Palisades State Park

We went camping this week at Palisades State Park with my family.  Mom and Dad got a new little used camper this summer and were itching to try it out.  Kris and Marie met us there with their pop-up and the rest of us stayed in a camping cabin (which worked out great since it had AC and it's been a bit warm lately).

Palisades is filled with Sioux Quartzite which appear as pink rocky outcroppings along the river that cuts through the park.  There are trails throughout the small state park that let you get closer looks at the the rocks and walk along Split Rock Creek.

Above is a view of the bridge (built in 1908) that we later drove over.  If you click on the picture to make it larger--you'll notice some teenagers who were illegally cliff diving.

Palisades is a great little State Park, and I'd certainly go camping there again....just hopefully when it's a bit cooler so we can really enjoy the hiking.

More photos from Palisades State Park are posted here.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July and are continuing your celebration into the weekend!  Rob and I went to the Urbandale Fireworks display last night.  I took a few photos to remember the occasion. :)

We drove down to the park around 8:30 (for fireworks starting at 10pm).  I wouldn't leave any later than that either--the parking lot was nearly full--and when it fills up, they close the main road.  We enjoyed watching all the kids run around with sparklers and the view is the best in the city.  The fireworks go off right over your head and fill the whole sky.  If you park on the east side of the parking lot, your car gets covered in cardboard chunks from the falling debris.

Flowers and a Fire

The weather this Sunday was the nicest we've had in a long time (and it's even better today!).  So after Rob had mowed the lawn and I had thrown a batch of strawberries in the dehydrator, we decided to take Molly to the dog park.  None of the dog parks in town are particularly close to us, and only one of the dog parks in the metro doesn't require a permit, so we hopped in the car and headed to Colby Park in Windsor Heights. Colby Park is a nice little city park.  You have to walk a path from the park that goes under the interstate along a creek to get to the dog park.  So off we went.  When we got there, the fence was chained shut and a sign said "Temporarily Closed for Grass Reseeding."  We had even checked the park website before we left, so we were a bit bummed that the park was closed. 

We took Molly for a little walk around the park, and I took photos of the pretty flowers that have started blooming, so it wasn't a total loss.  We even stopped for ice cream on the way home. :)

It was so nice--dry, cool (but not cold, and not too windy, so we decided to have a fire after we got home from the park.

You can see more photos of our nice weather adventures here. 

Crab Rangoons

A few weeks back Rob and I picked up some wonton wrappers at the grocery store and decided we wanted to try to make our own crab rangoon.  They turned out pretty well, but nowhere near as good as our favorite Chinese restaurants make.

We used a variation of this recipe.  We used surimi (mock crab or "krab") instead of the canned variety and we don't keep fresh ginger around...and we made half as much (and we still froze half of them)...and we were out of sour cream (so yeah, we barely followed that recipe).  The filling was a bit thick and we decided using a food processor to mix everything and following the recipe more exactly would make for a better rangoon.  They were still pretty good.

I also tried my hand at making my own sweet and sour sauce.  I love the stuff at restaurants, but I hate the stuff you can buy at the grocery store...so I tried two different recipes (one when the rangoon were fresh and another when we heated up the frozen leftovers--they freeze well by the way).  All of the recipes online involve some variation of Ketchup, Cornstarch, Vinegar, Sugar, and Pineapple juice or water.  The first batch was too vinegar-y, so the second version we made had more sugar and and we cooked it longer...it was better, but still not awesome, so I'm still scouring the internet for something closer to what they have in restaurants--no luck.

It was fun to try to make crab rangoon at home.  I look forward to perfecting our recipe! I'll post about it again when I have a recipe I feel confident about sharing.

Spring Flowers

April and May were some of the weirdest we've had since I've lived in Iowa.  We had our last snow storm during the first week of May...but it seems like Spring has finally decided to do it's thing (crosses fingers, knocks on wood).  Last week the trees were all blooming.  I took some photos as I love that time of the year and the flowers only stick around for a few days before they blow away.  You can find the rest of the photos I took here.  (If you haven't been to Flickr in a while, you may be surprised by the change in layout. I know I was.)

Happy Spring! And here's hoping I blog more often this Summer than I have been lately :).

December Blizzard

Our grass was green for most of the month of December. On December 19th it started snowing at 4pm and snowed an inch every hour until morning.  They had been forecasting a blizzard all week, but we didn't know exactly how much snow we were in for.  We ended up right in the bulls eye for this storm with 13.8 inches. Even the schools in town closed for two days, lots of people lost power, and Rob's office closed for the first time ever. Even with a snow blower, it took us hours to clear out our driveway and sidewalk, but we were left with a snowy wonderland.

This is a photo of the bushes in the front of our house.  In the background you can see our spiral Christmas tree decorations blown over.

These are the evergreens in our backyard.

The rest of the pictures I took of our snowfall are here.

Beautiful Fall Days

We've been having wonderful fall weather here lately (70s and 80s with no humidity).  So we were determined to take advantage of it before the crisp is in the air (forecasted later this week).  We decided to go to a park on the other side of Johnston that we hadn't been to yet--Terra Park.  We walked a loop around what would normally be a pond, but is currently barely a reedy wetland.  The fall colors are in full swing here, so it was a gorgeous walk.

The rest of the pictures from our walk can be found here.

Ledges State Park

Last weekend we went camping with family and friends at Ledges State Park near Boone, IA.  Rob and I had been to Ledges for the day once when we lived in Ames and had a good time, so when we were asked if we wanted to camp there it was an easy answer...that and it's only about a half an hour away.

The weather was warm on Friday evening, but on Saturday morning a front moved through along with a steady downpour.  We spent an hour or so in Kris and Marie's camper while it rained hard. When it stopped, there were two big puddles in the tent and a few items of soaked clothing that we had to clean up. We were glad we opted to leave our bags in the car or we would have had a much bigger mess to clean up. After the rain went through, we went for a hike.  Part of the park has been carved out by streams into a small canyon, and there are trails throughout that section of the park.  Most of them involve climbing up the sides of the canyon or descending stairs back down into the canyon.  Needless to say, after a couple hours of walking, all of us were ready for a break. The weather was lovely after the rain and we spent the rest of the weekend playing bocce and sitting by the fire.  I look forward to camping there again.

The rest of my photos from the weekend can be found here.

Andre the Giant Sequoia Turns One

Rob's Giant Sequoia has had a growth spurt this summer.  We decided to have a piece of cake in honor of the 1st anniversary of its sprouting.

Happy Birthday Andre!

Waubonsie State Park

Last weekend Rob and I stayed in a camping cabin at an Iowa State Park south of Council Bluffs/Omaha.  Fortunately, the cabin had central air.  It didn't have running water, so we were still sort of roughing it :).  Since the temperatures were in the mid-upper 90s, we really appreciated the A/C.

Waubonsie State Park is a small, relatively secluded, state park in the Loess (pronounced "less") Hills which run along the western side of Iowa. In 2005, the nearby Wa-Shawtee (yes they are both named after American Indians) girl scout camp was sold to the Iowa DNR and they began converting some of their cabins to rent out to campers.  We stayed in one of these converted cabins.  It was very spacious for a camping cabin and had it's own water spigot and pit toilet just steps from the back door. However, it was a bit of a trek to the only bathhouse at the campground.

After the first extremely hot evening at the park, we learned that they have a bit of a tick problem this summer.  Molly was pretty infested.  We moved our campfire to the outdoor fireplace on the covered patio to get out of the grass and ended up making an emergency trip to town for to buy Frontline for Molly.  After that, it was a pretty relaxing vacation.  We built fires, cooked with our pie irons, walked some of the many trails, and spent quite a bit of time inside playing games to beat the heat.

I look forward to going back when it's not as hot so we can walk even more of the beautiful wooded and hilly trails that run throughout the park. I bet it would be beautiful in the fall.  More photos from our trip are here.