Iowa City

The day after the dance recital, right after church, we headed out for Iowa City.

Brent packed the car nice and tight, including lots of snacks and goodies. 

That container of MnM's is pretty much just for me.

He packed it so tight in fact, the luggage flew out of the car and down the steep driveway on arrival!

 Luckily, no one was hurt.

Brigitta immediately snuggled up with Dakota.

Bright and early the next day, we turned in the cans we'd been collecting for months.

This was our biggest haul yet, and we made a beeline for the bank to pad their college savings accounts.

When they make a deposit, they get two coins to put in the funnel. Sydney was adamant that she do her coins on her own. Liesel and Ireland were given strict instructions not to touch the side. Doing so can dislodge the perfect roll and send it straight into the hole.

Every time we come back, we find some charming little addition to the city, like this sign that made me laugh.

Especially the other side because it is so true!

 We picked up loads of books and DVD's at the library.

Working our way through summer reading lists.

We picked up loads of junk food at the grocery store.

Mad respect for Brent who does our grocery shopping and is a genius at keep us fed and keeping the bill so cheap.

We used our free passes to the Children's Museum. Where else can you play doctor... 

...and princess in the same room?

 Ireland had her annual asthma check up.

She had to have a blood draw to determine new allergies. Add elm, maple and ragweed to the list! 

Best phlebotomist I've ever seen. He dropped a plastic lady bug that vibrated and buzzed in her lap right before he inserted the needle. She was so surprised she didn't even notice the pinch.

We had pizza from Pagliais- the Palace Special- which just tastes just like it did when I was in high school. 

Can't get this photo upright, but you get the idea.

Saw a Model T touring group which was funny because my parents headed out on their own touring group for the Model A while we were there. 

The little ones played at the play land in the mall while the older two checked out the latest at Barnes & Noble. 

New shoes.

Originally just for Brigitta, her's ended up being too tight so they wen't to Sydney. Then the older two wanted some as well. Normally I don't like this style but somehow, these worked.

We stopped by the Amish grocery store for some goodies.

 Including our favorite jam. Partly for the taste and partly for the clever name!

Grandma and Grandpa (and Dakota for that matter) live life at a much quieter, peaceful pace.

Even so, we were able to snap some fun pics with Snap Chat filters.

Gotta love those filters!

Aunt Whitney picked up some sparklers. It's hard to tell but these were all different colors.

Everyone worked on their jungle gym skills, including Sydney.

We saw the live action Aladdin.

 The theater cleared out afterwards. We have a friend who earned his undergraduate degree in film and feels it a sign of respect to stay for the credits after a movie so we've always tried to do that. Since the place was empty, the girls danced up front. I wish the picture had turned out better.

 Outside the theater, we discovered people who were like-minded in a different way.

 This year's trip was really difficult for me and I can't pinpoint why. Now that I'm blogging everything we did and remembering that it came right on the heels of the big dance recital, perhaps that had a lot to do with it! It was a really busy two weeks. The girls had a lot of great experiences and I'm glad they got to connect with family as well as my hometown. We were definitely happy to be back home though!

Safety Village

Brigitta is my only child to attend Safety Village two years in a row. Of all my children, she needs it because she is the most accident prone little girl! We all wondered if she would break free from the green group and I'm happy to announce she is our first child to make it into the orange group!

She made some great friends.

Just when I thought the Safety Village curriculum couldn't get any cooler, this year they added a visit from a meteorologist! Like one of those people who stands in front of the green screen talking about the cold front moving in! How cool is that?!? 

Among the many, many benefits of Safety Village, are the strong, female role models.

The little cars are always a big hit.

Here they are practicing how they would crouch and stay on their toes if they were caught in a thunderstorm in an open area. A legit scenario here in the Midwest!

These working stoplights just kill me. They're so cute!

 So with much pomp and circumstance, Brigitta graduated (again) from Safety Village.

 With lots of support from her sisters.

Who were actually total terrors before, during, and after the graduation. Grrr... at least the photo looks cute!

Campus Recreation Center

I dropped the ball on signing the girls up for swim lessons this year. Usually I have everything in my cart online and I just need to pull the trigger on the first day of registration. This year I was just a few days late and by then the classes we needed were only accepting wait list names. I know from experience that no one ever makes it off the wait list. Iowa City swim lessons are an absolute steal. In the end, I was able to get everyone but Brigitta into a class right when she was at Safety Village. That meant I had to drop off Brigitta, then get everyone else settled in their swim classes, rush to get in the pick up line for Brigitta and then rush back to the pool in time to collect 3 sopping wet girls from swim lessons. It was kind of a circus- thank goodness Iowa City is only a 10 minute town!

It really didn't sit well with me that Brigitta was missing out on swim lessons. She arguably needs them the most. Just a couple years ago she very nearly drowned! I promised her we would take a trip to the University of Iowa Rec Center and that helped ease the pain a bit.

Truth be told, I preferred to just soak in the giant hot tub and chill, but I put in my time with the little ones on the lazy river and the splash pad areas. Brigitta was perfectly happy to float around in the whirlpool.

Let's take a closer look at her in there, just floating along!

 Sydney, preferred doing laps on the lazy river. 

Liesel and Ireland spent a chunk of time on the rock climbing wall. Whoever thought of installing that was genius because if they fall off, it's a soft landing into the water!

 I took video but can't seem to upload any because I did it in time-lapse. In any case, they were good and tuckered out by the time we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's.

There's a fun story about that cute little girl in this picture. She was playing with the girls and one of them overheard her speaking to her mother in Spanish. They dragged her over to me where I was soaking in the hot tub and excitedly told her I speak Spanish too. Someday my daughters will learn that I actually speak very poor Spanglish but for now they hear Brent and I chattering away about whether or not the girls should have ice cream after dinner and they think it's legit Spanish. Anyway, I gave a standard greeting and the little girl just looked at me stunned. I figured it was because of my very poor Spanglish but as we were getting ready to leave, her mother approached me.

She asked if I spoke Spanish and I explained that I was a missionary for my church, as was my husband, and we use it mostly when we don't want the girls to know what we are saying. She said that her daughter was so excited that my girls were impressed by her ability to speak Spanish. This mom, paused a second and then told me that other kids have made fun of her for it in the past. She said this is the first time she's ever seen her so proud to be able to speak Spanish and she thanked me for my daughter's kindness.

As we drove home, I tried to impress upon the girls how far their little act of kindness had gone for that mother and daughter at the rec center. They were full of questions like why would anyone make her feel bad for speaking Spanish and why would she ever be ashamed of it. Maybe it's one of those things you have to be a mom to truly understand.

Dinosaur Fun

I was coming up dry for ideas to keep the girls occupied when I remembered the Devonian Fossil Gorge at the Coralville Dam. Somehow in our many trips to Iowa City, I've neglected to introduce that gem to my daughters. They've really done it up since it was first uncovered in the flood of  '93! There are informational signs and a fountain (which I neglected to take a picture of- dangit!) and even trails and steps down into the gorge. My only regret? Letting them hike in their high heeled sandals. They didn't seem to mind too much though.

I don't know what it is about hiking that gets my girls to stop fighting. It's like how a car ride makes a baby fall asleep. Something just... I dunno, works. Even though it was hot and humid, I was so grateful for a break from all the bickering.

Since the girls could look for fossils on this hike, it was like a scavenger hunt!

Bonus!

The dam gates were opened pretty wide so there was quite an impressive flow of water. 

The playground is really old- which is why there's still a merry-go-round. From what I understand, those are no longer considered safe, so they're going the way of the dinosaur. Ha! No pun intended.

We made up a game where the girls would get spinning and then I'd yell "SWITCH!" and they had to try and find a different animal to sit on. 

Hmmm, maybe it's because people play games like this that these are now considered dangerous? Case in point with how Liesel flies off into the sand. In any case, I laughed so hard and let me tell you, after a rough week, it was much needed.

Nauvoo

Growing up in the midwest, our family took a lot of trips to Nauvoo. Friends of my parents would stop by since Iowa City is located just off of I-80. At the time, there just wasn't a heck of a lot going on in Iowa City so we'd often take trips to Nauvoo. It's always been a quaint experience, but the charm factor went through the roof once the temple was rebuilt. Now and again people exclaim, "Oh WOW" when Brent and I tell them that's where we were married. To be sure, we weren't going for a destination wedding- that was simply my home temple. 

Now when I take my own girls, I'm glad they can connect with the classic stops I did when I was a child. I decided to shake things up a bit and hit the Fudge Shop first. That ended up being a brilliant move. There were no lines, the workers were happy to let us have samples and then I had a lovely bag of chocolate covered cinnamon bears to nosh on all day. They became perfectly melty in the hot car- YUM!

We also stopped by a couple of gift shops and I picked up these lovely postcards for friends back home. Again, it turned out to be a brilliant move because there weren't big crowds just yet and the girls weren't overtired yet so they behaved themselves.

We stopped by the Visitor's Center to pick up a map and plot out our day. The Women's Garden was rather wet so we didn't spend too long out there but I had to get a pic of the girls playing Ring Around the Rosie next to the In the Family Circle statue.

As I started to head back towards the Visitor's Center, the girls lingered. This garden is a gem that not everyone appreciates.

Maybe it was the heat or maybe it was the humidity, but the girls were fighting A LOT. We stayed in the car and I made them hug it out before going to the next attraction. We ended up spending a fair chunk of time in the car... The girls were really on one this time. After we'd picked up our "prairie diamond" rings and we were in the middle of our tour at the Tin Smith Shop, Brigitta tried to shove her ring up her nose. When I chastised her for it, the senior gentleman sitting next to me almost fell off his seat laughing.

Things had dried off enough for the girls to once again enjoy their very favorite spot- Pioneer Pastimes!

I struck up a conversation with a senior sister about the lack of food options in Nauvoo. She said that because it's such a small town, all of the restaurant owners band together to ensure the local government doesn't allow outside vendors because it would cut into their revenues. On the one hand, that's fair- these people were here first. But on the other, oh how amazing it would be to have a variety of food trucks near the park!

The Family Living Center is always fun but the girls really love the rope making. I love this pic of Liesel.

 It wasn't too busy so Sydney got to try her hand at it even though the wheel was as big as she is- ha!

I have such a special place in my heart for sisters. I love seeing my girls interact with them!

We were sad to discover that the adorable gingerbread boys and girls have been replaced with simple, round cookies. Even so, a fight ensued between Brigitta and Sydney over who's was bigger so as soon as we got back to the car, I chucked them both out the window. Again, I refused to go anywhere until they hugged and made up. While we were waiting (a long, long, LONG time) for this reconciliation, I noticed this audacious bird who had spotted the discarded cookies. He'd already snatched one of the cookies and watching him make his return became our world there for a minute.

I'm not sure if the girls thought they still had a chance at eating that cookie there in the gravel or what, but as you can hear Sydney bemoan, "This is the worstest day EVER!" The struggle to maintain my sanity on this trip was real and I have to admit I watched that video over and over because it made me laugh so hard.

We ended our trip at the Sarah Granger House where the Relief Society was founded. The younger two were still emotionally traumatized from the cookie thing and I was beyond irritated with all of them for all the fighting. The two sweet sister missionaries could readily tell everyone was out of sorts and I think we kind of threw off their gentle vibe. I'm sure they were judging me the way I would have judged a harried mother when I was young. Even so, the view of the temple from the front window was just lovely.

Thoughts of doing pageant next year floated into my thoughts on the drive home...