Monday, October 6, 2008

Vacation 2: Iowa Retreat

Yeah, Iowa. We didn't start out thinking, where is the most luxurious vacation destination? But we were ultimately trying to get see Ryan's grandparents in Wisconsin, so this (really nice) resort was on the way and had ONE one-bedroom unit available just for us! We jumped on it and hoped for the best.

So the big sellers for a resort for us are the on-site free amenities. This one had both mini-golf and and indoor pool. (It also had an indoor mini-golf course that was someone's attempt to clean out their garage! We only went to that one once.)

Here we are enjoying the outdoor course.


Ashton liked to employ the "sweeper method," using her club more like a broom. Hey, whatever works! The best golf tip of the week: we put everyone's ball in Daddy's pocket after every hole, and whoever's ball came out was who went next. Bonus for me: I didn't have to bend over to pick up my ball from the hole!


Here are the kids enjoying the pool and daddy. It was the largest indoor pool we had seen at a resort!
Here is the kids' room for the week. Kids' room by night, school room/kitchen/dining room by day. It was just connected to our room by a lockout door (see picture below). Our room is not pictured (because is was a mess!) but it was just like a typical hotel room with a King sized bed. I set up my scrapbooking station in there and got quite a bit done during nap/nightime!

Here is the same room as a dining room! You can see the corner of the kitchen behind me. It was very small, but it worked for us and was a great money-saver for the week. Another bonus for me: Ryan did the dishes every meal! (He's even kept this up a lot since retuning home!)


Another of the great amenities of the resort was the sandy beach on the lake. It was probably our favorite thing to do! We went three days to "swim"/play in the sand. (I'll post a lot more of these pictures later!) Here you can see the dock that enclosed the swimming area. You can't see the sand, but it's between the grass and the water.


One other free thing we took advantage of was the free movie "theater." We saw "August Rush" there and then took the kids back to see "Snow Buddies." You can't beat a movie with talking dogs for them! It was a great resort for our family!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can say with total confidence that this is the best vacation we've ever had. I loved it.

And, on a side note for whoever reads, I didn't check my e-mail for 12 straight days and I survived.

I love you Sara.

Stephanie said...

Scrapbooking and school work? Cooking and dishes? Was this really a vacation?

Sounds like you really do the stuff I dream of doing. Well minus the school work and dishes!!!!

Love the pics.

Monica said...

You know, those are the kind of vacations that my sister and I still remember the most from our childhood. The four of us (Heather and I as teenagers) basically sleeping on top of each other, the bare light bulb in the middle of the room with the beach right outside our door...sitting in the car for days on end playing tic tac toe getting to eat KFC for our big dinner treat. I miss those days - they were so much simpler. And now I get to "force" my family to do family bonding. I love it!!!! :)

I'm so glad you had a good trip! :)