Des Moines Day Trip and the Coolest Farmer’s Market Ever

Hubby and I headed to Des Moines yesterday afternoon for a day trip. We had a fabulous time!

We started off with a swim in the hotel pool. It felt good in this heat!

(photo taken from hotel site)

We dined at a romantic and delicious Italian restaurant we had never been to called Bravo Italian Restaurant.

 (source)

And then we did a little shopping at one of my favorite malls!

We even grabbed a bite of cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory—which is soooo good and not something we get to do often, thankfully. I ate half of my slice and it was delish!

And this morning we were up early to pick up hubby’s EBay purchase—which was fine because it made our day last longer!

I don’t know what is with the weather lately, but we saw 4 semis flipped on their sides due to big gusts of wind—it had just happened! This is the perfect picture of Iowa, wind towers and stormy skies.

After that, we headed to the Des Moines Farmer’s Market, which I’ve been wanting to check out FOREVER! It was FABULOUS. We will definitely be going back whenever we are in the area again. It was a rainy morning, but we brought the umbrella and had a fun time anyway. There were blocks of vendors selling everything from produce, flowers, dog treats, soap, ethnic foods, clothes, home brewed root beer to candied nuts!

I loved the culture and the sights! THey were making homemade ice cream with a John Deere motor:

Beautiful flowers for sale! Hubby said he would have bought me some but there was no way they would make it home. But sweet!

My pictures didn’t turn out awesome because it was hard to hold an umbrella, sacks of purchases and try to take a picture at the same time!

We sampled some of the home made root beer. Hubby ate a piece of blueberry crumb cake and we split some cinnamon roasted nuts. YUM! I also got to sample goat cheese, homemade salsa, and BBQ sauce. There were so many different things that I’d love to try. We’ll definitely have to make another trip someday!

So here’s what we ended up getting:

Not a ton of stuff because we get a lot of fresh produce from the in-law's and from our garden. But I haven’t tasted fresh tomatoes yet this season!

But I’m most excited about this:

Gotta love local stuff!

MMMHMM! Can’t wait to try it on one of my salads or experiment and make wings! I tasted it and said, “I WANT THIS!”

After the market, we ate at a downtown restaurant called Dos Rios. It was beautiful inside and trendy. I had a shrimp taco, 1/2 of a chicken taco, and a house salad. So delish! We also had some tortilla chips and an amazing Queso dip.

And then we made a trip to one of my favorite stores!

This is a treat for me because it’s not very close to where I live. I like to try out the unique finds!

And these are for supper tonight and they’re only 3 points each!

I look forward to using these interesting finds in recipes!

So It’s been a fun weekend! Eating wise, I indulged, but I stopped when I was full, which really doesn’t take very long anymore. I need to calculate my points, but I have no doubt that I will be on track!

I wish that we had a farmer’s market like Des Moines’ a lot closer! I love things like that but you just don’t find them in smaller, more rural areas. But we had a blast and it felt like a long date, which we need when Hubby is gone all week!

I hope you’re having a great weekend!!