April's Visit

We were so excited to have April come visit us! She arrived Thursday after work. We pretty much just hung out, ate dinner and caught up. Friday we ventured across the state to Cedar Rapids, where we watched Cirque Du Soleil. It wasn't nearly as good as shows I have seen in the past, probably because those were in an actually tent that really set the mood. This was in a stadium, so it wasn't quite the same with bleachers and basketball hoops. The show started with lots of music and some funny antics. There were acts that included some rhythmic dancing, acrobats, contortionists, flipping and balancing on a bicycle. All in all, very entertaining!

We had pretty good seats, but the show was only about half sold (probably because we went to the early Friday afternoon show.) We weren't supposed to take pictures, and some old crochety lady yelled at April during the first half for taking some, so we moved to better seats for the second half of the show. There we got some pretty good shots, considering it was dark, we had the display turned off, and we were trying to hide the camera from all the "security."

--some acrobats that we thought were twins. At some points they were holding on to each other with legs and feet...it seemed impossible--

--these guys were ridiculous...I don't know how their arms didn't break off--

--again, who does this?--

--here are some clowns pretending to be the strong men above--

--part of the flipping act--

I was so busy talking on the way home, I almost ran out of gas. I was so nervous that I pulled off into the middle of nowhere, also known as Oxford Iowa. I out $70 worth of gas in the car...so close to empty it was scary. Then we saw a little diner, and thought what the heck, we are hungry. It was a cute little place, and not at all what we expected, glad we stopped :)

Of course on the way home we hit the Tanger outlet stores. We stopped on the way to the show, but only got about an hour of shopping in, so had to stop again to finish shopping. We went to Banana Republic, Gap, Old Navy, Nike, Carters, Coach, Fossil, Wilsons, and so many others...I think we did pretty great. I got Josh some sun glasses, and a few things for McKenna and myself, including an amazing purse. April scored at Banana Republic picking up a really smokin black dress and skirt. All in all, a successful shopping experience!

Saturday we lounged around until Emily's Bridal shower at 2pm. I showed April a few of the mansions in the area, and then we headed to Old Chicago in Ames. Emily is always hilarious, and we had a good time. Played some games, and it gave me an excuse to dress Mac up all girly.

--cute little spring dress--

--happy girl--

--drawing pictures--

--trying to keep her entertained during present unwrapping--

--Mac and Mommy--

--emily and her princess present--

--April and McKenna--

I will do more updates later as we get more pictures of the rest of the trip.