During our summer trip to the US, Grandma somehow got Nyan to help out on any number of household chores. Like loading the dishwasher:
And watering the plants:
Also washing out some old planting pots, for some reason.
Obviously he’s having a blast there. Maybe that’s the key to chore-doing. He certianly enjoyed baking:
And sewing too:
Now if we can just get him to clean up his toys without being asked…
After a few days in California, it was off to Iowa for a couple weeks with Grandma and Grandpa. One of the many places we hit up was… Iowa City’s City Park.
Yes, we have been here before. And yes, the name is just as creative as it’s always been. Whatever; it’s a lovely place right along the river, with trees, playing fields, open space, and an area with a few kid-sized rides like a merry-go-round, baby ferris wheel and a working (miniature) train on a quarter-mile oval track. Nyan’s always loved this park, and this time was no different. In fact, we went there a couple times on this visit to the homeland.
Did I mention there are ducks? There are ducks.
And rides too. Every kid loves the rides. Especially the plane.
Don’t forget the merry-go-round.
But of course, the crème de la crème is the train. Here we had to wait patiently as it finished a run:
And a few runs around the track, with Grandma, with Grandpa, even with Daddy.
Nyan loved the train so much that he took several walks along the entire length of the track.
The park, the train and the rides have all been there since Daddy was a boy – even before that, surely – and we hope they’ll still be there for many years to come!
We were in Iowa for much of the month of September. Usually the weather is starting to cool down as the calendar heads for autumn. That wasn’t the case this year as it was hot pretty much the entire time we were there, but some autumnal events were already ongoing. Like the pumpkin patch: farmers harvest their crop of pumpkins ahead of Halloween, and also offer games, corn mazes, tractor rides and the like. It’s all very Americana, and it’s also a lot of fun. We took Nyan there late one warm afternoon.
Here are some of the old tractors on display:
A fun little ‘train’ ride pulled by a tractor:
They also had a ‘sandbox’ of sorts – except instead of sand, it was filled with corn kernels.
Nyan loved it. Check out these videos:
More bits of fun:
And more scenery:
See all those pumpkins? That’s the real reason for the whole thing, of course, so we had Nyan pick out a pumpkin to take home.
He made sure to strap it in for the ride home.
Back home, it was time to carve it up. Nyan was enthused until he learned he had to stick his hand inside and pull out the pumpkin’s slimy guts. So Grandpa ended up doing most of the work.
A fun way to spend a late summer afternoon!
We spent a few weeks in the U.S. in September, based at Grandma and Grandpa’s with a few jaunts around the greater midwest for good measure. Let’s take a look at some of what our hero got up to.
There was a visit to the local natural history museum, where Nyan got his very own helmet with a light at the front:
And we visited the public open house at Hancher Auditorium, a performance hall that was rebuilt after being destroyed by a flood in 2008. This was a place where Daddy spent a lot of time as a kid growing up in Iowa City, so it was a special event for him. Nyan enjoyed being on the stage too.
We also drove to Chicago to visit friends, including Leo, Jacob and Eli, the sons of Phil and Jill.
And oh yes, there was a trampoline:
Grandma and Grandpa also took Nyan to a model airplane club’s annual exhibition show, featuring lots of toy planes and a bizarre helicopter display too:
It wasn’t all running around though: sometimes Nyan just stayed at home and made a robot out of a box and a Transformers mask.
Here we see him running through the halls at Great Grandma’s apartment and deciding who to pledge his collegiate loyalty to:
And finally, just some random photos from around the great state of Iowa. Enjoying the park, working a puzzle, watching a lovely sunset, feeding fish with Grandma, relaxing on a giant teddy bear, and so forth.
During our September sojourn in Iowa, Grandma and Grandpa took Nyan for a day trip to the Mississippi River town of Dubuque. They have this cool museum that’s mostly about the river, its dams and its ships. Nyan was pretty into it:
There were lots of exhibits about old riverboats and locks on the river:
And, for some reason, they had a big exhibit on …. dinosaurs. No problem though – the kid loved them too!
And finally, some random shots around the place. Not a bad way to spend a day!
Nyan and Grandpa have always bonded over their mutual love of model trains. On our visit to Grandpa’s place this September, though, they took it to the next level: Grandpa cleared out a large space in the garage and set up a big table devoted to a model train layout. The two of them spent hours out there, every single day, adding to it and racing the trains around the track.
It was pretty impressive:
Here’s the young engineer himself at work:
They eventually ran out of room and so had to add another table. That necessitated some fresh painting too.
Nyan got so into it, in fact, that even when he wasn’t out in the garage, he was still playing trains: he’d take extra track and build his own little layout inside Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
He’s already got big plans for how to build the train layout next time he visits Iowa. We can only hope Grandma and Grandpa are ready – and have enough room!
About a mile or so from where Daddy grew up is a place called Kinnick Stadium, where the local university football team plays. Daddy spent a lot of time there as a kid; it’s sort of the beating heart of his hometown, to some degree, so it holds a lot of sentimental meaning.
It so happens that a neighbor of Grandma and Grandpa works at the stadium, and offered to give Nyan a tour one day when there was no game. Grandma, Grandpa and Daddy were probably more excited about it than Nyan, to be truthful, but Nyan still managed to enjoy himself.
We started off with a tour of the press box, where we could see the whole stadium from high above.
Then it was down into the bowels of the old building, where the locker rooms are. The visitors’ locker room is well-known for being painted a sort of salmon pink – supposedly to make the visiting team a bit more mellow. There’s no great evidence that it works though.
Then the home team’s locker room, where our boy went a little crazy.
Some words of advice that the players see inside their locker room:
Then finally, it was down the concrete hallway they call the Tunnel, and out onto the field itself. Daddy had been on the field several times before – rushing the field after a particularly exciting victory, mostly – but it’s a totally different feel to have the whole field – the whole stadium, in fact – pretty much to yourself.
Nyan got his exercise in as well. And took a tumble, like all good football players.
PS – little-known fact that “Kinnick” was on the short list for names for our boy before he was born. (Okay, “Kinnick” was on Daddy’s short list. And not entirely seriously, frankly.) Kinnick Stadium is a great place – but we do think Nyan fits our boy much better.
Nyan always has a great time whenever we’re able to visit Iowa. And why not? It’s clean, spacious, plenty to see and do, and lots of family members to dote on him. He certainly had fun this fall with Grandma and Grandpa:
And with cousin Mia too:
And he had a blast at Uncle Scott and Aunt Maggie’s too — where Uncle Scott made him a nameplate in his wood shop and Grandpa let him drive the lawnmower.
In fact, Nyan enjoys Iowa so much that he’ll often say he wants to live there! When we mention that it gets really, really cold there, he shrugs and says ‘I like the cold.’ No, son, not this kind of cold you don’t. But still – great to see him embracing his paternal roots, for sure.
Back over the summer – July 26, to be exact – our boy had a birthday. Turned four years old. We happened to be in Iowa at the time (to be precise, we happened to have planned our trip to make sure we’d still be there on the 26th) so Grandma and Grandpa helped Mommy and Daddy throw a big ol’ bash.
It was a real family affair, with dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it Lots of kids too, and they all had a blast together:
There were gifts to open too:
And of course, there was cake. Dinosaur cake.
And this wasn’t planned, but at some point, Mommy Daddy and Nyan were out on the front porch, and someone had a camera, so we did an impromptu photo shoot.
So why did we call this post “Birthday Party, Part One”? Because we had another birthday party when we got back to Singapore. We’ve got pictures from that one too, which we’ll share in the near future…
We hear it’s well into autumn back in the US and UK. Well, it’s been lovely and hot and humid (but no haze!) here in Singapore, which I guess has put us in a summer-y sort of mood. So we’re looking back at some lazy days over the summer, when Nyan got to hang out in Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard, building a fire in the evening and lounging on the hammock in the afternoons. And always, always, his little mind whirring, his imagination in full gear.
At the end of that video, there’s reference to a time capsule. You see, Grandma and Grandpa had him fill a little metal box with some coins, a toy car and a note, and then they buried it near the apple tree they planted earlier. In a few years, we’ll dig it up.
Here’s video of the actual burying:
Finally, a panoramic view of the backyard itself. Lovely place to spend some summer time.
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