Botanical Center, Part 1: Family

It is rare that we are able to get away for a family day.  We are blessed with being able to spend most Sunday afternoons and almost every lunch hour together, but beyond that the farm work keeps Josh pretty busy.  Vacations are absolutely out of the question and any short trip (such as this one) must be planned well ahead of time.  (Someday, I will blog about what it is that we actually do so you can see!)  Anyway... Josh needed new glasses and so we scheduled a little trip to Des Moines.  Josh had an eye exam, we treated the kids to McDonald's, went back to get the glasses and then headed to the Botanical Center.  We had a great time, except for the fact that the cabin fever that I had has now turned into spring fever and I my mind is running a hundred miles an hour with ideas for a giant flower garden! 



We're continually amazed at how outgoing Caleb has become.  He used to completely shy away from anything if there happened to be anyone around besides his family.  Now, he is able to not only play on the equipment but he does a pretty good job playing with the other boys and girls playing, too!  Here he is climbing around in the McDonald's play area.




If you look real close, you can see him about to enter the netted crawl through tunnel thingy.




Inside the Botanical Center.  A nice gentleman offered to take a family picture.  You can see that Sarah is out cold!  The rest of us enjoyed the eight-ish degree without coats...it was lovely!




Among some of the plants they had were giant ferns. You can see how big this fern is compared to Caleb.




This was the first fish pond we came to.  Caleb was very excited to throw a nickle into the pond.  I'm sure Sarah would have been, too, if she were awake!




Always the funny guy.... that's a giant cactus he was "touching".




Caleb and the cactus.  I had to beg him to stand for the picture because he was terrified of the cactus garden.  He would stay on the far edge of the path, faraway from any wild cacti that might jump out and grab him with their spikes!  In fact, we purchased a little cactus as a souvenir and he pleaded with us, almost to the point of tears, to take the cactus back.




The waterfall was probably one of our favorite spots. 




And Sarah is STILL asleep.  Josh was my hero!  He carried her the entire way, what a sweet guy :-)




Caleb still admiring the waterfall and the huge fish in the pond that the water fell into.




One of the nice things about the dome was that the paths were open enough that Caleb had a little freedom to be on his own.  He would walk a ways in front of us, looking for the next amazing thing to see and enjoying his independence.




And after going through most of the center, it was coffee time.  Here is Sarah sleeping through even this!




The joke during coffee time was that we were so used to the cold weather that we couldn't take the extreme heat and humidity inside the dome.  So Josh had to fan Caleb to cool him off....




...and then Caleb had to cool Josh off.  The tables were on the upper level of the dome, right next to the windows  which made the echo of their laughter go throughout the dome.  It was a good thing the crowd was light!




The look of a four year old trying to understand the concept of condensation.




Out of the hundreds of plants at the Botanical Center, what do you suppose Farmer Josh's favorite plant would be?  The corn plant tree, of course!  A tree whose leaves look exactly like that of a corn plant.  (Well, it might not have been his favorite, but I couldn't resist the tease.)




There were also an area of the building that showed home gardeners different ideas they could do in their gardens.  I'm not sure if they change the displays or not, but when we went through the themes were based on colors.  For the 'green garden', Caleb and Sarah (who you can see finally woke up!) were quite taken with Kermit.



Caleb trying to get to the water in the pond.  I think by this time, Caleb was starting to get a little bored and was letting us know that it was more than time to go....



....but not before they each got a little souvenir from the penny press.