Fun in Iowa

After an uneventful drive (thankfully) on Tuesday, we made it back to Iowa. We had a lazy morning around the house on Wednesday. The boys enjoyed picking tomatoes out of Grandmas garden and helping her water them. I think they each ate about half a dozen tomatoes while we were there. It was their snack, lunch, and dinner. They loved them!

That afternoon we took them to a nearby park to run off some energy. It is a pretty cool park.

It had a maze the big boys loved running through.

It had two separate playgrounds for big and little kids.

And it had a splash pad. 

The boys loved sliding and climbing. 

Thursday morning Grandma took the two big boys on her daily morning walk. While on the walk, they got to go through a tunnel under the street. They both thought that was pretty neat. They also met one of Grandma's neighbors who had a bunch of magician tricks at her house and let the boys borrow some. They spent the rest of the day practicing their tricks to show Grandpa when he got home.

On Thursday afternoon we had some visitors. My sister, Becca, and her two kids had planned on coming to town for the weekend and came out a day early when they found out we would still be in town. The kids enjoyed some cousin time.

They picked more tomatoes and helped Grandma clean the corn for dinner. Even though these boys were born in Colorado, they love their Iowa sweet corn.

Friday morning we headed out to Nebraska to visit the other grandparents and cousins. But not before the boys got to see Grandpa off to work. This is usually how our mornings went.

It was a great visit and a nice stop on our way back home.

Rocket Center One More Time

Before we left Alabama, we stopped at the Rocket Center one more time. And this time, Dad was able to come with us!

Over the last few times we had been then, we discovered more things we hadn't seen before.

One of the new things we found was the climbing wall. The boys loved climbing up to the top. 

And we finally made it over to the other building. This building was set up with artifacts and information about the Space Race and our trips to the moon. 

It even has a real Saturn V broken up in stages set up in the building. I'm not sure why it never launch, but it was really neat. Daniel loved it.

They had a model of the Mercury you could climb in. It had the seat for the astronaut and a lot of buttons and switches you could play with. 

They had a play area for the little ones. Josh was too big but managed to occupy himself with some tablet space games they had set up. 

We even had lunch one day under the full size Saturn V. Daniel thought this was the best part.

When Dad came with us, the boys were very excited to show him all the fun things they did and learned. We started with the GPS maze. Then moved on to the climbing wall.

They had a new display of the space chair. 

Then we showed Dad all the fun stuff they had outside, like this big engine.

It was nice getting to go with Dad because he was able to tell us a lot more about things than Mom. 

This was definitely one of the highlights in Alabama for the boys. I'm glad we found it.

Talledega Superspeedway

On our way to Disney World we past a sign on the side of the road for the Motorsports Hall of Fame. Since Daniel is very into race cars right now I thought we should come back for a visit. I didn't realize it was a two hour drive from our apartment, but it was well worth it for the boys. 

We started with a walking tour through the hall of fame. This consisted of three buildings filled with race cars. The boys loved walking around and seeing all the cars. It was a little hard though because you weren't supposed to touch the cars and there was nothing blocking them off. There were a lot of reminders not to touch from Mom. 

Thankfully, there was one they could actually get in and "drive". They thought that was pretty cool. 

There were even some cars/drivers I recognized. 

Here is one of Dale Earnhart's cars. This one was roped off pretty well. 

They even had the car used in the movie Talledega Nights. 

Partway through our walking tour it was time for our bus tour. This was the highlight of the trip. We loaded on a bus outside the Hall of Fame and headed over to the race track. We started in the inside circle and saw all the garages and infield parking. 

We even got to take our picture in winner's circle. 

Then we actually drove onto the track. The boys were mesmerized. 

Here is the finish line.

This is trying to show the angle on the turns. It is a 33 degree slope and the cars have to drive at least 80mph or they will roll down the hill. The driver said they used to let people out to walk (crawl) up the slope but people would try to stand up at the top and fall down and get hurt so they don't let you out of the bus anymore. They even have special shoes for the workers who have to clean and paint this part.

This was Patrick's favorite part. The tunnel we drove through to get onto and out of the center field. 

After the bus tour, we continued our walking tour. 

Here is a Delorean. The boys didn't fully understand how cool this was. They just liked the doors.

Here is the bullet car that broke the speed record.

They even had a few cars post-crash. The boys thought these were really cool. It shows how good the cages are. This driver walked away with only minor injuries. 

We ended the trip with lunch at McDonald's. I think the boys had a great day.

Walt Disney World-Day Four (Heading Home)

We planned one more character meal the day we left. We had breakfast at Cape May.

It was at Disney's Beach Club Resort so we got to see a new hotel. 

They had a kid size viewing area in the lobby. It's like they planned the hotel for kids. :-)

We got to take pictures with Donald, Minnie, and Goofy in their beachwear.

Of course the had special Disney treats at the buffet. 

We ended the trip with a great breakfast and an uneventful drive home (minus some construction about 45 minutes from home). 

It was a great trip!

PS: If you want to see more pictures (of course I took a ton), check them out at weldons.shutterfly.com