Life with the Green's: Iowa Road Trip

We recently took a road trip to Iowa to visit my sister and her family, see my cousin and attend the Iowa State Fair. My sister Karen lives less than 4 hours away and that drive is nothing for our kids anymore. Living in India made our kids world class travelers for sure! We had a great time visiting. My cousin Lynne and her son Blayne from Minnesota also drove down. I haven't seen Lynne for years and had never met her son. It was a great time and the boys had fun meeting their cousin! We only wish Lynne's husband could have made the trek down.
The state fair was awesome. Some of the highlights were the butter cow (yes carved from butter a full size cow), an enormous size bull and boar, lots of animals, quilting display (I was the only one that liked this) and seeing Ricky Carmichael (some famous Nascar driver the boys know). Emily loved seeing the cowgirl contest where not only the cowgirls wore hair extensions but their horse did too! I have never seen so much primping going on in a horse barn. I was amazed when Karen informed me that the western show saddles cost around 5K!
While at Karen's we got to ride one of her many horses. Emily loved it! In fact she asked the whole way home if she could please have a horse. Matt (Karen's husband) has recently become a bee keeper so we to watch him check his hives and no one got stung! When we left Iowa we left Karen and Matt with a few less animals...a new bunny named Mr. Oswald and kitten named Griffin. Before leaving we headed to a nearby reservoir where the kids had fun playing in the water and burying Logan in the sand. It was really a great weekend!

Karen and Emily doing the cowgirl wave