Iowa Adventure- PART 1

On the first leg of our Iowa trip we went to Chariton, Iowa to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday! Jacob and I left around 6:30 on Saturday morning and stopped at McDonald's for breakfast. I was in need of a caramel frappe. The GPS told us that it would take just a little less than 5.5 hours to get there. Since we were traveling mostly on highways we ended up pulling off at a couple of gas stations and a Wal-Mart to use the bathroom (since Daniel has decided to use my bladder as a punching bag!).

We arrived in Chariton just before 12:30 and timed it perfectly. Kendra and Luke were already there, but the rest of the family pulled in just as we were getting out of the car. We said all of the "hellos" to relatives we hadn't seen in awhile and then got ready for lunch. Fried chicken and a lot more delicious food!

Now Grandma is not your typical 80 year old lady sitting in a chair knitting something. No...she's a retired elementary school teacher who loves to keep people entertained with activities. She's always afraid that we'll get bored. Now, I'll admit, I've never really been fond of planned activities. At least from about the time I turned 13 on. This time was different though. Jacob, Jim and Luke were all newbies to this, so we totally embraced it.

Activity 1: Cake Decorating

Grandma split us "young ins" up into teams to decorate mini cakes for my dad's cousins birthday and Luke's birthday. Hilariousness followed. My team knew we would suck at it, so we just went for um...creativity.

The other team made 2 mini cakes.

Activity 2:  Grandma had gifts for everyone!

Even Daniel got a present. A Hawkeye piggy bank. Daddy was not as impressed.

Jacob and I with our presents.

Erica was very excited to receive our Great Grandma's candy dish that always sat on her coffee table. It had some sentimental meaning to her, so I'm really happy that she got it after all these years.

Activity 3: Grandma always has yard games. Jacob even got me to play some croquet with him.

 Badminton anyone?

Activity 4: Balloon Animals

I gotta say, after all the years of grandma's activities, I never saw this one coming! I was terrible at it, but Jacob made his perfect!

Family picture time! (Plus the 2 balloon animal girls, which highly amused us).

Activity 5: Celebrate Grandma!!

She's always so humble and doesn't want the attention on her, but she deserved it. She's the best.

Activity 6: Museum!

Erica and I really wanted to go to the Chariton Historical Museum, so some of us headed over there for awhile. It was just as I remembered it.

Activity 7: Water Balloon Launch

The guys especially loved this one, but everyone had a great time. The highlight was that even Grandma launched one.

Jacob talking to Daniel

Swing jumping!

We had a small supper that night. A big one was planned, but no one was hungry. Grandma was so afraid that she wasn't feeding us a sufficient meal!

We headed to our motel around 9 or 9:30 and checked into our rooms. Jacob and I had our own room that night, and fortunately it wasn't as ghetto as I had described. They've at least updated the bathrooms some, but the rooms are still rockin' the wood paneling!

Sunday, we went to church and took up 2 pews. I held my cousin's baby, Oakley through the whole sermon. That boy is a little flirt!

We left around 3:30 that afternoon, but did some family pictures with Grandma first.

We all headed for Des Moines for the evening. We had 2 rooms that night. Logan slept with grandma and grandpa and the rest of us shared a suite. We went to Applebees for supper to celebrate Luke's birthday and then all just chilled out at the hotel the rest of the night.

This concludes the first part of our trip to Iowa. Stay tuned for our fun filled day at Adventureland.