Women of Faith Weekend - October 16th

Thursday I dropped the kiddos off at day care and started my trip up to Minneapolis for our annual Women of Faith weekend!  I stopped in Des Moines to break up the drive and met Mom for some lunch and shopping.  We had a fabulous lunch at PF Changs and did some light shopping at Jordan Creek and Costco before I started my drive up to Carver to meet up with the fam.

After a delicious dinner, we ventured out to Sub Zero for ice cream!   What a cool place.  You get to choose your base (ice cream, fro-yo, etc.) and then your flavor and toppings.  Then they mix them up with liquid nitrogen to freeze them into ice cream.  I'm a nerd.  I took a video.

After ice cream, we stopped at Target.  I scored some awesome snow leopard leggings on clearance.   They are truly A-MA-ZING.

We enjoyed a fun card game, and I decided to get to sleep early so I would be awake and ready for our fun day at the mall on Friday!

Ditmars Apple Orchard - October 12th

My family was meeting in Council Bluffs this morning to get Grandpa George back to Seward.  It worked out that the boys and I got to join everyone for breakfast.  Henry was grumpy he had to miss Sunday School, but he was very excited to see Papa George!   

After breakfast, we went over to play at the park for a bit.  

This isn't slow motion, I swear.  That slide is just REALLY slow :)

                                     

 

Grandma bought Henry Stuffy after breakfast, so Stuffy came with us to the park.  He had fun too.

 This is Sam's favorite thing at every park.  Our park trips consist of him saying, "Mom, wanna see this!" over and over and over.

 After the park, we went to Target to get some pumpkin decorating supplies.

 After we got home, I realized that even though we had 6 pumpkins at home, they weren't really the correct size for the pumpkin decorations we had.  So we loaded back up in the car, drove back to town, and took advantage of a Groupon I had for the apple orchard.

The last few years, the boys and I have enjoyed trips over to visit Ditmars Apple Orchard.  They have a great deal each fall where you can get two apple cider slushies, apple cider donuts, and passes for four to get into the orchard.  That deal sold out quickly this year, but I got a similar deal. 

 This picture pretty much captures my feeling about these apple cider donuts.  I was trying to be good on my diet, so I didn't eat one.  I drool when I look at this picture of Sammy with that donut!

 After snacks and playing for a while, we rode up to the pumpkin patch to search for the perfect pumpkins.

 

After we found our pumpkins, we loaded them in the car and went up to wander through the corn maze.

 We made it out. 

We came home, decorated our pumpkins, and finished up the rest of our Sunday relaxing!   What a fun weekend.

Vala's, Round 2 - October 11th

Henry hasn't seen his best friend from day care for quite a while since they attend different schools now, so we got the boys together for a fun day at the pumpkin patch.

We figured if we hit Vala's in the afternoon, we'd miss a bit of the crowd.  Unfortunately we didn't think about the fact that Nebraska didn't have a football game this weekend, so everyone on the planet was at Vala's.  

Bouncy pillows were first on the list.

Slushies!

Silly faces.

We discovered that the boys were VERY hard to keep track of due to the large crowds.  They both were running in opposite directions.  It made for an eventful afternoon.

The big slide seems to have gotten much slower for some reason over the last few weeks!  It was still fun.

The boys had fun shooting apples.

 This talking corn might be Henry's new favorite thing.

The kids had an awesome time together.  It is so fun to be able to get together and play even though they aren't able to see each other each day. 

 Hopefully we'll be able to find more fun activities for them throughout the winter.

Zoo Date

This week for pretty much the first time, the boys have done things separately from each other. Sammy went to dinner with me one night while Dave and Henry did something on their own.  Henry's best friend from daycare invited us to go to Vala's with him and his mom.  Since Henry was going to enjoy a fun day at the pumpkin patch, I decided to spend some one-on-one time with Sam at the zoo.   It was fun to actually get to see some animals!  Henry normally just wants to eat ice cream and play at the playground.

We started off by visiting the aquarium.  

Fishy photo bomb!

Garden Eels are my absolute favorite.  Sam thought they were pretty cool too.

Sam decided this fish was his favorite.

Next we went over to the Desert Dome.  

After the desert, we walked down to the petting zoo.

Check out that funky chicken!

Next we wandered over to feed the budgies.  I'd never done it before, so that was fun for both of us.  The budgies weren't exactly hungry, so we had to roam a bit to find one that would eat our bird seed.

I stopped to buy some tickets for the stingray exhibit, and Sam decided he needed a carousel ride too.

The stingray exhibit was amazing!   I have a history of dragging my family through the sea exhibit at Mall of America so I can pet the stingrays.

  This was a million times better!

Sam had brought $2 with him in change in his pocket to feed the fish under the bridge by Monkey Island.  Instead he ended up buying shrimp for the rays.  The first time we didn't know what to do, so we just dropped it in the water.  The second time, we sort of figured it out. After the second time, Sam was digging in my purse looking for another dollar.  We found one more and got him one last shrimp.  The last time I managed to get a video.

 

After the stingrays, we wandered over to visit the bears.  I had an appointment to get to, so we had to cut our play time short.  

 

We stopped on the way out for a couple autumn photos.

We had an amazing time!   It's so fun to spend time alone with his kiddo.  He's growing up so fast.