Vacation To Des Moines

This past week, we headed to Iowa for vacation. Iowa, you say?! Yes, that is where Derek's parents live. And we had fun! 

Here we are on the way there, after enjoying dingdongs in the car! 

It is quite difficult to entertain an almost-two-year-old on a 9 hour car trip! She didn't do too bad, though, we stopped and ran around a lot and she read a lot of books. 

My mother-in-law has a longarm quilting machine, so I took the quilt I made in order to quilt it. I had no idea that so much work was still involved after piecing the top! I still had to piece the back, cut it all to size, prep it for the quilter, then quilt it, cut it to size again, then the binding! Shew! I had another quilt there that I started on back in January of 2006, and have been working on every time we go out. I finished it, too, woohoo! Well, actually, its not completely done, I still have to do the binding, but I'll get to it. 

Also while we were there, we went to the Iowa State Fair. It was huge, of course, and took us two days to walk through. We had a lot of fun. Annabel loved all the animals and hands-on exhibits. 

By the time we got there Annabel was already fast asleep!

These were the coolest little bikes ever. No batteries, just "wiggle power!" I wish I could have got one, or even remember the name of them... so fun! 

"Look, Grandma, a baby cow! Oh, it just licked me!"

Haha... sometimes mommy feels like a milk cow!

My stylish little girl:)

Annabel got to ride a rhino!

The next day, Annabel loved the "baa's"

"Can I play?"

Daddy and Grandpa look on...

It was a nice relaxing weekend, with good food and some much-needed sleeping in :). Derek did some canning, both green beans and spaghetti/pizza sauce.

 

While Annabel and I made brownies!