Gray's Lake Beach & Park

Gray's Lake is an immensely popular park, just south of downtown. People of all ages come here to play, jog, cycle, boat, and swim. Des Moines Parks & Rec frequently hosts Saturday morning yoga at this park (although it rotates some weeks).

The northern most entrance to the park leads to a parking lot by the old silos, which is a good spot to park for the playground and beach access.

From the playground, we strolled along the Kruidenier Trail, which makes roughly a 2 mile loop

Raccoon River Park

Raccoon River park & beach in West Des Moines is about a 10 minute drive from our house, and I've gone with the kids a few times now. The playground is pretty big, which isn't a good thing when there's a beach in running distance. I have to make sure I always know where the kids are. When Andrew comes with us, the trip is definitely worth it. The kids love all of the equipment, and they really, really love the beach!

And then, like the responsible parents we are, we had the kids run through the splash pad to get sprayed with chlorinated water to clean them up for the beach :)

Road Trip to Indiana!

We're home from our road trip to Indiana. Oliver has been asking to go to the beach, and I knew of a great one that we always went to as kids: The Indiana Dunes! It's just supposed to be a 5 and a half hour drive, but it took a lot longer with the little kids and stopping so much. We had a great time, though! We stayed at a bed & breakfast in Chesterton, Indiana called Riley's Railhouse, which had all things train! The kids loved it. And, of course, they loved the beach. 

I blogged about our trip on my travel blog here. I highly recommend this road trip if you still have little ones and are in road trip distance to the Indiana Dunes. 

Some picture highlights of the trip:

I was looking at  past trips, and our kids have made it to a lot of states so far in their little lives.

So far, Oliver has traveled in 10 states and 2 territories:

*Colorado
*Texas
*Nebraska
*Massachusetts
*Illinois
*US Virgin Island - St Thomas
*US Virgin Island - Saint John
*Iowa
*Utah
*Florida
*Wyoming
*Indiana

So far, Joanna has traveled in 9 states:

*Colorado
*Illinois
*Texas
*Nebraska
*Iowa
*Florida
*Wyoming
*Utah
*Indiana