Out Around Town

Kevin has spent the last four Friday nights and Saturdays taking a class, so Amelia and Kate have been seeing what the city has to offer to entertain us.

We had a lot of fun at the Des Moines Art Festival.  There was way more for her to do than I expected.  Daddy beat us home by half an hour that night.

Playing in the fountains.  She got a lot wetter than this.

Painting a puzzle piece.  They put 1500 pieces together by the end of the festival to create a sculpture

Last week we braved the heat and checked out the Downtown Farmers' Market.  We may have stopped into the Science Center for 45 minutes to cool down.

Blank Park Zoo

We've invested in a Zoo (& Science Center) pass this year (thanks Grandma Marilyn).  We took Grandma Becky & Daddy on Fathers' Day weekend then some friends when Daddy was at a Saturday class.

Amelia has discovered feeding the fish.  She refuses to let us help and throws in the pellets one by one.  It takes forever.

Fathers' Day Card

Here's this year's Father's Day Card.  If you double click on the picture it should come up bigger :).  This year was pretty easy.  I have a feeling getting two to smile for the camera next year will be a bit trickier.

For comparison's sake, here are the previous years'.

2009

2010

2011

Gardening

We've been working on the yard a lot the past few weeks.  Amelia helped :)

Visiting Tom & Abby

In mid-May, Kevin headed to Boston for a week so Kate & Amelia went to Muscatine to visit Tom and Abby.  We spend a day at Niabi Zoo where we got closer to a picture of the three kids smiling at the camera.  On the Saturday, Tom had his fourth birthday party which was fire-engine themed.  The kids had a great time running Auntie Suzie's obstacle course to put out the fire and save the puppy, putting out fires in her windows and patio and hitting the fire truck pinata.

Amelia fed a giraffe, I just missed it with the camera :(

Amelia was excited to see the zebras to match her shirt

The closest picture of the three of them yet!

Minnesota

For Memorial Day weekend, we headed up to Minnesota to visit Grandma Becky, Grandpa Jim, Uncle Mark and (most importantly in Amelia's eyes) Raf.  Saturday we headed to the theme park at the Mall of America (one day Amelia may realize that there's shopping there too!) then to Mark's for dinner and smores around the bonfire.  It warmed up on Sunday for our trip to the Twins game.  Amelia paid a bit more attention to the game this year in the run up to her T-Ball sessions this summer.

New Room Finished!

Amelia is all moved into her new room and is doing a wonderful job of keeping it tidy so far.  It's a lot more purple than it looks in the pictures.  We now need to add a fan and some black out curtains.  But that's next week's task list :)