The Hankens Leave the House–Day One

Long time- no talk, my friends! But no worries, while I may not have spoken to you much myself, Mom has done a good job keeping you up to date on all of the happenings around my house! Georgia turned 7 this spring, and the boys turned 5 about a month later, and we decided that we were finally out of the stage where vacations were more work than they were worth. We have also gotten to a point where the kids remember things so going on a vacation that they will remember seems more fun. For a while we had planned on going to Branson, but after some consideration (and a roof, furnace, and air conditioner that have all required replacements since last fall) we decided to stay a little closer. Based on how the kids handle (or don’t) 30-minute car rides, I was not looking forward to 8 hours in the car with them, so a shorter 3-hour distance was ideal.

When I was in Elementary school, I did a project on one-day family trips in Iowa. I feel like our vacation was a few of the days strung together to try and hit something for everyone–with somewhat mixed results.

The first day was a visit to the Blank Park Zoo (Conservation, Education & Recreation | Des Moines, Iowa | Blank Park Zoo). It opened at 9 AM, so we got up early and drove down that morning. We made it just after they opened to find out that the giraffe that Georgia wanted to see so bad had her baby that morning, so the giraffe area was off limits. I, of course, got a glare because I asked them prior to leaving what animals they wanted to see the most, and of course the Giraffe was on the top of Georgia’s list. Despite what she says when you ask her, though, she did have a good time.

After paying, we entered through the rainforest area. Emmett seemed to love this part the most. He loves all things alligator, snake, reptile, lizard, so he was quite excited to see them! The kids also really liked the bi-level areas where you could see into the habitat on the top, but down a ways, you circled back to it and could see a “cut-away” view as well.

There’s my bug guy, Emmett! He wanted pictures with everything!!

They had tons and tons of animals throughout this part of the zoo! When we had walked through everything, we ended up circling back and going through this part again because they loved it so much. Georgia did get a little bit mad because she didn’t get to see the red panda, but after talking with my sister-in-law who takes her girls often, it sounds like the red panda likes to hide more than be seen.

The many different kinds of fish were pretty neat to see. All of the kids loved watching the aquariums. It seemed like just as soon as we were ready to move on to the next part, an “Oh wait!” or “Did you see this?” would ring out and we would have to stay a bit longer til they could all walk back and see what new, cool thing there was to see.

We went in late August, just before school started again, so walking out of the nice, cooled aquarium part and into the hot, sticky, humid area of the rest of the zoo was not too fun!

This was part of the Australia exhibit. They sectioned off areas that grouped like animals together. While this was one of my favorites, the kids claimed that they weren’t as impressed. I loved seeing the kangaroos!

This was one of the only good pictures that I got of all of the kids together! Georgia and Eli are in a stage where they don’t want their picture taken, but then when we look back at pictures, they get sad that there are no pictures of them. Emmett, however, always comes through! I think this one might end up being added to the Christmas card!

After the Australia exhibit, we worked our way over to the petting zoo area. They had lots of goats and even had an elevated tunnel that went over the walkway that the goats could run around on. We got some food for them, and we could tell that the goats liked their treats. Right next to that was a play area where they had “fossils” and “dinosaur bones” that they turned into a playset you could play on. Above is Eli posing with a T-Rex skull. He liked seeing how big it was compared to how big he was–If only he knew how big a T-Rex skull really was!

Here are the “ribs” of the dinosaurs that the kids could climb and play on.

Can you see the theme here? Emmett being my picture guy?

Here’s a better picture of feeding the goats. You could sure tell that the goats knew that their treats came in the little feeding cups!

We were lucky enough to be able to use my sister-in-law’s pass for discounted carousel rides. I snapped this one quick of Georgia and Eli before they saw me!

Emmett, of course, was up for posing for a picture. He thought that it was so funny that there was a carousel ride that was a rooster, so he jumped on it right away. After we had walked through the zoo and did the aquarium twice, we hit up the gift shop. We had some gift cards and birthday money that was burning holes in Georgia and Emmett’s pockets. They each picked out a stuffed animal that has now become attached to their hips. They also each found a little key chain and a bag of rocks….because if you know my kids, you know they usually have rocks of some kind in their pocket. Eli knew we had a few more stops planned for our vacay and wanted to use his “big pick” on a tractor item at one of the other stops. It was a bit of a hassle to get checked out with our gift cards, but once we had that taken care of, we were on our way! We made a quick stop at Chick-fil-A, which Emmett loved because they actually had Chick-fil-A sauce, which he always requests at places like McDonald’s. The one we stopped at also happened to have a play place too, so that was a hit!

It may surprise many of you, but one of the true highlights of our trip was the kids discovering escalators. Believe it or not, the boys have never seen one, and Georgia has only seen one a few times. We literally live in the middle of nowhere, so unless it is at Walmart, we usually end up ordering it online. The funniest part is that half of it was broken so they only could go up and then had to walk down the stalled side. They literally did this for at least 20, if not 30, minutes. This worked out because we needed to kill some time.

In an effort to kill some more time before meeting up with Jason’s sister and her girls for some ice cream, we went to an arcade. Eli and Georgia found a motorcycle game to play, and Emmett and Eli also found a dinosaur shooting game.

They definitely didn’t want to leave, but cashed out their tickets for a few small trinkets, and we were on our way. The hotel we stayed at was probably really neat back in the day, but this was no longer that day. It wasn’t the cleanest and was more run-down than I personally liked, but the kids were really excited for the pool/water park area, which was nice. The beds sucked, and one ended up breaking just by sitting on it, so that was a bit questionable. Overall though, the kids had a good time.

Here’s Emmett showing off his “big prize,” which was a stuffed snake. He wore it like a boa for the remainder of our trip…And many of the days after.

Here’s a picture of the pool. They had an area where you could play basketball, explore a pirate ship, and go down the slide. They also had a hot tub, which I appreciated, especially after a long drive and lots of walking at the zoo.

After lots and lots of swimming, we grabbed some pizza and headed back to our room. Everyone except me slept pretty well, and breakfast wasn’t too bad.

Come back to see what we did on Day 2 of our little trip!