There's a first time for everything

Everything in this case being Iowa. I'd never been to Iowa and I've got to say it was lovely. The ditches filled with wildflowers and rolling corn fields suited me just fine.

My parents traveled with us for this leg of our journey. Later on they went into Chicago for a vacation of their own. Our first stop was the Clarion Inn and Wasserbahn Water Park. The boys just loved the water park, especially Noah.

On our 3rd restaurant attempt we found a place that suited our budgets, timetable and noise level.

They had mini-golf at the hotel too, along with some Amana Colony style shops.

Dad was very busy playing with his new Blackberry.

It was too dark for proper picture taking, but Noah went down these long, winding, dark water slides over and over and over.

This is what Ben looked like when he came out the bottom of the slide.

Chillin' out in between slide runs.

Levi was too short to go on the water slides but he kept himself busy in the part of the water park made for the little ones. And he loved to wrap up in a towel and rest on the chairs.

This was the face Noah made when he came down the slide - each and every time - and he was usually jabbering too.

Our overnight experience there was awful. The boys were in bunk beds and took a long time to fall asleep, then Levi was up 5 or 6 times, then Noah fell off the top bunk and then Levi wet the bottom bunk! By morning we were more than ready to be done with trying to sleep!

On to Illinois...