Joel's 32nd Birthday and other randomness

Wally rarely uses things for their intended purpose. Here, he rigged up his swings to catch lions.

We will kill two birds with one stone, ok two pictures. Wally's "Free Happy Meals for da Year" and meeting Daddy at the bus stop have played a large role in our life over the last several months. The people on the bus always watch for Wally because he is always doing something nutty when the bus drops Daddy off. On this day, he was wearing a Happy Meal box on his head. Yea! Daddy's home!

Our cute boy after his first full day at Kinderfarm.

The U of I homecoming parade was that night, so Joel dropped Wally and I off because there was no where to park. Wally was so exhausted, but had fun anyway.

Look at those dance moves! I think he was just trying to stay awake.

For Joel's birthday, we drove to northeast Iowa to see what we could see. This was a huge church in a small town on the way north.

The Mississippi river was flooding. It is hard to see, but there are houses on an island in the middle of the river. Some were definitely taking on water despite being up on stilts. We did actually see a truck driving on the island though.

The Mississippi is huge! This is only one branch of it as we drove from Iowa to Wisconsin.

We had heard that Pike's Peak State Park was beautiful and a must see. We had a little difficulty finding it, likely because it consisted of a small campground and a small parking lot. Joel and I joke that in Montana, something like that would be called a scenic overlook! Joel let the dogs out, and of course Wally helped.

Wally was kept pretending he had a "video looker." I think he meant a periscope. Anyway, he kept going behind this tree and making videos and looking at us with a special stick. I love how I have so many pictures of Joel and Wally in the exact same position. I wonder what it is like to have a "Mini Me."

We had a lovely Hardy's picnic that Wally insisted on eating on the ground (us mature grown-ups ate at a table).

We then went on a "hike." Here Wally and I are at a scenic overlook overlooking the Mississippi valley.
Hiking at Pike's Peak State Park...

A strenuous hike. I suppose if it were rainy, it could be.

I'm guessing the falls would be pretty cool at a wetter time of the year. Wally explained that Moses hit the ground with his stick and water came out to form the falls. The kid loves his Bible stories.

Fungus in Iowa grows every and grows big. This one was bigger than my hand.

This patch of mushrooms was also bigger than my had growing off a living tree.

Wally decided that monkeys probably live in the forest, so he started to call them. They must have been sleeping.

He did find an alligator to climb on though.
We then drove through the town of Strawberry Point, home of a giant strawberry.

Wally got bored with the scenery and played ipod. Daisy still enjoyed the scenery though.

Moose preferred driving.

We drove partway into Backbone State Park, but the road was washed out due to flooding, so we couldn't see much. That is a park I would like to visit again. Potty break!

A fun day hitting a total of 3 state parks was exhausting, but fun. Now we can say we've been to NE Iowa. Hopefully the leaves will be more spectacular next time. Fall has just been plain weird around here, with flowering crabapple trees and all.