So today is my one week marker here in Des Moines. Oscar had to come up here for work, and since it is a three week stay for him, (and I'm currently unemployed) we decided it would be a good idea for me to fly up and stay with him. Des Moines is so pretty, it's as green as the Yucatan peninsula but obviously in a foresty way rather than jungly way...which is nice because I don't think I've ever been this far north (aside from New York City and New Jersey).
During the day when Oscar is at work I wake up pretty late, chat for a while with Kris and my mom, and get ready to have lunch at 12 with Oscar and his coworkers. When I come back I'll usually read or watch Smallville. I am pretty addicted to that show. Oscar brought his PS3 with him (are you surprised?) and downloaded the demo for FIFA 2009, so whenever he wants to play I just whip out the laptop and stream Smallville. It's worked out perfectly!
After work we usually go out to dinner at a nice restaurant. My favorites have been The Cheesecake Factory and Joe's Crab Shack...and Granite City (I have never seen any restaurant serve as big portions as they do here, and it's delicious!) Even their appetizers serve about 6 people perfectly! Anyway, after dinner we usually come back to the hotel, watch some t.v. and either swim in the indoor pool or work for a full 15 minutes. It's been really nice. The pictures are from last weekend. Oscar and I hung out at a mall which is honestly the coolest mall I've ever been to. They have my favorite store, Forever 21, plus a Godiva Chocolatier, a Pottery Barn Kids and regular Pottery Barn, Heritage (which is like Forever 21 but the clothing is more casual, similar to American Eagle but dressier), etc etc. Afterwards we took a walk by the lake which is right outside the mall. It is beautiful, there are restaurants all around this lake and a huge fountain right in the middle. I had saved a fortunte cookie from Lunch and mashed it into pieces so we could feed the gold fish (I hope they are all still alive). Out of nowhere many fish appeared and went crazy feeding off my f.cookie. It was pretty funny-they swim around opening and closing their mouths, not targeting anything in particular, just hoping something falls in. Oscar started calling them hungy hippos (like the children's table game) because honestly that's what they look like! 
Once we ran out we still had about an hour to spare (there is a theatre inside the mall and were waiting to watch Traitor) so we crossed the street and checked out Archivers and this children's toy store. I had never been to an Archiver's, just read about it in Scrapbooking magazines. I definitely wish I had half of the stuff in that store, and the scrapbooking talent of probably every lady that was there shopping like it was the 1.00 dollar store instead of the expensive store that it is. This motivated me to finish Oscar's mission scrapbook and begin building my repertoire of scrapbook supplies. Next we checked out the toy store, and found some serously funky things-like these wigs! They are made out of some type of plastic but are so neat! Who knew green and pink hair could look so good on us???
Anyway, we had a fabulous time. And I do recommend Traitor to anyone who hasn't seen it. It's kind of slow at first, and hard to follow, but very entertaining once you get it.
