Blank Park Zoo

Henry loved the zoo in Oakland, so one of our first family outings in Des Moines was to Blank Park Zoo.  We spent about 2 hours there and covered most of the exhibits.

We went on a fairly warm day, so it was nice to spend a little time at the indoor Discovery Center which had a variety of snakes, birds, fish and insects.

Henry gets up close and personal with a snake!

Another nice aspect of this zoo was the open feeling of many of the exhibits.  I think this was the first time I saw penguins without a pane of glass between me and the animals.

This zoo also provided more opportunities to get close to the animals than I've seen at other zoos.  The petting zoo area allowed the kids to pet and feed the animals, and in the Australian Outback exhibit the wallabies hop right through the visitor area.

Henry really bonded with this wallaby.

The biggest surprise was the dinosaur exhibit.  I was a little skeptical when I heard that they were featuring this traveling exhibit, but it was actually very neat.  The dinosaurs are rubber-covered robots, so they move and make noises as if they're real.  Once Henry got over his initial nervousness and saw a demonstration of a robot without the coverings, he even had to go back through for another look.

All in all, a visit to Blank Park Zoo was a great way to spend an afternoon in Des Moines, and I'm sure we'll go back for another visit.  Maybe next spring we'll make a trip to the Omaha Zoo when George is old enough to enjoy it too.

Labor Day at Gray's Lake

So far, we've spent most of our time in Des Moines getting our house in order, so it was a pleasant change to take some time off on Labor Day to explore our new city.

Spaghetti Works in the Court Avenue distric was family-friendly and affordable.

We started out by looking downtown for a family-friendly place to eat.  We discovered that several places were closed for the holiday, but finally ended up at Spaghetti Works in the Court Avenue District.  We could see kids all at nearly every table as we walked in, so we were thrilled to find a place where we wouldn't have to continually try to keep our kids quiet and sitting.  We also found that kids eat free on Mondays -- double bonus!

Next, we headed to Gray's Lake to see what was there and just to enjoy the absolutely gorgeous weather.  The lake is beautiful and has a hiking trail that includes a bridge over the water, a boat and bike rental facility, lovely shaded picnic areas, and an impressive playground.  Of course, the first thing we had to do was stop at the playground so Henry could play while George and I hung out under a shady tree.

George had fun at the lake even though he was too small for the playground.

Once Henry was satisfied with the playground, we hiked over the bridge and had ice cream at the boat house. 

 

The bridge offers a nice view of downtown Des Moines.

Overall, it was a beautiful way to spend an afternoon, and now I want to get a bike so we can spend some time on the trails. I'll just need to figure out how to take George on a bike ride. Let me know if you have any ideas for safely transporting a baby on a bike.

What's in the Queue

I always feel that there is a lot to do.  Maybe it's just my nature to always have a lot of projects queued up in my mind, or maybe reality is that being a mother, new homeowner and professional adds up to a lot to do.  Join me on this journey as I work through my never ending project queue.  Here are just a few examples of what's in the queue:

Discovering Des Moines

After nearly 11 years on the west coast my family recently relocated  (hopefully for the last time) to Des Moines, Iowa.  My husband and I are originally from mid-Missouri, so we're thrilled to be within driving distance of our families.  Even though we feel like we've come back home by returning to the midwest, Des Moines is completely new to us, so we're looking forward to getting to know and love our new city.

Completing our New House

All those years on the west coast were in high-priced housing markets on graduate student/postdoc salaries, so after years of paying exorbitant rent, we're finally home owners!   When we found we were moving to Iowa, we flew out for a few days of house hunting and immediately bought this lovely 1915 house near downtown Des Moines. We chose the house for it's location, style and it's great condition.  The previous owners had done fantastic work sprucing the place up, but I quickly realized there are a million little projects to do before we'll  really make the house our own. 



Finding a job

Our relocation to Des Moines was due to my husband finding an academic faculty position after 10 years of grad school and a post doc.  However, moving put my career in limbo.  While my husband was working on his PhD in Oregon, I got a Master's in Library Science and started working in libraries.  Our move to California for his post-doc resulted in me being recruited by a grad school classmate to work at a library software company as a training and documentation coordinator.  To my surprise, I loved my job and after almost six years with the company, I'm very sad to leave it. The outlook for library jobs in the Des Moines area is bleak, so for the moment, I'm piecing together work by consulting at my former company and possibly doing some adjunct teaching in the area, but ultimately, I would like to find a permanent position as a librarian and/or instructor.

Raising my boys

Now for my favorite project -- raising my boys!  I have two adorable and sweet (and sometimes crazy and frustrating) little boys.  Henry is almost 4 years old and George is almost 6 months old. I thought I knew everything about parenting and kids until I became a parent.  Then I learned that parenting is a skill that is always in development and that no parent is perfect.  The books can't tell you how to raise your child, so you just have to trust yourself and do the best you can.  I just hope this project is also my most successful.

So that's me and everything I have in my queue at the moment.  I'm looking forward to sharing my progress.