Caterpillars and a Creek Walk with Friends

Today we met up with some friends for lunch at Thomas Mitchell Park and to the let kids play.  They had such a great time exploring, playing with friends, searching for caterpillars and wading in the near by creek.  It was a very fun day!

All together we found over a dozen caterpillars/eggs that we will try to raise to butterfly stage!

Mr. Monarch Caterpillar, only a few days old.

Elliot loves to swing!!

Corley

Emma



Ethan

Ethan has so much fun with his friends!

Everett and his friends built a fake campfire and played "house" while we hunted for caterpillars.

 After swinging, playing on the playground, hunting for caterpillars and running around, working up a sweat, we decided to walk across the street to the creek to cool off and explore some more.

This is the whole crew, heading down to the creek.

Elliot loves to toss rocks into the water and make a splash!

Monkey!

It was pretty deep in places.

 

Elliot had a hard time walking on the rocks, so he sat for a bit.

They all had walking sticks to help them explore.

Stinky mud!

Cool Cat Everett, Chillin'

After the park, we headed home and decided to check out a geocache that we haven't found in our neighborhood yet.  It looked like an easy find, right off the dead end road, so we decided to check it out.  Elliot had fallen asleep in the van, so he stayed behind.

"The coordinates say it is in here??"

When we entered, it was a surprise to find such a HUGE tree!

"I see it!"

Ethan tried to reach it, but couldn't dislodge it.  So I helped.

 

Everett was the first one to spot the Geocache, so we gave him the honor of opening it up!

We decided this was a good place to drop off our Travel Bug from Maine.

On the way out we saw this musk thistle (nodding thistle) that is starting to bloom.

It is actually quite attractive for such a spiny, annoying weed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carduus_nutans



 

Splish, Splash, Summertime Fun!

 

We are back in town and just in time for the summer fun to begin.  The public wading pools opened today and we took full advantage of them.  Unfortunately, there seemed to be a slow leak, because by the time we were halfway done with our playtime, the water was almost gone! 

I convinced the pool attendant that there was a problem and she should fill it back up and she did, but it was FREEZING cold!  Even though it was shallow and cold, it was still a lot of fun for everyone!

Welcome Summer! (just please don't get too hot!)
 


Elliot's buddy from LIFE Academy, and sister joined us too!

Ethan and Emma showing their age while they float under water.  (Silly kids!)

The water was barely over Everett's ankles after we had been playing for about an hour or so.

 

This is the lowest it got while we were there.  You can see the attendant in the background starting to turn on the water.

Although the water was low, the kids still had fun splashing and playing!

Mystery at Greenwood Park

The weather is warming up here in Iowa and the sunshine was plentiful this afternoon!  It is so nice to be outside!

Our morning started out with some school work at home and then we packed everyone up and joined some friends for our monthly Clover Kids meeting (which we haven't been able to go to in a few months).  The kids planted chives, played with a frog (it jumped on Elliot, which startled him into a 3 minute "freak out") and pet an Angora Rabbit and discussed uses for her "fiber" or fur as I would call it.  It was a fun, and besides the frog jumping on Elliot, they all had a good time!

I had contacted the Art316 Building downtown a few days ago to find out about what they had to offer and what their building was all about.  The woman I spoke with suggested I come for a private tour of the RDG Dahlquist Art Studio to see if we could possibly set up a future tour for our homeschool art class, so we decided to do this with Amanda and her girls then grab lunch outside and play at a park for the afternoon. 

Regarding the tour, I will say WOW!  Such a cool place!  I didn't take any photos because I was trying to wrangle Elliot and still be able to pay attention to what the lady had to say, but I can't wait to show you photos when we take the kids through next time!  I was so inspired and can't wait to learn more!  There were so many cool artists to speak with, lots of things to look at, and the highlight of the tour was a toss up between the large "playdoh" machine and the freight elevator.

The kids attention span had expired so we didn't get to explore the other two floors of artists, but I will say that it was a great experience for all of us.  I can't wait to take a few clay classes with Ethan and go back and meet the cartoon guys!  Sooooo fun!

After the tour we lunched on the Palmer's Deli patio and then headed over the explore Greenwood Park south of the Des Moines Art Center.  The sun felt so nice as we walked all through the park and around the pond.  While there we noticed that the water level was very low and there were some police gathered together on the opposite side.  They seemed to be looking at the water and discussing what they were seeing.  We were curious so we walked over to check things out. 



The kids tried to find a geocache, but we couldn't spot it. 
Ethan did retrieve a massive snail shell though, so it wasn't a waste.
(Don't you love Little Miss Laila with her pink gardening gloves?)

After asking what the scoop was, they pointed out that there was a vehicle in the pond.  I looked closer at what I thought was a log at first glance, and sure enough, it was a car!  Hmmmmm.  They said that it looked like it had been there a long time, so they were waiting for the SWAT Team to come to investigate and then pull out the vehicle. 

 

 

SWAT Team?  Pulling a vehicle from the pond?  Well, you don't have to convince me that this sounds like something fun to watch!  Kids were excited too!  We all walked back around to the other side of the pond and took our places to watch the event unfold.  While they waited the kids rolled down the hill, sorted rocks (and glass), and had a great time talking about the things in the water.

 

It seemed like forever had passed, but before long an unmarked, white "bread truck", as Amanda called it (I thought it was more like the "Three Men in a Truck" moving truck), pulled up and out jumped a few "SWAT" members in their wetsuits and O2 tanks.  So cool!  Right after that, the tow trucks arrived and the kids all sat down to watch the process unfold.  It's not every day that you see a car being pulled from a pond!

 

 

They removed the car, and from where we were, it didn't look as old as I had expected.  It had a sunroof and all the windows were down, but it looked newer to me.  The police took their time pulling it out, recorded the VIN number from the dash and the license plates and stood around talking.  The flatbed wasn't there yet and one of the kiddos in our group had to go #2, so we called it a day and headed back to our vehicles. 

It was a pretty exciting day and after we started driving away Ethan asked, "Mom, when can we go back to that park?  I had so much fun today!  That is my new favorite park!".  I asked him what he enjoyed the most and he said, "Watching the car being pulled from the pond!  I can't wait to see what else they will find once all the water is gone!" 

Overall, it was good day of school!  Don't you think?? 

UPDATE: So far, authorities have said that the vehicle was reported stolen in 1999.  They currently do not have any other info on it.