The Outlet Mall Hulabaloo!!!!!!!

On saturday the 15th of march, I decided to go to the outlet mall, which is near Williamsburg, Iowa. It's about 2 hours from Des Moines. Drive east.

I got way more clothes then expected. About 11 shirts, 6 pairs of pants, 3 shorts and new shoes. An outlet mall is a chain of stores -- like clothes stores basically. My favorite stores were Reebok, Nike, Under Armour, Gap, Old Navy and that's all. I liked the last store that we went to because it was a caramel apple store! I picked out a toffee caramel apple, but I never got to eat it. We forgot it at Grandma's house. 

If you're going to the outlet mall, expect a lot of clothes and looking for clothes for your baby sister. It will be a little boring at times, especially looking for your mom's clothes, but when you get to look for your own clothes it's more fun. 

We shopped for about 3 hours. Then we went across the street to the Landmark Restaurant.

We forgot to take a photo of the restaurant, but we found this on the computer. There's no green grass in Iowa yet.

After all that shopping, you could guess that we were all pretty hungry.

To start it off I got spicy chicken soup, boy that stuff was spicy.

The soups were all homemade. My grandma got a soup with cabbage and sausage in it. She said it was good. 

 Then for my entree I got a bacon cheese burger and fries. I also saw steak that looked good and tenderloin sandwiches.

 I ate almost all of my bacon cheese burger but almost none of my fries [as usual].

 I was full.

They have homemade pies for dessert. I sort of wanted one but I was too full. 

If you're on the road, on Interstate 80, you should go to the Landmark Restaurant. And you should go to the outlet mall if you're running out of clean clothes or if your clothes don't fit you. 

Good Deal's Orchard

Well sadly it was our last day at our grandma's house. But on our last day there we decided to go to a orchard -- Deal's Orchard. I was wondering what the place looked like so I was getting a little anxious to see what the place looked like. But right before I could check the place out, my mom stopped me right before I could see much stuff. So instead of thinking what I should do first I had to stop and get my picture taken.

Well finally I got to check the place out.

And now I have to get my picture taken again! What's wrong with these people!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????

Air mattress football! 99 yard touch down run! By number almost 9! But by number 8.

And a great catch by number 5.

And he needs to pull up his pants after the tackle.[p.s. he always needs to pull up his pants]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the cheer leader's come on for half time.

Game has been canceled due to boringness. 

Sorry little girl you have to be bigger than 1 foot 9 to ride by your self.

Poor little kid. Only got candy corn for halloween.

Another death in the corn yard. There has been ten already today.

Look on this collision with a red thing-a-majig and a pink thing-a-majig.

Grandma and the donkeys

Well that guy is taking a little bit of a risk. He may not come out alive.

Well now we are checking out the national duck racing. Our new champion is mazy hanson due to bo hanson getting disqualified because of whining after a loss.

Well now you have a news report on the stuff in the deal's orchard.

We went into the shop market. We could pick out a free apple from ones in a little crate at the door. I chose a Red Delicious because I liked the name. The Red Delicious apples you buy at the grocery store looks almost black purple or maroonish, and they taste bland. The ones at the orchard are brighter and they taste sweeter and juicier.

You can buy cider, slush, honey, apple pies and a lot of other stuff. I got a cider slush. It tasted good -- sweet. We bought creamed honey and regular honey. Creamed honey is honey but it's almost like a honey paste. I eat it on bread. It's sweeter than some other kinds. The last thing we bought was apple cider. Cider is different than apple juice. For the cider, they put apples inside of a barrel and then they push down and crush the apples. Then they separate all the juice and the seeds and skin and stem away and leave the apple meat, and then they crush the apple meat more and it makes cider that gets put into bottles. I prefer to drink apple cider.

If you go to Jefferson to Deal's Orchard you could go to the Pizza Ranch afterward for lunch, like we did.

Sinking City: Vietnamese Food in Ames

Today I went to my Dad's work and for lunch we ate at a Vietnamese place. The name was Le's Vietnamese Restaurant. It's in Ames, Iowa.

For an appetizer we ordered those see-through things with the noodles and fresh stuff. What are they called? Spring rolls. Not the fried ones. They were filled with pork and shrimp and something that looked like noodles and tasted like nothing, that was the clear part. And there was lettuce and cucumber. There was a peanut or peanut butter sauce. It was OK but I wasn't really a big fan because it was too sweet and it tasted a little bit like soy sauce to me. The roll tasted good. I like those because it's sort of like a salad that you can pick up.

I ordered something with noodles and soup on the side. Or at least, that's what I thought. So the thing was there were noodles and there was soup on top of the noodles. The noodles were in a soup. I didn't really like it. I mean the soup tasted sort of like chicken broth and it was sort of nutty tasting too. Some of the pork was too dry. Actually, none of the pork was too dry. I just wasn't a very big fan.

But my dad's food, jalapeño beef, I really liked it. The beef tasted good because it had a sauce with the rice. And the sauce went really good with the rice. The sauce was sort of like a steak sauce, well, not a steak sauce but it just went really good with rice and beef. And then I didn't want the jalapeños because sometimes I just don't want to have something that's really spicy. I asked for fried rice because I wanted something hot and dry to wash the soup taste out of my mouth. And then I ate the rest of Dad's stuff. It tasted really good. The rice and steak and sauce went well with the bell peppers. The rice is a plain taste but the bell pepper is like a crunch. Rice you don't even need to chew it because it's tiny grains. So I had a pretty decent lunch off of what I ate off my dad's plate.

And there's one more thing, this awesome hot and sour soup. It wasn't really sour, just a hint of sour to make it really good. It was kind of chunky too, and I liked that. And then it was hot. And that made a good feel in my throat. It was a little bit spicy and a little bit sour. And it tasted really good.

So that's my review for today. Chili today, hot tamale. Do you get it? Chili today? Sort of like hot tomorrow, but hot tamale.

Rice Party

Today I was in Nevada. Me and my dad were thinking about going to Mayhem, the comic book store, and we were thinking about having lunch, so we walked around a little bit. And we found a place called Rice House. It was a new restaurant, and it was a Korean restaurant. We got it to go.

I ordered kimchi fried rice, and my dad got bibimbop. We also got dumplings. My fried rice had pickled cabbage; it sounds weird but it was pretty good. It also had an egg and some fish squares. The pickled cabbages tasted sour and they were crunchy because that’s what pickles and cabbage are like. The fish squares were kind of chewy like rubber and they tasted like fish (I don’t know what fish tastes like, really). They tasted sort of…meaty? Kind of?

I tried my dad’s bibimbop. It was pretty good, and it was a teeny bit spicy. Just a teeny bit, because of the sauce. If you’re wondering why the picture looks weird, the rice came in a different box, so that’s why.

The dumplings tasted like they had some sort of meat inside. I forgot what kind. They were not very crunchy, but they were good. Even without the soy sauce. There were also some vegetables inside of it. Even though I can’t remember what meat and vegetables they had inside it, they tasted pretty good, still.

If you want to try the bibimbop, if you get too much hot sauce it will make your tongue hurt, so don’t get too much hot sauce. Rice House is a good restaurant. You should go there sometime, but don’t get too much food because a sign there said, “Get sides that you can eat, do not waste food,” so don’t get too much food. Just get the right amount, that’s my advice for you.

Avengers Food

This is the first in "eating food I see in movies" blogs. This is No. 1: The Avengers. If you've seen Avengers, you'll know what I'm talking about today. At the very end, Iron Man invites all the Avengers to go to a restaurant and they all get the same thing: a beef shawarma.

And today we went to a restaurant, The Cafe, that had that! The Cafe is up in Ames, by where my mom and dad went to college. It's by Iowa State. Well, somewhat close to it.

At first, I was wondering what shawarma was and then my dad told me it was from the end of Avengers. Then I kind of remembered it, and he said they were all eating shawarma  So then I remembered it and I was like, "Hmmm." When it was my turn to order, I told the waitress, "I want beef shawarma," that's also what my dad got, too.

So as I was waiting for my food they had these things called wiki sticks. They were like little wax strands that you can stick together and make almost anything out of them. I was making people and playing around with them. I was waiting for my food to come.

Before I got my food, I ordered an iced tea. Here is a new thing that you probably don't know yet. For my New Year's resolution I said I will not be drinking pop anymore. So you won't see it in any of my reviews.

The beef shawarma came with cous cous that had tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions and parsley. They tasted really fresh and it was OK. I have to say, it wasn't my favorite. But the shawarma was the really good part. First it tasted like a gyro, and I love gyros.

In the shawarma there was shaved beef, cole slaw and pickled vegetables and it came with two dipping sauces. One was a ranchy kind that I really liked and the other tasted like tomato soup to me, I didn't like it at all. And since I loved the shawarma so much, I could only eat two pieces since I also ate a huge piece of baked potato pizza. It was very funky. My mom got it because she loves baked potatoes.

So I took home two pieces of shawarma and later in the afternoon, ohhhh my stomach wasn't feeling that good. It must have been the seasoning on the potatoes on the pizza. But anyways, the shawarma was a really good sandwich and I'm going to take one piece of my leftovers to lunch tomorrow.

My dessert was chocolate cake. I asked my mom if I could have the chocolate candy piece that was on top of it. But I hated it! Guess what it was? A Whopper! I hate those. You guys might like those but I don't. The cake was very chocolatey and tasted good. The frosting was very sweet. I liked it. But I really wanted my dad's cake. It was a lemon one with fresh fruit on the sides because it was so rich.

We were at the restaurant today because it was my dad's birthday and you always have to go to where the birthday boy wants to eat. So we went to The Cafe. I was not in school because it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

That's all for today's review.

I might try to have French fondue next because that's what they had in Captain America.

Hanson Brothers Review Village Inn Breakfast

4-year-old Bo's review of his breakfast at Village Inn on Euclid Ave./E. 14th St. in Des Moines, Iowa:

King of the Restaurant, Best Food! 
I had that, like, awesome thing with bacon. It was like a happy face with like a bacon mouth. And it taste so good and awesome. When I was almost done, I disappeared to the other side of the couch. Under something. And then I keeped disappearing there and disappearing there and that's when I was done. The end. That's my story. The end, I said!

And I was just checking out food on the menu I brought home. For all of you. I had a restaurant. And that's how my story is complete. I'm done. The end.

 Bo and his happy face breakfast. 

 Bo actually ate his scrambled eggs. The first time he has ever willingly eaten scrambled eggs in his life.

 The smiley face pancake meal

Almost 8-year-old Mazy's review of his breakfast at Village Inn:

The Medieval Village Inn with Dragon-Tale Soup!
We went to the Village Inn and I got something that everybody likes -- I got bacon, scrambled eggs, cottage cheese and a waffle! And the waffle tasted strange because I put a little too much butter and a little too much syrup on it so I gave it to my dad. And the eggs tasted like normal scrambled eggs. The bacon was hickory smoked bacon and I liked that about it. I don't know what hickory smoked means but I liked it. The cottage cheese was just like normal cottage cheese and I liked it.

I got a hot chocolate to drink. It was good. It was just normal hot chocolate with whipped cream.

It was a good restaurant. I want to go there some other time. We could go for lunches. Or for dinners. And there are some pies there I really want to try.

Village Inn is a very good restaurant and you should go to it anytime you can. And that is the end. The end, I said. And I am the king so you have to do what I say. The end! Just kidding!

Oh, my birthday is coming up this weekend! December 8th! And I'm going to have it at the wildlife shelter. I'll have an awesome cake that I will pick out what goes on it and it will be very fun! And I want to be a football player when I grow up. Not a scientist. I was fascinated in science but then I wanted to get money because I thought I would be rich if I was a scientist but then I found out I would just work on stuff all the time that would be really hard to understand. And I just got fascinated by football. And football sounds really cool. That's why I want to do it. My favorite football team is the Green Bay Packers. And if you can, please send comments that tell me your favorite football team. I already know my Grandma Katy's and my Uncle Troy's favorite teams. And that's basically all I know. And I know my friend Cooper's already. He likes the Green Bay Packers also. This is my persuasive piece. I am persuasing you to go to Village Inn. The end.

 Mazy's "Pick Four" Breakfast choices

He ate one piece of bacon before we could get a photo.

 Mazy pouring too much syrup on his pancakes.

 Little sister Violet eating some cantaloupe.

 Reading a book after finishing their breakfast.