Nebraska Trip - June 2017

Tory, Aden and I visited my family in Nebraska during the early part of June. It's become somewhat of a tradition for us to visit this time each year while Andi is traveling during his busy photo shoot season. This year, we drove back on a Wednesday and stayed through the following Friday making it a full 10 day trip.

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary while we were there, and my sister, brother and I hosted a small celebration for them. 40 years! Quite a milestone.

We also visited the Lincoln Children's Zoo one afternoon which is always a fun experience. I love the size of this zoo, and how focused on play it is. Of course, Tory and Aden's favorite part is the red train at the end.

One afternoon, my sister Ashley and I took our kiddos to Lincoln to meet my cousin Jen. We met at Pain Yourself Silly to celebrate Reese's 4th birthday, then got ice cream and played in the urban park. These low-key outings are my favorite! It's so fun to spend time together.

Ashley and I also took Brooke, Neeley, Tory and Aden miniature golfing one afternoon. I remember playing here in high school with friends, so it was a trip being back again! Fortunately, we had the entire course to ourselves so the kids were able to play the holes in the order they chose, and we weren't worried about distracting others.

Tory was took to golfing, actually, and was surprisingly lucky putting the ball. She even scored a hole in one!

Despite the distance, I'm thankful we're able to spend time with my family each summer. The older Tory and Aden grow, the more they appreciate the memories we make with our Nebraska family.

Nebraska Trip: Memorial Day Weekend

It's become tradition to travel back to Nebraska in early June to visit my family. It began the first summer I was a stay-at-home-mom with Tory and had the flexibility to do so, and is now one of my favorite activities each summer. I like to visit when there's no major holiday bogging down everyone's schedules and the weather is generally cooperative for travel. Plus, a major bonus - my cousin Jen (a teacher) and my sister Ashley (a teacher's assistant) have the summers off from work, so we get to plan lots of fun outings with the kiddos.

This year, my dad was unexpectedly diagnosed with congestive heart failure about two weeks before my trip to Nebraska. Doctors discovered his aortic valve was 95% closed making his heart function very weak, and he was quickly scheduled for open heart surgery on June 1. Fortunately, I'd already planned to visit that week and had the ability to extend my stay and help my parents in any way they needed.

Andi drove to Nebraska with the kids and I on Thursday, May 26 for Memorial Day weekend. We planned a low-key weekend at my parent's house, and also attended a high-school graduation party for my sister's step-son, Caleb.

 

Memorial Day Monday, the kids and I took Andi to the Lincoln Airport so he could travel back to Minnesota for work, then continued on to Omaha to see my childhood best friend Ashley and her family. The day was hot and sunny, so Ashley filled up the kids' swimming pool in the backyard, Neal grilled chicken and wings for lunch and we sat in the backyard together for hours. It was a blast!

Look at these big kids who were just babies yesterday, I swear!

The next day (May 31), my sister and I met our cousin Jen at the Lincoln Children's Zoo for a play date. This is the third year we've taken our kids to the zoo together during my summer visit, and everyone always has a great time together. The Lincoln Zoo is the perfect size for little kids, and has unique play areas for the kids, a real train that circles the perimeter of the park and a beautiful butterfly garden. This year, Aden was particularly thrilled to ride the train (he still talks about it) and the weather was the perfect temperature. We had a great time.

The rest of our Nebraska stay was devoted to my dad and his surgery, so I think I'll blog about that time separately as it really felt like a different visit. I'm glad I was able to stay there for such a long period of time, and see and do things with family and friends before / after the surgery. It softened the emotional impact of seeing my dad in such a frail state, and allowed me to spend more time with him. More to come ...

44/52: A Weekly Photo Series: The Night of the Great Pumpkin

Tory, Aden and I are visiting my parents in Nebraska this weekend while Andi is working in California. We flew into town yesterday afternoon after a long day at the airport. Traveling solo with the kids doesn't usually get me frazzled, but yesterday did. We had one issue after another; a delayed flight, stroller issues, seat re-assignments. Tory and Aden behaved wonderfully once we were in flight (probably because Aden had so much extra time in the airport to run off some energy!) and most importantly, we finally made it to Nebraska.

Shortly after we arrived to my parent's house, my sister Ashley and I dressed our kids in their Halloween costumes with plans to go downtown to the annual Night of the Great Pumpkin event. But, first, a front yard photo shoot just because...

Elmo Aden and Butterfly Neeley

Side-story about this Halloween costume: I thought Aden would love being Elmo because he's fairly obsessed with him right now. I borrowed this full-body costume from my friend Lindsey (her daughter was Elmo when she was two) and tried it on Aden for the first time the night before we left for Nebraska. The minute he saw the Elmo costume, he cried "No please, no please!" and demanded I take it off him. Uh-oh! I threw a superhero cape in my suitcase as a last resort and hoped Aden would feel differently about Elmo come Halloween night.

Fortunately, Aden was just fine being Elmo for the Night of the Great Pumpkin event last night. And, oh my gosh did he look cute!
   

Tory is dressing up as Princess Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty) this year. My sister Ashley curled her hair and Tory felt so special.

All the grandkids together: Cheerleader Brooke (age 8), Elmo Aden (age 1), Princess Tory (age 4) and Butterfly Neeley (age 3)

The Night of the Great Pumpkin event was super fun! My sister and I took the kids to this holiday celebration last year, too. Downtown businesses handed out candy to trick-or-treaters, the local cosmetology school hosted a face painting table and the Main Street association gave away free pie pumpkins to every child. I love safe, non-spooky Halloween events like this for kids. We had a great time.

Aden was so focused on collecting as many real pumpkins as he could and stuffing them into his plastic pumpkin. It was so cute! The minute I'd take one out (because the pumpkin limit was one per child), he'd pick up another one and concentrate on putting another one in his bucket.

Tory was excited to have her face painted again, as it was the first thing she remembered about going to the event last year. She chose a pink heart (surprised?) to match her pink princess dress, pink shoes and pink Halloween bucket. 

Brooke, Tory and Neeley decorated their free pumpkins with stickers and markers. Brooke wrote "I Love You" on her pumpkin and upon sight I exclaimed, "Did you write that by yourself?!" She looked at me like I was nuts. I guess I forget she's eight years old (and not four like Tory). Ha!

More trick-or-treating ...

The kids collected about 20 pieces of candy each and were thrilled. "We got a MILLION HUNDRED pieces of candy!" Tory exclaimed. Glad they all had such a great time.

Afterwards, we went back to my parents for Shepard's Pie and apple salad. So happy to be home celebrating Halloween with my family this weekend.

For the Love of Cousins

One of the best parts of our time in Nebraska the last two weeks was spending time with my nieces Brooke and Neeley. Growing up, my cousins were as close as siblings and we remain close to one another this day. I'd love nothing more for Tory and Aden to develop the same kind of love for their cousins.

After my Pennsylvania and Texas relatives left town last week, Tory, Aden and I spent the remainder of our days in Nebraska with my parents, my sister Ashley and her family. It was back to work as usual for the adults, so I offered to babysit my nieces Brooke and Neeley in the mornings while my sister worked. I felt a bit limited what I could do with four kids (ages 7, 3, 2, and 1) because I couldn't fit enough car seats into my car to drive anywhere, but we managed to fill our time with walkable trips to the park and playtime at my parent's house. Let me say this; walking four little kids (namely, a toddler and preschooler with short, little legs) to the closest playground was a bit like herding cats down the sidewalk. We ate lots of snacks along the way and played many games of "I Spy" to keep the group moving along.

The playground we visited each morning was actually my childhood elementary school and not surprisingly, hadn't changed in the 30 years since I was enrolled there. It seemed like yesterday I was cruising around those slides and monkey bars, which felt nostalgically impossible now as a grown adult. Super surreal seeing my own kids and nieces climbing around the same spots now.  

In the afternoons, the kids and I headed to my sister's house to play there after she got off of work. We'd put Aden and Neeley down for naps and let Tory and Brooke run through the sprinkler while my sister Ashley and I sat in lawn chairs in the drive-way. 

Tory was pretty unsure about running through the sprinkler, not ever wanting water on her face, but Brooke was able to prod her into participating. The hot afternoon sunshine solidified the official start of summertime.  

One day after nap time, Aden and Neeley joined the big kids in the sprinkler. Neeley wasn't so sure about it until we turned the sprinkler down low, but Aden was a huge fan of the sprays of water. He'd walk right into the water and stand there while it pelted him in the face. Wet hair, don't care!

Daily freezie popsicles to beat the heat were mandatory, obvs. 

Sometimes these cousins tend to butt heads after spending too much time together (especially Tory and Neeley, being just a year apart in age) but overall they played so well together during this visit. It's fun to see their relationships with one another grow stronger. I know Tory will be talking about memories made for months to come.