Meeting Our New Nephew, Benjamin (December 23-24)

This trip was a long time in the making, considering this little man is already three weeks old! The weather hadn't been cooperating since Mr. Benjamin was born back at the end of November (a couple weeks early!), so this was the first time we could make the trip work, everyone was healthy, and we had some time off work at the beginning of our Christmas vacation!

We started out after breakfast and packing on Friday morning, and were so thankful that the roads were great the whole way! The boys certainly were a little weary of traveling after a little while.

We made it to our hotel around 3pm and got checked in and the boys immediately headed down to the pool, with Ryan and I following soon after. We swam for about an hour and a half before heading up to our room to get ready for supper.

We picked up some Famous Dave's on the way over to Sarah and Johannes' house for supper - SOOO yummy!!

After we ate, Mark and I finally got a little snuggle time with sweet little Benjamin!

He could not be more perfect! What a sweet little baby boy! I mean, look at those tiny little perfect lips!

Mama, albeit tired, was in great spirits and was looking wonderful!

We called it an early night (as any parents of 3 little boys probably do) and got the kids back to the hotel and to bed.

The next morning, the big kids were anxious to get down to the pool as quickly as possible, so Mark went down there with them, and I took Ryan shopping for a little while. It was fun to have just him, and he passed out pretty quickly on the way there (rough night?) and slept most of the time we shopped. Man is it ever easy to have just the one kid lol

Afterwards, we met the guys back at the hotel, got our things packed up and ready to go, and then swung by Sarah and Jay's house again as we had forgotten to drop off their Christmas presents the night before (I had left them at the hotel in my rush to get out the door), then stopped for some Runza (which in our minds wasn't quite worth the hype) before making the long trek home for the Christmas Eve service that night.

It was a fast and furious trip for us, but we all had a great time!

A Week Off (August 3-8)

We had planned to take this week off a couple months ago when we found out our daycare provider was going to be taking her week of vacation then as well.

We didn't make any major plans for the week, as we knew we'd be a little ready for a wind down after having had company the week prior, but we knew that we wanted to make it down to visit my family in Iowa at the farm as well as head to Omaha to see Mark's sister and family and hit up the zoo with the boys.

We spent the first half of the week just unwinding and catching up on housework that had been BADLY neglected. We took a few walks, but for the most part, it was just so dang hot and humid that we just laid low, watched probably too much TV, did some puzzles, painted, got some decent naps, and had fun being together.

Monday evening after waking up from super late, super long naps, we took the boys to their first ever movie at a movie theater. The local theater had free movie night at the local theater, and we figured it made more sense to try out their first movie and make it not be one we had to pay for just in case it went poorly. They did marginally well (Cashel moreso than Kendrick), and we made it through about half of the movie: Minions. They loved the popcorn :)

Tuesday was Daddy's last softball game we'd be able to make it to that season, and the boys had fun playing at the park, so we hardly got to see the game, but they had fun!

Wednesday was another park day, catching up at the gym, and then family swim night at the local pool as well, so we went for the first half of that before it started getting a bit too chilly to stay.

As much as we thought the week would be fairly laid back with "nothing going on", we certainly kept busy!

Thursday morning we got our things packed up and took off down to Humboldt to see my Mom, sister and brother and their families for a couple days. We made it down there around 2pm and enjoyed visiting with everyone for the rest of the day and the next day. The kiddos just LOVE spending time with their cousins, and they had no shortage of seeing cousins this particular week!

Friday afternoon, we said our goodbyes at the farm and headed out around 2pm to make our way to Omaha for the weekend. It was a long drive, but the boys took naps, so that helped a bit. We checked into our hotel and got settled in a little bit before heading over to HuHot Mongolian Grill for supper. The boys did AWESOME at all the meals we ate out (well, excepting for the zoo), and we were so pleased to not be sweating bullets during our meals while trying to corral them.

We settled back in at the hotel and wound down with a little Barney for the boys. We had a big day ahead of us at the Henry Doorly Zoo the next day!

Saturday was the big day the boys had been dreaming of for a few months now: The Omaha Zoo day!

I did a full recap here in an effort to not make this particular post so long. In a nutshell, though, it was just kind of okay overall. It was miserably hot and humid, half of the Zoo was under construction, we lost Cashel in the Aquarium for about 20 minutes and then the boys and I got lost from Mark for about 20 more minutes. It was just the wrong temperature for all that excitement haha :) But what we did see was pretty cool!

We all crashed pretty hard after the Zoo and napped for a few hours, then we all showered up and the boys took baths and we headed over to Mark's sister's house for supper. I find that whenever we actually visit anyone elses' home these days, it's really hard to manage getting any pictures, since we're usually so busy keeping the kids occupied and not either beating up their kids or breaking things (oh, spirited boys...), so I have all of one picture of these kiddos, playing in a makeshift "cave"...and the only one you can see is Kendrick haha :)

We enjoyed a delicious lasagna that Mark's sister made (thanks, Sarah!) and had fun playing block towers with the kiddos and letting the little ones knock them over. It was nice to catch up with Sarah and her family, as we hadn't seen them in over a year! It was also so fun to see how much baby J3 had grown up! The last time we had seen him he was only 3 months old! I've said it before and I'll say it again: Somehow between our two families, we lucked out with THE CUTEST nieces and nephews :)

We called it a fairly early night around 8:30pm so we could at least make an attempt at getting to bed before 10pm that night, and were successful! Vacation bedtimes are a rough deal!

Sunday was our last day of vacation and a travel day to boot. We started the morning with breakfast in the lobby once again, then made our way almost immediately to the pool. I had a pretty horrible night of sleep and some stomach discomfort, so I opted to stay out of the pool, but that was almost better, since I was able to capture all these sweet shots of my little dudes in the pool :)

If you couldn't tell, the boys LOVED the pool! Haha :)

After the pool, we gave the boys baths and got dressed and all our things packed back up, loaded up the car, and made our way down the road a bit to Pizza Ranch to enjoy a farewell lunch with Sarah and her family.

It was fun to catch up a little more with Sarah and family, and to see these crazy cousins enjoying each other so much. Granted, I don't think Cashel ever really got the hang of "gentle" hugs haha :) He was just so in love with his little cousin that he couldn't help but want to give him lots of kisses and hugs.

We really had a pretty good week, but man was it ever crazy. I cheered pretty loudly when we finally saw this sign :)

I've decided as I get older and older that my vacations should no longer require a vacation to recover from the vacation. I guess I'm just not as young as I used to be! It took me a few days afterwards to recover from the trip to the Zoo and all that heat and walking. But all in all, so many great memories :) I loved being able to spend the week with my family and being able to be just us :) I'm certainly looking forward to the next vacation, though ;)

Henry Doorly Zoo (August 8)

The boys had been waiting for this day for months, and we were all super excited to get the chance to visit the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska!

We were up somewhat early and went right away to find some breakfast in the lobby before hitting the road. We wanted to get there right away while it was a tinge cooler (ha - that's funny!) to make sure we got to most of the outdoor exhibits.

Truthfully, we were pretty disappointed the first couple hours, as it seemed like EVERYTHING was under construction. There were no elephants or zebras, and they had all the giraffes inside a caged building.

It looked like the plans for the additions were pretty impressive, but we still spent the first hour of our morning walking by construction after construction after construction. We finally got through the majority of it around 10am and found some sweet birds!

We had fair warning from a friend that it was quite a hike back up from the Rhino exhibit, so we hit that next, and got to see one of them who wasn't hiding in the mud to stay cool. And truthfully, I about felt like jumping in to join them! We were starting to get hot and sweaty as the humidity was picking up and the sun was really out by then.

Mark's sister called while we were about halfway around saying they had arrived (they live just a short jaunt down the road), so we made our way up the super steep hill to the entrance to meet up with them in the Wild Kingdom Pavilion to explore a bit. I didn't take many pictures in there, since most everything was in a glass display case.

We decided to check out the Lied Jungle next, which was really cool, but NOT so much fun to get around when you have a double stroller in tow. It was PACKED, and some of those pathways were super narrow.

After the jungle, we stopped for a fairly hurried lunch, which is when the day went downhill for a bit. Cashel was entirely way too excited to stop and actually sit still, so Mark and I scarfed down a burger, and tried to visit for a bit. I ended up taking Cashel over to check out the butterfly and insect house while Mark and Kendrick stayed back and finished lunch. We had been through so many of these types of places before, and I didn't think it was really anything too extraordinary, really. We much preferred the Sertoma Butterfly House in Sioux Falls to this. So once again, no pictures.

We decided to hit up the Aquarium with two squirrley boys and a double stroller...right before the shark feeding at 1:30. It was mad chaos, and near impossible to navigate with the big stroller. Everyone had gathered in this tiny little tube for the feeding, and you couldn't hardly move. I ended up going ahead with the boys and left Mark with the stroller to make his way through the masses. The shark feeding was cool enough, but what wasn't cool is that we ended up losing Cashel for almost 20 minutes. And it was PACKED. Like...you could hardly move it was so packed. We were terrified! We looked everywhere with no luck. Then, when going back through for the 3rd time, I ended up running into him walking right towards me with one of the zoo staffers. I cannot explain the relief that ran through us at that point! We were SOOOOO happy that he was alright and safe. I asked him if he was scared, and of course the little turkey said, "No, Mama, I was just exploring."

So while yes, it is a VERY cool aquarium, I'm not sure we'll go back for fear we'd lose a child for good. ::sigh::

After the Aquarium, everything was a bit of a blur, truthfully. It was so stinkin' hot and humid, and even the buildings with a/c didn't seem to cool us fast enough. We basically just wandered around sweating, and it was past nap times and we were all just exhausted. We made our way to see the gorillas, and it was, once again, a little crowded: Hot, sweaty and crowded. Still, it was really cool, and the boys loved looking at the monkeys.

At this point, things were getting a little better. We were finally starting to cool off a bit and the boys were LOVING the gorillas. Except the gorillas were down these stairs, and the boys were running, and somehow we lost Mark. And Mark had the stroller. And my cellphone. And I had two crazy tired, super cranky toddlers. And no stroller. Or cellphone. And all of a sudden, Kendrick decided that he had NO desire at all to actually walk anymore (go figure), so I ended up getting to carry a 33lb Kendrick while holding onto the hand of 45lb Cashel, who was WAY overly excited to run after the big cat exhibits. And did I mention it was miserably hot and humid? It was crazy. But the cats...the cats were pretty impressive!

I ended up being totally innovative and borrowing a lady's cellphone to call Mark (with high hopes that he might actually answer...which he didn't) and let him know where we were. I left a message, and then we plopped down on this brick wall and just waited for him in the shade for what was probably about 5 minutes, but felt like about 20 minutes. The orangutans were super entertaining while we waited, though, and the boys were really amused. Unfortunately, we couldn't actually see them, although they were really close. But there was the whole "we have to stay put so Mark can find us" thing, so while we were bummed, we weren't really that upset overall about it.

After we found Mark, the boys went in the stroller, and Kendrick promptly fell asleep on the long hike back up the hill to the entrance. We had wanted to see the bears, but we were all so completely exhausted at that point (and drenched with sweat) that we decided we'd have to just pass for the time being. It really was a pretty fun day overall, but with the two instances of being lost combined with the heat and humidity, I think we were all extremely glad to be finished with the Zoo.

It'll certainly be a while before we make it back down here to the Zoo, but we would love to go back once all the construction is completed in a few years, preferably when it's a tinge cooler out and the kiddos are a little older.