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.

Wordless Wednesday: Captions, Please!

He Still Likes a Good Pony Ride

Last year, Nick had his first pony ride, and he really liked it. This year, he was a bit more subdued, but the pony was definitely a hit. Daddy took him riding again when we went to Sonny Acres last Sunday.

He behaved very well, and he was nicer to the pony than he was last year.

 Greg loves doing this type of father/son thing with Nick, and I know Nick appreciates the time with his daddy. The whole day at Sonny Acres was pretty enjoyable for Nick, who loved every bit of it.

I'll post more pictures of our pumpkin farm visit later this week.  :)  Now I'm off to write lesson plans. Gobs of lesson plans.

Summer All Gone!

This weekend I must finally admit that summer is over. Or, as Nick would say, "Summer all gone." Long sleeves are a must, though the cool weather doesn't slow down Nick one bit. He doesn't even seem to feel the cold. I have to say that after our walk yesterday, his little hands were freezing, but he wasn't complaining.

We had to dress Nick in two layers this morning: a onesie with jeans and a sweatshirt over that. I found this one on ebay and it suites him perfectly because he's my little stinker.

The trees are starting to change colors, the weather is much colder, and I must, unfortunately, face the facts: it's too cold for flip flops. My poor feet are protesting. They've had the freedom to spread out in cushy shoes for the last six months or so, and now all of my shoes are giving me blisters, even ones that fit just fine in the spring.

I actually kind of like fall, (with the exception of the shoe issue) and I'm looking forward to making lots of pumpkin recipes, enjoying the cool fall weather, and visiting the pumpkin farm with Nick. 

I had a kind of lazy day today. I love when I can lounge around in my pajamas all day, reading good books and relaxing. It was a very hectic week at work, and it is so nice to decompress. Nick read his plane books, over and over again. He's still pointing to every single plane, and labelling their parts. Greg went to the library and got some horror novels, and I'd put some nonfiction books on hold. I used to have a bad amazon habit, but lately I've only been buying certain books, and just renting the others. I figure if I really like a particular book, I can always buy it later.

Today I read Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, and it was pretty good. It's about her hesitation to get married again after a horrible divorce, and she also examines differing marriage practices in different places around the world. I like how she examines some of the historical marriage practices, even though I was infuriated by the historical concept of coverture, which is the idea that a wome loses her identity and rights when she marries. I also like the way she came to an agreement with her fiance about the kind of marriage they wanted to have before actually marrying. I guess this book is a cross between a memoir and an informational nonfiction book about marriage customs and traditions. I'd recommend it.