Growing Up: A Picnic on Campus

When I arrived at the Wade's house to watch the kiddos today, both kids eagerly wanted to go to the "Bell Tower", which is the Campanile on Central Campus at Iowa State. During my time at Iowa State, I walked countlessly through Central Campus, admiring all the Campanile, sun bathing, having lunch, or just relaxing on the grass with friends. One of my favorite times of the year is when it gets nice enough to sit out on Central Campus and do nothing. Its a great place to meet up with friends before or after class to have lunch, to talk, or to read and get a little sun :)

Today I packed the kids up in their stroller, put their lunch into tupperware, got water bottles, and a blanket and we took off on a walk to campus. Its not very far, but with a 5 and almost 3 year old that stroller can get pretty heavy! We got to campus and set up our picnic. The kids had fun watching all of the other students, and got a kick out of how many were laying down. I tried to explain the concept of sun tanning to them but they didn't quite get it. After they finished their lunch, they took off for the Campanile, and had a blast running through all of the entry ways. They were pretty discouraged to find that they couldn't actually see the bells, or climb up the stairs to get to the top. We had a long discussion on the walk home about who gets to go up to the top and why there are stairs if no one actually rings the bells. Lets just say one day Skyler or Madeleine might decide to be bell cleaners so that they can go up to the top of the Campanile :)

It got really windy while we were on campus and the kids would wait under the Campanile until a huge gust would come and run out laughing and screaming. It was totally cute. I am so relieved that it FINALLY nice out so that we can play outside!

Here some pictures from our picnic :)