Anyway, over the 4th of July weekend we decided we wanted to get away from home and do something fun, so we packed up the car and took off to Nebraska! Okay, so I don't usually think to mention Nebraska and fun together in the same sentence but we sure had a great time. We drove up on Thursday night after work and stayed in Council Bluffs, IA, which is just across the river from Omaha, NE. It was our first time with four kids (of our own) in one hotel room - the first night did no go so well! But after sleeping for a relatively short amount of time we were all up and ready to go explore the sights.
On Friday we went to the Omaha Zoo. It was amazing! We saw a bear about 20 ft. up in a tree, a fish feeding frenzy, a male gorilla on the other side of a couple inches of plexiglass, some lemurs, giant grasshoppers, hair-shooting spiders, and some cute kids. Here are a few pictures:
Eating lunch with the animals.
Some wild animals on a train.
A particularly ferocious animal in a golf cart.
A pride of lions sitting by some statues.
Oh wait, those are the cute kids (and their especially cute mom).
The next day we went to the visitors center at Winter Quarters. That was actually the motivation for our trip.
Each of the last two summers we have lived in Oklahoma, we have gone to Nauvoo. We decided this summer to see a different part of pioneer history. There is not as much to see at Winter Quarters, but it was fun to have the kids dress up and walk around while Talmage pulled his very own 1 ft. high handcart (sorry, no picture - duh, what were we thinking?). We learned that each family coming over from Europe on the ships only got one bunk to share. I don't know how well we would do for longer than it took to snap this shot:
The older kids also got the chance to try pulling a handcart carrying a 400 lb. load. It moved pretty easily on the carpet, but then the sister missionary that was leading us around the visitors center put two small rocks in front of the wheels and had the kids try to pull the handcart again. Even with mom and dad helping, it was pretty hard. I can't imagine pulling a handcart over far more and far larger rocks for far farther (is it okay to say that?).
Near the end of our visit, we watched a movie about some of the hardships the pioneers went through while they were in Winter Quarters. One part of the movie showed a mother kneeling by her baby and crying, and then it showed a grave marker with the words, "Here lies our dear son, Peter." That was a little hard for Leslie!
After the kids had had enough of the visitors center we drove around downtown Omaha (and accidentally got caught in traffic for the Justin Beiber concert that was going on). We found a fun-looking art gallery with a sculpture garden that we decided to explore:
An entire villa formed out of bushes. How cool!
I'm not sure if you're really supposed to let your kids climb on this, but if there's no one to say "no", what else do you say but "yes"?
On Sunday we drove to Lincoln to go to church with my grandpa's sister. Afterwards they had us over for a very delicious lunch! I learned while we were there that she had been the manager of the Nieman Marcus restaurant in Chicago for a while. Who knew? I thought Nieman Marcus only sold diamond-studded broaches and helicopters and things like that. The food was definitely worth a million dollars or so! (Sorry, again, no pictures, but they wouldn't do it justice anyway.)
That evening we drove all the way home in a torrential rain storm and slept wonderfully in our own beds. What a great trip!
2 comments:
sounds like a lot of fun. you guys are so adventurous
We can't wait until you bring those wild, ferocious animals to our house! We loved reading about your adventures...we're still working on our Alaska post...
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