U.S. Adventure - Iowa (part 2)

The cooler than expected weather almost messed up our weekend plans, which had an aquatic theme.  On Saturday, we went to the local water park.  The water was nearly too cold for me (I'm a wimp with respect to water temperatures, having grown up far from any sizable body of water).  I stuck with ORBJ, who was content to splash around in the super shallow area, with only a couple of forays into the toddler water slide.  She explained: "Dada, this is the three-year old pool," pointing to the area where we were wading.  FABJ and LBJ enjoyed marginally deeper areas of the water park, although FABJ was disappointed to find out that she was a couple of inches short of the minimum height to go down the big, fancy water slide.  Next year.

That evening, LBJ and I enjoyed a lovely dinner out while FABJ had a sleepover with PL and UM (my sister and brother in law) and my dad stayed with ORBJ.  Best of all, the restaurant - Cobble Hill - was walking distance from our accommodations in downtown Cedar Rapids.

On Sunday, we spent the morning at the NewBo Market, which I have likely mentioned before (the balloon animals in particular).  Although the balloon man wasn't there, they had a large outdoor sandbox in which the girls happily played for at least an hour.  Then, they got their faces / arms painted, and we had another tasty meal there.

ORBJ enjoying the sandox

FABJ showing off her arm paint (who needs face painting?)

ORBJ and FABJ being super sweet with their "ink"

After lunch, we visited friends of PL and UM.  They have an amazing pool and enjoy sharing it with friends.  The girls had a great time swimming - they did a great job of swimming, as well. We had a BBQ at their house for dinner.  We had bison burgers two times during the trip, which was great.  I think they are way tastier than beef burgers as well as being healthier.  Plus, I can't get them here in Ireland (which reminds me, we also had amazing corn-on-the-cob earlier in the trip).

ORBJ swimming

Our last day did not go nearly as well.  Although ORBJ and FABJ had a sleepover with PL and UM, ORBJ fell out of bed in the middle of the night.  FABJ had a big meltdown at the lunch restaurant, which detracted from another excellent meal.  The meal was at The Class Act, the training restaurant for the local community college.  Alas, we had to skip our planned trip to Chuck E. Cheese, although the girls enjoyed a final afternoon at UM and PL with family and the "puppies".

Princesses riding their horse (made by FABJ at pony camp)

The princess' plot for world domination distracted by puppies

The drive back to Chicago was a bit of a challenge.  FABJ had another sizable meltdown in the morning.  Thus, we had the dilemma of whether or not to stick to our promise of only buying a cuddly toy (in its own purse) if she didn't have a meltdown.  To complicate things, ORBJ got the same promise, and she had been an angel during the trip.  So what do we do?  We decided to let ORBJ have her cuddly toy but not FABJ.  FABJ had a colossal meltdown in the World's Largest Truck Stop (where else should we buy such toys?) which lasted well into Illinois (20+ miles away).  It got so bad that we had to pull over so I could climb into the back seat and sit between them.  At one point, the following phrase was uttered by me (and directed at FABJ):  "Stop rubbing your snot on your sister's face!"  Sigh.  With all these stops, we barely had time to get the rental car returned and catch our flight to SFO.  FABJ was very well behaved on the flight until LBJ and I switched seats 30 minutes before landing, so FABJ could sit next to her mama.  She basically had a tantrum for the rest of the flight, refusing to behave all the normal landing procedures (shades open, seat belt on, tray table up, etc).  You know that she knows all these procedures.  Still, we all survived and were happy to be picked up at the airport by my friend from college (RB).

Here is a final picture from the Iowa portion of the trip:

Boots tries to build Legos with the girls and the family expert, Papa