Iowa!

Ellie and I just got home from a whirlwind 4-night trip to Iowa. It was my first flight alone with Ellie but it went just fine. She was great! When we arrived in Des Moines we rented a car and drove to the Iowa State Fair. My mom sells origami there in the Cultural Center and my Grandma and Aunt Lori are in charge of the doll house display. We picked up Aunt Carissa, took a very quick tour of the fair and were on our way north to the grandparents!

On the way to Cedar Falls we stopped in Marshalltown, Iowa. This is home to the famous Taylor's Maid-Rite. A Maid-Rite is kind of like a sloppy joe with no sauce.
One of the foods Iowa is known for! I got one for me with onions and mustard and one for Ellie in a bowl. Unfortunately she wasn't impressed with how that looked and wouldn't even touch it but mine was good and she really loved the raspberry milkshake!


We visited in Cedar Falls for a couple of days. My grandparents all live in the same retirement community (in separate buildings) but very close. It is really neat to have them all so close. This visit we slept at Grandma Hansen's. Uncle Jack from Seattle was in town as well so it was a great opportunity to see him as well. We took it easy which was great and just visited with family. We also checked out a couple of yardsales, drove by the family homes and church, made kolaches, and looked at a lot of old family pictures. Ellie also got to use my grandpa's baby dishes and she loved to sit in my great grandmother's toddler chair!

On Saturday afternoon we drove back to Des Moines for the last two days of the fair. Ellie took in the whole experience. It was really hot...although I guess the weekend before was much worse so I probably shouldn't complain! The first thing we did when we got to the fair was have Ellie's profile drawn by Marjorie Muench, an artist who has been doing sketches at the fair for over 25 years. 25 years...wow! You know what that means, she is the same person who did our sketches when we were little. My parents have many sketches she did of us when we were little. I love how Eleanor's turned out!
We saw a baby cow being born in the baby birthing building...Ellie wasn't too impressed, but Carissa and I were! Ellie really was pretty unsure about the animals. She did not want the baby cow to lick her and clung to me tightly!

We saw and tasted all the important things...

Mini Donuts!The Butter Cow
The Big PigThe Big Bull
Pork Chop on a StickEgg on a Stick
Spinart!

Little hands on the farm- an area for kids where they get to pretend they are farmers- Ellie loved it! She collected crops, eggs, milk, etc. in her basket and then sold them at the market! They gave the kids fake money when the sold their produce and they were able to buy a real item in the little store. Ellie picked a banana!

"Cheese on a Stick," basically a corn dog with no hotdog but filled with melted cheese. It is delicious!!!One of the major hits of the trip for Ellie was getting about 20 "stickers" which were the temporary tattoos from the varied industries building. Many of the booths have tattoos that they will put on kids. She was loaded...both arms completely filled and even one on her tummy! She thought it was just amazing to have a "sticker" that wouldn't come off. She just held her arms up from her body and looked at them. So silly!


We finally made it home on Monday night...after a long day of travel. We spent many hours in the Milwaukee airport which ended up being okay because they had a pretty cool kids area complete with "airplane observation towers"! I was very happy to have my mom along to help. Ellie was really excited to see her daddy when we got off the airplane and so was I!