Sunday, August 24, 2008

This weekend's tourist adventures

Well, we had another weekend of touring our new town. Saturday morning we headed to the Durham Museum -- it's a pretty cool building -- used to be Omaha's Union Station. The architecture is very impressive - weird to think that they would have thought to build something so vast so long ago. But, I guess Omaha was quite the railroad town back in the day... Actually, a lot of the museum's exhibits were related to railroad history - there were model trains, actual "antique" train cars that you could walk through (sleeper cars and all - the kids got a big kick out of that), a lot of general history of omaha. We were a little worried that there wouldn't be enough "kid stuff" to keep Ellie and Nathan interested, but there really was just enough. It's not the over-stimulation of a children's museum, but it wasn't crowded at all either, which was just what we were looking for that day... Ellie's favorite part was the recreation of the 1931 soda fountain and candy shoppe that was in the Union Station -- fully operational. They had all of the "olden day" candies and fountain menu items. A perfect souvenier on our way out -- and of course, a little candy makes any trip anwhere worthwhile to a 4 year old and a 2 year old...

Saturday evening we decided to go out for pizza (and I am beginning to think that it's true -- chicago pizza really IS better than most -- it is surprisingly hard to find a good pizza here. Your best bet is chain restaurant pizza - Pizza Hut, Little Ceasar's (yes, we have those still here) -- the biggest difference I think is twofold: the crust is real fluffy and bready and the sauce is skimpy and on the sweet side - maybe we'll get used to it...) Anyhoo, add it to the list of things that I need to eat when we go back home... OK, so after a stop at Sam-n-Louie's Pizza, we headed over to "Millard Days" -- your typical carnival that comes to any town every year. We didn't tell the kids where we were going -- we call them "secret adventures." They know that's a code word for "something that we don't usually do, but it's probably going to be fun for us..." So, as any cheesey carnival, you can see it from a mile away. As we're driving past, Ellie literally loses her breath -- "is THAT it?" Is that where we're going?? A REAL carnival! Oh my gosh - you're the best mommy and daddy in the world! I bet they have cotton candy..." Whoa - breathe! And, it was everything they had hoped for - cotton candy, a few carnival games (always pick the one that's a "winner every time" for the kids...) and a couple of kiddie rides... those carnivals are always just a little creepy to me and they draw a funky crowd (ourselves included) but overall, the evening was a success for the kids.

Otherwise, Frank has spent almost literally the entire weekend painting the trim and doors that he put up last weekend. Turned out to be a bigger job than we thought (of course). It looks really good, though and I think it will make a huge difference in the look of the second floor - opens it up a little - doesn't look so dark and small up there anymore.

We just got home from our Sunday night swim at the club -- we have started going after an early dinner. It's a lot less crowded if you go after 6:00, but it's definitely not as hot - the sun goes behind the clubhouse building around 6:30 and it get kind of chilly. Not that the kids notice - they are just splashing around, teeth chattering and blue lips -- it's been a fun outing to have here. The club is only open for another week or so for the summer season, so we'll have to try to get back at least one more time...

Not much on the schedule for this week - I'll keep you posted if anything exciting happens!

Monday, August 18, 2008

We got out!

Well, 2 months in town, but we finally got out of the house without the kids. Sure, it was for a work function for Frank, but it still counts! Frank's plant has 2 outings per year -- the christmas dinner (a little more upscale - a lot of the warehouse guys don't come) -- mostly caters to the "office" staff and then a summer something (this year was bowling and pizza - none of the office guys came, but all the warehouse guys were there!). So, on Saturday night, we went to "western bowl" (yes, country music was blaring!) and ate pizza and drank beer. Wouldn't have really been my first choice of a "night on the town" but it was a night on the town nonetheless. We met one of our neighbors who lives about 3 doors down from us and she mentioned that she had a daughter that babysat if we ever needed her... of course, we jumped on that and she came over to spend the evening with the kids.

Of course, our kids have never been left with a non-family member babysitter (should we even admit that?? ) Ellie was more than interested in this idea and she had lots of questions (shocker!) -- Would Rachael be bringing her kids? Uh, she's 13. Will Rachael be driving her car here? Uh, again, she's 13 and she lives 5 feet from us... Where will Rachael sleep? Uh, we'll be home by 10 -- she's not sleeping over... All in all it was a good experience for everyone. Except that we had no idea how much to pay a babysitter in Omaha. I think in chicago, we would have paid around $10/hour. I think minimum wage is somewhere around $7 / hour. So, I just aksed her what the going rate was (and of course, she didn't really want to answer this awkward question...) so, she himmed and hawed and finally was like, "I don't know, maybe like $5" $5??
that sounded so low to me - Frank and I went back and forth... I mean you don't want to over pay, but I would think that under-paying would be much worse. And afterall, this girl could be our ticket out of the house once in a while... Long story short, we went with $7 -- then we were up all night (ok, not really, but we did talk about it...) worrying that we had underapid her...
She called the next day and said, "um, Mrs. Williams..." [I told her not to call me that...makes me sound so old!] "My mom and I were talking and we think that you overpaid me..." CUTE! I assured her that she could keep the extra $8 and that we intended to pay her that much. Then, she says, "Ok, but next time you can pay me less." Ok, but we probably won't ... :)

It was a good change for us in our weekend plans - getting out of the house and all.
And on the home improvement front, Frank replaced all of the doors on our second floor. We just put in hollow-core 6 panel doors - not the highest quality, but certainly a big step up from what was here when we moved in and it LOOKS tons better - much brighter. (The old doors were very 70s wood-looking things...ick!) Now, it was a huge job for Frank, but I think even he agrees that it was worth it... Now, we just have to paint them all (there are 10 doors all together up there) and paint all of the trim on the second floor and we'll be on our way. I don't know how people flip houses -- even realtively small projects can be so time consuming and distracting!

Glenbard West is back to school this week, and I am not...weird... not all bad weird, but weird...
More later -

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

She finally broke us!

Starting early in 2008--
Ellie: Can we get a dog?
Us: No.
Ellie: Can we get a cat?
Us: No.
Ellie: A bunny?
Us: No
Ellie: A bird?
Us: No
...and this continues for several more animal choices...
Ellie: A fish?
Us: OK, a fish...but not unitl after we move to Omaha.
Ellie: Great!

Months pass - everyone is busy, no mention of the fish.

Two minutes after pulling into town... Ellie says, "so when are we going to get my pet, you know, the fish that we're going to get after we move here?" Geez, memory like a steel trap! Well, we did say that we'd get the fish - so we put her off for a variety of reasons for a few weeks, but we couldn't stand the guilt any longer - after all, we said we'd get the fish, so we did. Actually, we got two goldfish type things (they're not really goldfish, I don't think, but they are small enough to swim around in the fairly small tank that we got to sit on her dresser.

She is thrilled with her new "pets" -- remembers to feed them and is always looking for them and checking on them... it's cute. In fact, when Frank said it was time to go get the fish, there was much hollering and shrieking and (just like in the scene from Toy Story when Buzz Lightyear was the new and exciting toy for Andy) just left sheepy on the kitchen floor like a tossed aside "woody" doll. And for those of you who know how tight she is with sheepy, it was a major event -- Frank said she didn't even notice that he wasn't with her the whole time they were gone.

In other news, Nathan seems to be potty training himself -- I swear if we spent just one solid weekend with this kid on the potty, he would be "done." I'm starting to think that we harrassed Ellie about it way too much - always bugging her to go when she probably didnt' have to go (or want to go) Twice in the last couple of days, he has requested to go...then he requests "privacy," so we leave and close the door, and then he DOES go! Amazing... We'll put it on the short list of "to-do's" -- hopefully, it won't take long once we start...

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Saturday, August 9, 2008

You win some, you lose some...

Well, as we continue to be tourists in our new town...we have embarked on two more touristy adventures this weekend. One was good, one, uh, not so much...

Friday night was Nebraska's "Balloon and Wine festival" - not too far from here (about 10 minutes from our house) so we decided to go check it out. I thought that it would be cool to see a sky full of hot air balloons and I knew the kids would get a kick out of it, too. (There was also a wine tasting part, but we really thought that the balloons would be a big enough draw for us...) It was advertised that "all balloons would launch by 7:30 and at 9:30 there would be a "balloon glow" - after dark, all of the ballons would turn on their fire at the same time and they would "glow" in the sky - sounded cool... We got to the grounds around 6:45 and there was a huge line of people watining to get in... as we made it to the front of the line, it was a little after 7 and we had seen a couple of ballons launch from just behind the building near the ticket stand. It was very cool to see them. We dutifully paid our $10 (for the whole family - cute, huh?) to get in and then we waited around. There were a few "kid" things for ellie and nathan - pony rides, big inflatable slides, live nusic (nathan LOVED that, of course). Most people were gathering on this hill to watch the launch (we thought). We waited and waited around for a while - at around 8:15 we overheard one of the festival workers tell someone that the 7:00 launch was "done...there were 4 total" and the next event was at 9:30 pm. As Ellie so eloquently stated - "this is the weirdest festival...4 balloons...come on...that's not a launch, right?" We had to agree - we elected NOt to wait around for over an hour to see 4 balloons "glow" at 9:30...so we headed home. They can't all be winners, and I don't think I would recommend the balloon and wine "festival" to a friend... :)

This morning, we headed out to the Wildlife Safari - where you drive your car through "natural habitats" and see wildlife indiginous to Nebraska, I guess. It was a lot of bison, elk, deer, cranes, etc. Not the most exciting animals, but sort of cool to see them so up close. there was even one part where you could get out of your car and walk a 1 mile trail to see wolves, bears, owls and lots of other animals. It was not a hot day here and it was very woodsy and forest preserve-y there. Some of the animals were hard to spot, but it was nice to walk and "hike" in some parts -- Frank led us up one trail that was kind of tough (especially for me and ellie in our flip-flops), but we were all troopers... come to find out on the way down that we were on the part of the trail labeled "most difficult" - man, we are like williams vs. wild! It was fun - I don't know if we'll be rushing back every weekend or anything, but it was different and pretty and definitely worth seeing.

Tourist attractions still on the "to-do" list -- the Durham Museum, the train (for nathan) at the zoo, and of course, a restaurant we have in chicago...Famous Dave's...(dream big!)
We'll keep you posted.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Nebraska License Plates

Don't tell the Nebraska authorities -- we were a couple of weeks late -- but we finally did it -- got the Nebraska plates on the Pilot. Ouch. What does it cost to get plates in Illinois? $75? So much for lower cost of living here -- the bottom line -- $475! No, that's not a typo - it's ridiculous, but it's done. Well, Frank spent half his day going back and forth to the DMV three times for various things that needed to be "fixed" or different. Now, we just need to get our Nebraska licenses and we'll be officially NE drivers... ugh...

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Sweet Home, Chicago!

Haven't "posted" since we went home last weekend -- very fun! (And it felt so good to be on familiar soil... traffic jams and all!) We left here at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and headed straight for Gina and Kip's (and Oliver's) :) It probably wasn't the best idea to get into the city at 3:30 pm on a Friday afternoon of a Cubs game, but we survived. After a quick visit and some photo-ops with the new baby (very cute...they'll probably keep him...) :), we headed out to Cary to see Frank's parents and his uncle who was also in town. It was so nice to be there surrounded by people and laughing and eating and just doing what we used to do. We spent the night in Cary, had a leisurely morning at a neighborhood park (beautiful weather!), and left there shortly after lunch.

From cary, we headed to the Hilts for a (belated) birthday celebration for Kathryn and Lindsey - Ellie and Nathan seemed more than pleased to be in another familiar setting (with familiar toys!) We were there until way past their bedtimes, so I think a good time was had by all! (After 6 or 7 hours of party fun, nobody even put up too much of a fuss when it was time to go...) On Sunday morning, we went to the Arboretum - they have a nice children's garden, and again, we left shortly after lunch time. It was a whirlwind weekend, but very fun! And we made great time on the way back to omaha - 7 hours with a stop for dinner - and they both slept for 2 hours along the way - can't complain! We might even drive it again sometime!

We have been spoiled by all of out visitors here and our visit home -- maybe Omaha isn't so bad afterall!