Mini Vacation

Friday: Woke up about 6:30, there wasn't a great window covering in the room I was in, so it wasn't very dark. I played with the blinds, but they didn't seem to make much of a difference either way. I knew I couldn't sleep in as we were leaving at 8:30, but I wasn't expecting to be up so early.
We had picked up some pastries and milk at HyVee the night before, so I had an apple fritter for breakfast. We were on the road shortly after 8:30 to Omaha and the zoo. I pretty much talked with my cousin the whole way. I had told her I was thinking about moving and getting a different job. Both her and my aunt suggested moving to Des Moines. I want to go somewhere that there's a lot of places to walk to, and stuff is close to everything. My aunt was saying there was a lot of subsidized housing downtown, but there's not a lot of shopping (as in Target and Walmart, the necessities) or grocery choices. The thing I really hate about Des Moines is it seems like you have to drive to everything. They're getting a bit better with little strip type malls, but nothing really all together. I feel my cousin is always suggesting I move to Des Moines, it gets a little tiring.
We arrived about 10:30 and headed in, saw some outside things. First thing was this cool stingray fountain that was right inside the front gate:

 Rhino butt:

We were waiting for the train while we were watching the rhino, sadly it was a disappointing ride, the guy was hard to hear and you really couldn't see many animals. After the train ride we had lunch, we stopped at an African food stand, but my cousin's kid was the only one that got something really exciting, a pork chop, because the other stuff (chicken wrap, samosas and something else I don't remember) were described as spicy. I got a double cheeseburger and basically everyone else had hot dogs. We did get an order of sweet potato fries to share, those were pretty good.

 Mammoth statue:

 Sea lions:

 The cheetahs were taking a nap:

 Bongo:

 There was a grouping of these cool bear statues:

 The sad thing was the black was somewhat smudged, it looked like whatever they used to seal them smeared the black, you can really see it on the one below, but all the ones with white and black on top looked like the black paint ran.

 Next up was the aviary and this guy surprised us:

 And there was this one with a bad hairdo:

 We headed inside at this time as it was getting rather warm and we were all getting tired.
Gorilla:

 Monkey butt:

 Another gorilla, this one was outside:

 Baby gorilla exercising:

 The last building we visited had an aquarium, stingrays:

 There was a tube that you walked through and the fish swam over you. these guys were in it:

 This one is a little hard to see, but these were upside down starfish:

 And a giant moray eel:

 I found a few cool sculptures on our way out, lizard and turtle:

 And an octopus:

 In the gift shop I was debating between these three shot glasses:

 I chose the clear one in the middle because it was cheaper.

 I picked up a stingray (I had picked up one at the St. Louis zoo last year, so I thought I'd start a collection), it was $7.99, also grabbed a few postcards (they were kind of expensive at 89 cents each), a jellyfish magnet ($3.99) and the shot glass (5.99). We left about 3:30 and headed back to Iowa, picking up some wings for supper on the way there. There was a tiny bit of road construction, but with all the merging it added an hour onto our trip. I'm not a wing fan, so I got to have McDonald's for my supper, I tried a couple of the international food items. I got the loaded fries from Australia and the sandwich from Canada. The fries were not good, they were basically fries with liquid cheese sauce and bacon, not sure why that's an Australian thing. The sandwich was pretty good it was a grilled chicken with mozzarella (maybe) and tomato and lettuce and onions and an orange sauce that kind of reminded me of thousand island dressing.
We were going to watch Mary Poppins Returns, but we were all tired and my arms and legs felt sticky (sun lotion) and sweaty and all I really wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed, so I did.
Saturday: woke up rather early again, oh well. My aunt and I went to the Farmer's Market which was large and had a bunch of stuff. I keep going to the local farmer's market hoping there will be something I want to buy, but it doesn't happen very often, if ours was a bit bigger and had more stuff like this one, I'd probably go to more often. It was at least 5 blocks plus side streets. I ended up buying some pastries and a milk bubble tea. It was pretty fun, there were tons of dogs and I could have just dog watched the whole time.
We headed over to a couple places to shop, mostly just looked at stuff, every time I picked something up it was either too expensive or I couldn't figure out what I would do with it. We went to another shopping place, kinda reminded me of our main street as it was a long stretch of street with a bunch of stores. Found this cute book:

 I want to see if the library has it.
This store was pretty cool, had a ton of cute things.

I picked up some finger puppets ($1 each), a troll ($2) and a tiny typewriter ($3). We had to spend a little extra time in this store (which was fine) because it downpoured for about five minutes when we were about to leave.
Our next stop was a candy store, I wish it had more variety, there was a lot salt water taffy and jelly beans. I was very proud that I didn't buy anything.
The next store had a lot of things repurposed, including this front end:

Thought it was a cool way to recycle something old.
We had lunch afterwards, I had a grown up grilled cheese, it had gouda and American cheese and bacon with some zucchini fries, they were both great.
Next up was an antique store. Loved this giant lego clock figure:

By that time we were both getting tired, so we headed back to my aunt's place, picked up my stuff and headed back to my house, stopping for a bit more shopping, thought I didn't buy anything else.
I had a great time, I'm ready to sleep in my own bed for a little longer in the morning. I was a bit bummed because I keep associating fun times with buying a lot, I need to retrain my brain.
Found out I only got one item in the mail while I was gone.
A frog tag:

I really do like them, I'm just annoyed because there was never a post about it being mailed and it was supposed to be mailed by last Saturday.
I'm also a bit annoyed about the lack of mail this week. I received three items on Monday (one not so great swap) and this one other item. There was also a pink slip from the post office saying they had two items with postage due for me, those will be refused and going back to senders on Monday, one was missing over $2 in postage meaning they probably put one stamp on it and it was a parcel. I wish people would just go to the post office. If it's more than 1/4 inch thick, not uniformly thick, it's a parcel, why is that so hard? Now it's going to take another week to get back to me, if they fix it as soon as they get it returned to them. Very frustrating.
I plan to sleep in tomorrow (later than 6:30), do my laundry and try to read a book or two and just ignore the world tomorrow.

Catching up

So, it's been a little while since I posted. I went to St. Louis last week and was basically already in vacation mode the week before and was getting ready for it. This will be a quick recap, I'll post individual days later.

Here are a few things I sent out the week of 6/24.

SMS historical:

The person I was sending to also lives in Iowa, so I included a bunch of Iowa stuff. There's notecards, some pictures, a graduation announcement, and some random stuff I've found while garage saleing.
Letter L:

I was going to go with lace, but I admit, I wanted to keep it cheap, so I sent her a bunch of die cut leaves, and Love. There's a random Laugh in there, too.
I created another explosion box for my supervisor:

I also mailed a junk journal supply tag:

I included some coloring cards, die cuts, tags, stamps, vintage stuff, postcards.

We had a new bread place open here in town and they brought us a loaf of bread:

I love how squishy it was, you knew it was homemade.
And here's what I did last week. We left on the 29th and had about a 6 hour drive up there, that was an adventure.
Saturday, the 30th, we went to the zoo, this is my favorite picture:

 It was wickedly hot, the temp reached 91 by lunchtime and felt like 111. The elephants were the only animals that were really active. They had a pool and the mom and baby in the above picture were playing in it. This is after they came out.
Sunday, July 1st, we toured the blues museum and then had a barbecue and a concert afterwards. I don't have any pictures from that day.
Monday, July 2nd (my birthday), we went to the Botanical Center.

 Another hot day. It was in the 90s every day we were there. Flowers aren't really my thing, this was more for my mother, but I took a lot of pictures of weird flowers in their climatron.
Tuesday, July 3rd (my mother's birthday), we went on a tour of a chocolate factory.

 Unfortunately, they had to clean their equipment that week, so we ended up buying chocolate and waiting for the bus for the return trip.
Wednesday, July 4th, we saw the parade, totally beats Ames 4th of July parade.

 We also went on a trolley tour around town. This beautiful church was on it.
Thursday, July 5th, we went to the public library:

 I have a few pictures of architectural details, but I was more interested in just looking around the library and seeing how they did things.
Friday, July 6th we came home. Thankfully that van ride was less adventurous.
I found a bunch of mail when I got home.
A reusable tote bag:

Very cute, it's also a different size than I'm used to.
 A pocket letter:

This was more of a see how many goodies I can pack in here than a decorated pocket letter.
 A flip book:

I love the envelope style she chose.
 SMS handmade, a bookmark:

This was a replacement for someone else, I still thought it was very cute.
 An orange tag:

Another replacement, I love how much stuff she included, a great variety.
 Spring ATCs

Loving the dimension in these.
 A spring pocket letter:

Loving the use of stamps and coloring.
 Today, there was more mail, though I'm not entirely sure if it's today's mail or yesterdays.
SMS fuzzy:

Very fuzzy, I love tags, it's fun to see other people's interpretations.
 Letter E:

E is for envelopes, english tea, egg stamps, elephant washi and an elephant.
 Happy mail:

some note paper, cards, stickers, and ephemera
 birthday cards:

 a private swap:

I had messed up and was unable to do another swap I wanted to do, so asked if someone wanted to take a chance on me. She missed my post about being out of town this past week, so I got it before I sent hers out. I love the album and frames.