things like, "Tree!" and "Apples!" Nick did help pick a few apples, but mostly he walked around causing trouble, throwing apples that he found on the ground, and begging us to give him more apples. Silly boy easily ate three entire apples. At one point, he figured out that if he dropped an apple and then cried, we'd give him a new one. So then it became a game.

Before recently, I'd never seen little kids eat apples whole like this. Nick prefers them this way. On Monday, in fact, he ate an entire apple, down to the core. Only a tiny piece was left. Ah, well. Apples are good for growing boys.

I was actually quite proud of myself. During the whole apple picking experience, I climbed several trees. I'm not a terribly athletic person, and pulling my body weight up with my arms is quite a feat. In fact, when I was in the corn pool, I floundered like an uncoordinated elephant in, well, a corn pool. But I was decent at climbing trees with the kids. I even managed to get a few apples. I think they taste better when I personally climbed the tree to retrieve them. We tried to help Nick try to climb a tree, but that wasn't too successful.



Nick totally loved having other kids to play with. I think that was his favorite part of the trip. All of the kids were a huge help with Nick, and he got so excited watching them play and trying to copy them. This was a great trip. I didn't get as many apples out of it as Gardenmom did (I believe I bought about twelve), but we have the experience. Plus I have a few nasty scratches on my arm from the tree.

I still have a ton more pictures of our day at the pumpkin/apple farm, and I'll show those tomorrow.

A Trip to Iowa: Part Two

Yes, there is such a thing as a corn pool. Observe for yourself:

Nick and I had a really good time on our short trip to Iowa, but we did so much that I'm going to tell you about it in several posts. Let's start with the corn pool.

Prior to my visit to this Iowa pumpkin farm, I had never even heard of a corn pool. In fact, I'd never imagined that such a thing even existed. But it does, and man, is it fun. I got in with Nick, and he was petrified. Something about the unsteady surface freaked him out, and he clung to me and whimpered. Nick has started telling me when he's scared, as in "Mommy, I scared!" For awhile there, he wouldn't even dip a toe in the corn pool. I was patient, but I didn't take him out, figuring he'd like it eventually.

So he watched the other kids (my friend Gardenmom's son, stepson, and stepdaughter) for awhile and then decided he'd like to try the corn himself. It only took a little while before he was enjoying himself thoroughly. Nick likes to throw things, and once he figured out that it was okay to throw the corn, he was in heaven.

You can see Gardenmom's son buried up to his neck in the background. There are lots of fun things to do in a corn pool, as you can see. However, you should be aware that the corn comes with you. Personally, I had piles of corn kernels in my underwear and hay in my hair. When I went to change Nick's diaper a little later, it was filled with little pieces of corn. But it was great fun. All four of the kids had an absolute ball playing with Nick all weekend, and the corn pool was just the start of the adventure. More tomorrow. I'll leave you with this:

A Trip to Iowa: Part One

A Long Car Ride and a Delicious Meal at Thunder Bay Grille

So, yes, I'm a little crazy. I have Columbus Day off tomorrow, and I decided (rather ambitiously, I might add) to drive out to visit my friend Gardenmom in central Iowa. Nick and I last went to see her and her family in August of '09. Gardenmom and I met in college, and we take turns visiting each other at least twice a year. I spent several hours packing the car Thursday night, because babies require endless amounts of paraphenalia. Then, right after school on Friday, I picked up Nick from daycare and we got on the road immediately.

It's gotten more difficult in the last year to entertain Nick in the car for long periods of time. I did prepare myself with a giant grocery bag of various toys, and thank goodness I did. I kept it on the passenger side and passed Nick back one toy at a time. He has this habit of dropping (or throwing) toys. In the first two hours, Nick went through his stuffed bunny, his toy airplane, his portable zoo full of stuffed animals, His "If You Give a Moose a Muffin" book, several balls, and his vibrating toothbrush. (I was desperate at that point.)

While Nick was good for part of the trip, even spending 45 minutes looking at his book and pointing to the pictures, he screamed for much of the first three hours. At one point, he flung his toothbrush, still on, across the car. Then he decided he wanted it back, and so he screamed for the next hour. I could hear both the vibrating toothbrush (under the seats somewhere) and the screaming baby over the radio. I decided that it was a good time to stop for dinner. I stopped at the first restaurant I saw, Thunder Bay Grille. I visited one before in Rockford, and it was okay, but not great.

But apparently they've gone through some menu changes, and Nick and I were very impressed.

The restaurant has changed its menu to include tapas-style offerings, and they were quite delicious. My bill was only $23, and Nick and I enjoyed calamari, two miniature angus burgers with homemade chips, and a delicious caprese salad in a small martini glass. I'm pretty picky about restaurants that I like, and I usually do not enjoy chain restaurants. The menu at Thunder Bay, though, was one of the best I've seen, and you could tell from the taste of the food that a lot of thought had been put into each dish.

Nick's favorite was the homemade chips. I loved them, too, but only got to eat one, because someone had already eaten all the others. The burgers were a much better quality than I've seen in most similarly priced restaurants. The decor was really neat, too, though a little dark. Some tables were even low to the ground with cushy chairs to sit in. (Nick and I couldn't take advantage of those because of the high chair.) I liked the idea for the mozzerella/cherry tomato salad so much that I'm going to try to recreate it at home.

The calamari was good, too, and not too greasy. But what I thought was spectacular were the breadsticks. They reminded me a little of the ones at the Olive Garden, only with a little less salt and an overall better taste. These tasted less processed and the garlic butter was just enough on the soft bread. I usually do not rave this much about my dinner, but it is really rare to find a menu that is this good right off the highway in the middle of Iowa. I honestly wish they had one near my house, because we'd be frequent visitors. I can tell you that I'll be stopping in every time I go through Davenport.

Nick was in such a good mood after this meal that he went to sleep almost immediately and was out for the rest of our trip. I finally arrived at 11:30 p.m. That means we spent 6 1/2 hours in the car and 1 hour in the restaurant. I'm so glad we went Friday night, though, because we were able to get lots of rest. We needed it, because on Saturday Gardenmom took us to the pumpkin farm for a very exciting day. I'll write more tomorrow.

The Iowa State Fair: Largest Pumpkin I Ever Did See

Yup, that's Nick in his cute sun hat. He is sitting in front of a 1,099 lb. pumpkin. I am thinking he was a little afraid of it. This was our first trip to any state fair, ever, and boy did I have a lot to learn. But my friend Gardenmom is a veteran fair goer, and she filled me in on what I need to know:

Rule #1--Make it Big! People like big things. Giant turkey legs, sculptures, livestock, statues, and even produce were found throughout the fair. Like Exhibit A--the pumpkin.

Exhibit B is a pig. It is as big as a cow, but shorter. Also, it is far less attractive. If I was a lady pig, I would stay far, far away from this big boy.

The food portions were also big at the Iowa State Fair. It would've been easy to eat loads of junk food. I saw some foods I've never tried before: deep fried twinkies and oreos. I had wanted to try those, but in a way, I'm kind of glad I didn't. I stuck to a turkey sandwich for my lunch, and a hot dog and some fried zucchini for dinner. Not too bad when I could've gone crazy on the corn dogs and elephant ears.

Our trip to the fair was in a large group of seven--we barely fit in my friend Gardenmom's van. We went with her and her son, her boyfriend, and his two children, who were extremely helpful with Nick. Everyone helped to make sure we had a great time. It is interesting how kids in IL and Iowa learn different things. I was astounded at how much the boys knew about different tractors. . . which leads me to the next rule.

Rule #2--You can relate anything and everything to farming. Iowa is filled with farm fields, so farming and its various implements are a core part of the fair. Take for example the shuttle. What would normally be a bus, shuttling people to and from the parking lots to the fair, is instead a tractor. No, really. There were also a ton of booths set up to sell people farming stuff: seeds, tractors, and giant metal implements that I couldn't identify.



Also following Rule #2, and Rule #1 as well, are these statues. Yes, Nick is really laughing as he sits under a statue of a giant chicken. The statue of an astronaut is not only huge but is also carved out of butter. There was also a giant cow and a television sculped of butter.

















On a side note, you can see some really interesting people at the Iowa State Fair. People-watching is pretty hilarious. It is amazing how many unflattering outfits and tattoos congregate in one location. Mimicking their parents, I suppose, the kids even have contests to see how many temporary tatoos they can stick all over their bodies. We're not just talking about the little kids, either. I saw teenagers with company logo tattoos covering all exposed body parts. And boy, did they have exposed body parts! It was pretty funny to see the lines of kids getting fake tattoos all over their bodies. I guess it must be an Iowa thing.

Which brings us to Rule #3--Clothing is a flexible concept at the Iowa State Fair. I was too embarrassed to take pictures of people who were truly scandalous, but Nick sure loved the idea. There is a water play area at the fair that kids can play in, and I let Nick go in just his diaper. When in Rome, and all that. Nick sure loves semi-nudity. I think he'd be happiest if I let him wear only a diaper all the time. He'd probably tell me to skip the diaper, too, if he could talk.

Rule #4--Animals are cool. They are a central theme of the Iowa State fair. I actually loved seeing the animals, and so did Nick. Here he is looking at a horse while the horse looks at him. Both of them seemed mildly curious. The horse actually turned his head to look at Nick.

We also saw some awesome looking fuzzy chickens, turkeys, llamas, goats, sheep, and very cute pigs. All of the animals looked so pretty; I guess their owners groomed them well before the fair.

This isn't a real animal, but it was sure Nick's favorite ride. He wasn't big enough for the carnival rides, but he was just the right size for the pink elephant!

This last picture is of Nick sitting with Gardenmom's son in a little jeep. He loved it and didn't want to get out. Nick and I really did have a great time on our trip to Iowa. I'm always appreciative of other cultures, and the agricultural rural communities of Iowa definitely constitute a culture of their own. It was kind of neat to be outside of my comfort zone and in a new area. The hills and fields in Iowa were beautiful, and everyone I met was welcoming. My trip definitely wasn't as exotic as my vacation in Paris last summer, but it was still enjoyable. I'm so glad I had the chance to have a little getaway this year.

Central Iowa: My Exotic Vacation Destination

To finish off my summer break, I decided to take Nick and go on a relaxing getaway to visit my friend GardenMom. I've known her since we lived on the same co-ed dorm floor at NIU back in the mid-1990s. Boy, did we have some fun back then. After college, she moved to Iowa and I moved back to the Chicago suburbs. But once or twice a year, we try to visit one another for a mini-vacation.

In this picture, you can see Nick sitting on the edge of the world. At least it looks that way to me. The corn and soybean fields seem to go on and on forever. I thought the hills in this part of Iowa were beautiful and so different from Illinois. GardenMom lives on a dead end street, with beautiful fields behind her.

This was my first time making the trip since having Nick. He was very well-behaved (for a baby) during the drive; I found the local NPR affiliate and he went right to sleep. I guess Iowa Public Radio does that to some people. At one point, he did get fussy and I had to fling him (literally) a teething cookie, but the rest of the way he was great. I'm hoping for the same kind of luck on the trip back this Saturday.

Here is GardenMom standing with Nick next to her huge sunflowers. She is an amazing gardener, and her whole yard is filled with vegetables, herbs, and flowers. She has given me much advice on how not to kill my plants through neglect and/or abuse. I've become better at keeping plants outdoors alive, although I have a 100% record of killing indoor plants. We'll see if I can break that record this year; I'm going to buy plants for my classroom next week and try to keep them alive. In the picture below, I'm standing in the middle of her monster garden of joyous vegetables. Nick kept trying to grab them.


For our first full day in Iowa, we went to the Reiman Gardens at Iowa State University. They were gorgeous, but the highlight of the trip was the Butterfly Gardens. There were so many different kinds fluttering all around. Nick didn't know which way to look.

Pardon my poor photography skills, but if you look closely, you can see a gorgeous yellow butterfly sitting on the pavement towards the left side of the picture. Nick was enthralled. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he sure liked it.

He also had the chance to flirt with this little girl, maybe 2 years old, who wanted to hug him. She kept saying "Baby," and touching his hair and his hands. She patted him on the head like a dog and would have followed our little group if her grandma hadn't pulled her away.

Nick was just as attracted, but to the little girl's shoe. She was wearing Crocs, you see, and he enjoyed poking his fingers through the little holes.

The experience of standing in the butterfly gardens with hundreds of wings fluttering around you is wondrous. I sat on a bench and just watched them fly around for quite awhile; it was incredibly relaxing. I will be thinking of the butterflies next week while I'm sitting in staff meetings and organizing files.

I was at Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday with my dad and stepmom, and we went to the butterfly gardens there, but this structure was more permanent and the plants were larger and more beautiful. I'd recommend the Reiman Gardens to anyone who visits this part of Iowa.

This little pond had frogs, giant dragonflies, and lilypads galore. GardenMom's son had to walk all the way around the pond to make sure he introduced himself to every frog he could find. I don't blame him. At the age of six, I would have done the exact same thing.

As it was a hot and sunny day, I of course packed sunscreen and dutifully applied it to my son. We've been using it for months now, but I think Nick might have developed an allergy to this baby sunscreen. Almost immediately after application, a rash appeared on his head and spread to his face. He must have rubbed his eyes right after I put sunscreen on his hands, because his eyes got all red and his nose was running.

This picture was taken after the rash had mostly calmed down. You can still see it on his head, though. I am going to try a different sunscreen tomorrow. We're going to the Iowa State Fair, and I'm sure we'll need plenty of sunscreen. That and Pepto Bismol.