~Omaha~

Did you know that Nick's favorite little sister, Nichelle, came to visit us for a week in June?  

Well, she did and we had lots of fun.  

In between getting ready for our month long vacation out West and swimming lessons we played at parks, swam, ate out, shopped, played RockBand, and took a day trip over to Omaha where we visited the amazing Zoo!

There aren't many pictures in existance of me and my two kiddos, and I'm not exactly thrilled to take pictures in my current pregnant state, but I couldn't resist getting a shot in the butterfly bench.  So cute!!!

The aquarium, the indoor jungle, the butterfly house, the cat house, the gorilla house... all are amazing!

We even zipped through the basement of the desert dome the last 20 minutes the zoo was open.  Napless Lyssa fell asleep somewhere between the bat caves and the dark swampy alligators.  Alec was running on fumes, but was still fascinated by everything.  

Even though we were there for hours I still felt like we only saw about half the zoo.  I think I could spend two days there easily and NEVER get bored.  

We headed over to the Old Market in downtown Omaha, where we ate some amazing Old Chicago deep dish pizza and some delightful homemade ice cream that made all our bellies happy.  Then we were off to the BIG SLIDES.  They're super fast and quite steep so I was surprised that the kids wanted to go on them over and over and over again.  Lyssa caught air every time she went down and ended up flipping over on her tummy.  

Part of me so badly wanted to try them out... next time.

Then we were off to explore more of the riverwalk that runs through downtown Omaha next to the old market.  They had all these "artistic" benches everywhere.  The little houses were our favorite.

The rarely caught family photograph.  Thanks Nichelle!  

(Don't you just love the expression on Alec's face?  That kid cracks me up!!)

Knowing we still had a 2 hour drive home, we headed back to the car and put the kiddos in pajamas.  Then we decided to stop off at the Winter Quarters Temple for a quick peek around.  The visitors center is really cool, and there are some neat statues in the cemetery but it was late and even the temple was closing up for the night so we just walked around the front for a minute, danced with the fireflies amongst the beautiful flowers and green grass, and headed home.

It was a fun filled day for everyone, and totally worth my swollen legs and feet.  Thank goodness I had a few days to recuperate and prep everything before heading out West with Nichelle and the kids.

Thanks so much for coming to visit us, Nichelle!  We had a blast!