A weekend away is a good thing. Seeing different skies, breathing in new air, sleeping (or not) in different beds. With the exception of Lily and Emmy’s way-too-early wake-ups, going to visit my Dad in Iowa is always fun. Grandpa is always standing by the door as we pull into the driveway, looking for his granddaughters, eager to see them.

Despite the rain this weekend, we still were able to get out and about Des Moines. Ed insists on getting good BBQ anytime we are in Des Moines, since we don’t have a good BBQ place in our neck of the woods. So far, our favorite place is a place called Jethro’s. Yum!

Ed also loves driving up to Saylorville Lake to look at the dam and see the spillway. As Lily and I were standing at the top of the dam, two huge turkey vultures flew past us and we saw their red heads quite clearly. Lily was so excited since she’s learned about turkey vultures on the PBS show “Fetch!”
 

I captured a shot of this soaring turkey vulture	in Sept., 2009.

During this trip to Des Moines, Ed was determined to take the girls to Blank Park Zoo. It was very rainy on Saturday, but on Sunday afternoon we had clear skies. My cousin bought lettuce for Lily and Emmy to feed the giraffes; Lily loved it, but Emmy hid behind me. That super long tongue is a little intimidating, don’t you think? Lily wanted to know why their tongues are purple, and the zoo worker explained that in Africa, when giraffes are feeding off of tall, tall trees, they don’t want their tongues to get sunburned.

Why are giraffes’ tongues purple? Sunscreen!

The zoo also had an amazing exhibit about dinosaurs. These dinosaurs might not have been real, as we explained to Emmy before we went in, but they could still move and ROAR!

Watch out for that T-Rex, Lily!

Emmy spent the rest of the afternoon “chomping” people with her new dino-chomper.

A weekend away…moments to spend with our girls, time away from work and school, a chance to relax and forget about some of the challenges we’ve left at home.

Oh, and if you didn’t notice…a weekend away is a chance for Ed to finally get his way!