Omaha Children's Museum

One day while in Nebraska I decided to be extremely brave and take my four kids up to the Children's museum in Omaha because they had a dinosaur exhibit. I should have walked out after the first 2 minutes because it only got worse. Before we even got to the cashier's desk we had to wind our way through 100 kids who were with a summer camp. The noise was defeaning. After paying an exhorbitant amount of money to get us into the museum and the dinosaur exhibit, we made our way through another 200 kids upstairs to the dinosaurs. It was all I could do to keep my kids in sight amongst the other 300 people in a room the size of a cultural hall at church. The dinosaurs were cool, but most of the other educational funstuff was being overrun by hundreds of children. And none of them seemed to have parents. It was a total free-for-all. It was NUTS! After we worked our way through that we went downstairs to play on the normal stuff but there were just so many kids that I couldn't keep track of mine. There were giant kids that should not have been there, at least they shouldn't have been playing. One of them crushed Jacob's hand and it took me forever to calm him down. While I was trying to herd my kids into the Ball Emporium (which was only highlight of the whole trip)I stamped my feet and said half under my breath, "I hate this place." The person next to me gave me a crusty look, but it's true, I hated that place. We played in the ball place for quite awhile and then I told the kids it was time to go. I was a nervous, angry mom. As we passed the art area it looked as if a tornado had blown through and no one was bothering to clean up after it. It's never that way at the Lincoln Children's Museum. I finally got all the kids out to the van and buckled up and I sat there and just wanted to cry. What a mess! I was just glad that we all made it out altogether and in one piece. Maybe on a day when there was only a hundred people there it would have been better, but I would take the Lincoln Museum over the Omaha one any day of the week. I am getting anxious just typing this. We went over to my sister's apartment after to decompress and hang out. That was very pleasant. It's a good thing to, I shouldn't have been driving in my nervous condition.

These pictures when in the ball emporium. The kids would put the balls in all these vacuum pipes and the balls would collect in this big bin that would dump them all back out at once. The kids would collect underneath it waiting for it to fall. Jacob spent the whole time doing this.

My little pteranodons - Annabelle wouldn't put the suit on. Still cute, except as I went to help them out of the nest I tripped and bruised up my shin. I HATE THIS PLACE!

It took me forever to get Jacob this close to the TREX. It's robotic and moves his head and roars and opens his big mouth. A little too real for him. Finally he decided he could have his picture taken by it.

If you notice that none of them are looking at the camera it's because the T-Rex was directly behind me roaring. I love the look on Maddie's face.

Children's Museum

If someone was to ask me what it was that I missed most about Nebraska it would be 1st - My family, 2nd - the green fields, 3rd - The Lincoln Children's Museum, the most fabulous place on earth for little kids and their parents. We used to go there about once a week when we lived in Lincoln. It was a lot easier with only 1 or 2 kids, 4 was a bit crazy but still so much fun. Every town should have a children's museum like Lincoln's (we went to Omaha's on this trip too, but I DID NOT like it very much at all, a subject for another post). Here are some pictures of the kids enjoying themselves.

Summering Some More

What would summer be like if you didn't hang out with your family? Here are a few pictures of us (okay, the kids) hanging out with just a couple of their aunts, uncles and cousins. So much fun!

Uncle Gentle Giant with Miss B! Notice the sky behind us. This was an unusual summer day in Nebraska. It was barely 80 and getting ready to storm. My Dad bet me a banana split that the kids wouldn't stay in the pool for more than 10 minutes. They were in the water for 30 minutes, and my banana split was tasty.

Lorelei's sitting pretty

Jacob and Madalyn playing with a dragon...

Annabelle was less than thrilled about the tiny pool and all the big kids so she took shelter in the trampoline.

Cousin Lauren

Aunt Stephanie - I asked her daughter if there was a dinosaur behind me, trying to get her to look at the camera, Stephanie looked instead and it looks like she didn't believe me.

Cousin Randall and Aunt Kristie - We were lucky to have Kristie come and visit at the same time as us. Happy Sisters Reunion.

Miss Boo giving me a crusty look, I don't think she trusted me.

Uncle Jeff and Cousin McKenna having a good time

Annabelle with Uncle Jeff - This picture was taken on Father's Day after Greg had been gone for a week. Annabelle was obviously missing her daddy as she attached onto every father in the house (there were four).

Summering, cont.

We went to the Lincoln Children's Zoo while in Nebraska, and I must say, I like it. Mostly because it's not so huge that you can't possibly get through in a day and also because you aren't completely worn out when you're done. One dumb thing is that you can't bring in outside food or drink. So much for having a picnic in the zoo. We ate on a park bench 20 feet from the entrance and watched the zoo train go round and round. Annabelle was with Aunt Kristie taking a nap which made the whole experience a little easier.

The poor reindeer really smelled bad. It was 90 degrees and humid, you can imagine the smell.

We loved the butterfly pavilion. Next we'll know to put flowers in the girls' hair. They kept landing on a little girl with a giant orange flower bow.

Waiting for the train. The most expensive train ride...ev..ver.

The train's about to go...

I can't wait...

Yep, the train is awesome.

Riding on the tortoise...statue

Pretending to be eagle chicks in a the eagle's nest

My new favorite picture of all time. Have I mentioned that I love my new camera?

Madalyn was in tears because the butterflies wouldn't land on her and then one finally did and she totally freaked out.

Summer-ing

Why isn't summering a word?

You might ask us, "What have you been doing for the last month and a bit?"
And we would answer, "Oh, we've just been summering."

Because that's exactly what we've been doing. We've been doing all the things that make up a perfectly wonderful lovely summer. Here are some pictures of phase 1 of our summering.

We went to Nebraska for 3 weeks. We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa and crammed in as much fun as I could handle while Greg flew to the Netherlands for a business trip. One of the first stops was Pioneers Park. A beautiful park full of rolling hills, green (Nebraska is GREEN, not muddled brownish green that I see everywhere here) open meadows, a couple of small lakes, a playground, nature center, etc. I forgot how much fun Pioneers Park can be. We fed the geese and my kids loved it. It was hard to get them to move on to other things even when we ran out of bread. This little family of "gooses" (Maddie called them gooses)adopted us. Jacob said it was because we had four kids, a mom and a dad, and they had the same. It was cute. Then we went and had a picnic lunch and moved on to the nature center. Which is lovely and would take a couple of trips to explore thouroughly. We had to leave because Annabelle was exhausted, otherwise I think my kids would have stayed there forever. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Pioneers Park. We actually went back the Saturday before we left with Greg. We also got a new camera, can you tell?

Annabelle in the nature center bird watching area. She went nuts looking at all the birds through the big windows.

Our family of geese.

J Jacob is thrilled to be out in the "wild."

Walking in the nature center

Maddie, just being Maddie

Annabelle really didn't want her picture taken, but it was a lovely little spot with the sun breaking through the trees. Phooey.

Lorelei was in heaven.

Annabelle kept pointing to all the butterflies.

One of the lakes in the nature center.

Lorelei's a Kindergarten Graduate!

Here are some pictures of Lorelei at her Kindergarten graduation. There would be more but the lighting in the cafeteria is awful, so a lot of the ones I took aren't worth much. It's hard to be excited for summer when at the mere mention of the word both my school-aged children start to cry because they want to go to school instead. That's a good sign right? Well, whether they are excited for summer or not, I am. Bring on the fun and the sun!

Baptism Day

Jacob was baptized this week and we are all so excited. Here are some pictures from his special day and the day after too.