Memorial Day weekend

Having the weekend off and a desire to see my family meant that Kristi and I trekked down to the Des Moines this past weekend. The fact that it was Memorial Day weekend didn't really mean much since I had to be back by Monday so that I could work. C'est la vie but it would have been nice if I had had the Monday off as well. It's only about 200 miles from here to there but if you drive there and back in a short span of time, you tend to be really sick of the car by the end of it. Especially since mumsy decided that she wanted to go down a bit sooner than Daddy was able to. This meant picking her up in Worthington, MN which is only about a 30 minutes drive for them but it added 1.5 hours of driving time for us. Whatever, since she did give birth to me and I'm vaguely remembering all those times that somebody had to drive my butt to/from college, airport, train station.... Did I mention that I really love my family sometimes? The added time also meant that we rolled into Des Moines at about 11pm, which is about an hour after my usual bedtime. Sad, but true. We reached the outskirts and asked mumsy where our hotel was and this is how the conversation went:

Us: Where's the hotel? We're in Ankeny.

Mumsy: It's the Day's Inn in Urbandale.

Us: Where in Urbandale (Urbandale is a part of the Des Moines metro area and isn't exactly small)?

Mumsy: I don't know. Start naming off some streets.

Us: Uh..... 86th? Merle Hay? Um..... (I've been to Urbandale many times but am more familiar with the landmarks than I am the street names)

Mumsy: Yeah, Merle Hay! I think it's Merle Hay or the street that comes in diagonally from the west.

Us: Those roads are nowhere near each other. Didn't you write down the driving directions?

Mumsy: I did but the paper fell out of my purse.

Us: Aargh!!!

Mumsy: Fine, I'll call but I don't want to. I can't understand him. Hello? Yes, where are you? Huh? What? Pardon? I'm sorry, I can't understand you, here's my daughter.

Me: Hello?

Hotelier: Yes, we are the America's Best Value Inn on ------- Street.

Me: Which street? (he did have a bit of a thick accent, not his fault but it made things more difficult)

Hotelier: ------- Street, you take exit 126, turn left and it's the ----- stop light

Me: exit 126, turn right, then what?

Hotelier: first, second, tird stop light

Me: Tanks, I mean thanks

End converstation and thanks to his directions, we made it to the hotel without any more problems. Mumsy, note the fact that it wasn't the Day's Inn NEITHER was it on Merle Hay. It was on Douglas which is basically in the opposite corner of Urbandale.

On Saturday, we spent as much of it as we could out and about doing fun things. Much of the morning was spent at the downtown farmer's market which is FREAKING AWESOME. I encourage anyone who lives within an hour of Des Moines to go. There wasn't much by way of vegetables there but they had plenty of cheese, honey, clothes, food stand and artisans. I was in heaven and it was very hard not to buy everything in sight. You'll be very happy to hear that I only picked up some flax seed and some El Salvadorian dish that ended up being my lunch. Brother and his family then headed back to their place for nap time while Mumsy, sister and I did a bit of shopping. Sister found the deal of the day when she purchased a 12 piece All-Clad pot set for $300, about $400 lower than the original price. I bow down to her superior bargin hunting powers. We then went to the used bookstore in Urbandale, always a favorite place for both Kristi and myself (Mumsy parked her butt and happily looked at house decorating books). I sold some more books (tear) for $35 and Kristi bought a couple of history books. Lastly, we went to Penzy's Spices to pick up black pepper and curry. It's always a treat to go to Penzy's. I spend a lot of time smelling the various spices and wishing that I had more money to buy them all.

Later on that evening, I picked up a 6 pack of beer for brother and I to share. It was sitting on the floor and my 22-month old nephew happened to pick up a bottle.

Will: Pop?

Me: No, it's not pop.

Will: Daddy's beer (said with certanty)

Needless to say, we bust out laughing and I'm still in awe of how smart he is since he's not even 2 years old yet.

On Sunday, sister and I elected not to go to church and instead went wandering around the Terrace Hill district of Des Moines. Terrace Hill is the historic residence of the governers of Iowa and is pretty nice to look at. We wanted a closer look but sadly, were run off the grounds by a highly protective, puppy of a State patrol man aka cop. Sheesh, I didn't know that the governer still lived there. In retaliation for the indignity, sister and I picked some dandelion puff balls and blew the seeds on the edge of the perfectly manicured lawn.

That's about it for my weekend. All in all, it was a fun time and I greatly enjoyed it. Sorry about the lack of photos but I forgot my camera in Mankato. Oops! My bad :-)