I can't believe it's been so long...

Has it reall been 10 days since the last post?? DOes that mean that Omaha is that uneventful...or could it be that we are getting busier here?? Either way - here's what we've been up to lately...

Last weekend, Ellie went to a birthday party for Maia, the little girl that lives behind us. I call Ellie and Maia the "2 best friends that never spend any time together..." They both act as if they are long lost buddies whenever they see each other (which has been like twice, for a grand total of 20 minutes...) Anyways, the party was at "My Gym" -- Ellie loved it -- two hours of organized running around and playing on equipment. Not a lot of party "hoop-la" either -- they paused at one point to eat a cupcake, but otherwise -- it was constant motion. At the end of the day, I don't know if Ellie really had fun at the "party" or just the "gym" - but either way, it was a success! She was so excited to tell us all about it... and then it happened...she crashed... absolutely broke down...sobbing...inconsolable. Frank was being especially patient (I didn't get it at all -- what the hell? She just got back from a party...what is she so upset about??). Frank explained that she inherited this genetic malfunction from him...in fact, when he was a kid, he also came home from almost every birthday party and completely melted down... Are you serious?" This is going to happen after every party?? Aw, geez... It was bizarre, but at least Frank knows where she's coming from!

Ellie is still loving preschool. We are doing some "friend work" there...yes, Ellie is by far our best social connection to Omaha, so far! There is a little girl in her class (also 4 years old) who has a little brother (also 2 1/2 years old) and they also have one more on the way (due one month after me) -- perfect, right? So, a couple of weeks ago, Ellie came home with a note explaining that someone in her class had a mom who was put on bed rest due to pregnancy complications (guess who?) and she needed help carpooling to and from school -- I was all over it -- ME! ME! Pick me! (Totally not my usual self... sad, right? I wouldn't normally be the first to volunteer to help out a stranger...it's a character flaw, I'm working on it!) Long story short, we've been acting as "chauffeur" for the last week -- Ellie gets a big kick out of it -- this girl is extremely shy and quiet and so it's pretty much the "ellie and nathan show" the whole way to and from school, but whatever... We'll have to call them and see if we're still "on duty" after we get back from chicago after thanksgiving... or if we've been replaced by other friends... :)

Well, I'm going to keep packing! Looking forward to our big trip to the "big city!"
More when we get home -

A few things we've discovered...

I haven't posted in a while and it's probably because we haven't been up to much...tourist-wise, anyways. We have ventured out a couple of times and discovered a few small things about Omaha...

1.) Sizzler! We finally made it out to Sizzler. Even though I was completely excited to try it again, I must say - it was better than I thought it would be. The salad bar was good, as long as you pretty much stuck to the salad -- they had a lot of other stuff (wings, taco bar,...) that didnt' look too good. Frank actually ordered a steak with his salad bar (for the price of only $2.00 extra) - he sadi it wasn't bad! And the kids were happy to see "cheese pizza" on the kids menu. A curiosity satisfied. I don't think we'll be rushing back every weekend or anything, but it was worth the trip.

2.) Pudgy's Pizzeria! We found it. We found a good pizza. Apparently this guy moved to Omaha in the early 70s from chicago and decided that this town needed a good pizza (so this pizza issue has been a long standing problem here!) Frank and Ellie stopped to pick up a pizza from Pudgy's on their way home from their "date" on Saturday (the went to see Madagascar 2). It was raining and freezing outside, and by the time the pizza got to our table, it was relatively cold-ish...and it was STILL the best pizza we've had to date here. Frank said it was a very "auggie's" atmosphere -- Pudgy himself was at the front counter, not really working, but he knew everyone that came in -- there were tons of people racing around behind the counter -- the most organized chaos that ever was! I can't wait to try it maybe at the restaurant... when it's hot and fresh out of the oven... nonetheless, I think we're on to something here!

3.) Conditioner. this one has nothing to do with omaha, but what the heck took me so long to get some conditioner in ellie's hair? Brushing her hair after a bath was like torture for everyone involved. Quick fix - conditioner - DUH! Smooth sailing every since, and we've shaved a good 5 minutes off the whole bath time routine...priceless!

Those are the discoveries of recent weeks... we're starting to run out of touristy things to do here, so we are turning our focus to restaurants - next up: Fazoli's -- haven't eaten at one of those since our Purdue days. It was "nice" fast food dinner back then - I wonder what we'll think of it now -- that's on the schedule for next weekend - full report to follow.

Have a great week - stay warm!

Halloween 2008

Our first Halloween in Omaha was festivity-full :) Here's how the week went down...

Wednesday, October 29th: Ellie's Halloween program / party at preschool:

After missing a few days while we were in Hawaii, Ellie's first day back to preschool was the Halloween party (good thing, too -- she was SO excited -- I think it helped tear her away from that swimming pool in Maui)! So, as we were all a little jetlagged from our trip, I had to wake Ellie up around 8:00 that morning so that we could get in costume and get to school on time. She was thrilled to put on that Ariel get-up (even the wig) and was even more excited that Frank and I would be coming for the program. Again, I gotta say, that's one good thing about Omaha - Frank works close enough to skip out for an hour to watch Ellie and her class sing their 6 halloween songs and make a mysterious "witch's brew" -- it was cute, and she was so happy to have us there watching her "hang out" with her friends. Very fun!

Thursday, October 30th: Carving pumpkins

We went to target and bought (probably) four of the last carvable pumpkins in Omaha (and a little one "for the baby," ellie insisted...). Usually, pumpkin carving starts off with a bang, but before the first one is completely gutted, the kids are off doing something else, and Frank and I are left to do all the "fun" by ourselves... This year, they both showed much more stamina! Ellie loved scooping the guts out of the pumpkins and was heavily involved in the "design" phase of the pumpkins -- instructing Frank on how exactly she wanted each face to look. It was fun - but I might advocate pumpkins only for the kids in future years, especially with three kids -- I mean, carving 5 pumpkins is a little excessive!

Friday, October 31st: the BIG day... Halloween!

Not a big hyped up day - the preschool party was done, we had a lazy afternoon...just waiting around to trick-or-treat, basically. We had heard that the hours here were 6 pm - 9 pm. OK, weird for us (I think in Elk Grove, we had many trick-or-treaters by 4:00, but whatever...) We ate dinner, waited around, and around 6:00, the kids were in their costumes and we were out on the driveway doing the "photo shoot." Still no action on the street...pretty quiet... At about 6:15, we couldn't hold them back any longer, so we headed out. Last year at this time, Nathan was not a great walker yet (can you believe it??), so this year was much better in terms of mobility! We headed down one side of our street and back up the other side -- about 20 houses in all --just about perfect - nathan was pretty tired - Ellie and Frank did a few more houses, but even they were home by about 7:30. So, halloween traditions are a little different around here. We were the only family out by ourselves. Apparently the tradition here is that the women all gather at one house and have some kind of cocktail party and answer the door for the trick-or-treaters. Meanwhile, the dads take the kids out, while pulling a wagon of beer (no kidding) and loosely supervise big herds of their own children begging for candy... it was strange. Big groups of men, drinking, and big groups of kids running from house to house... and there were TONS of kids... I had bought 3 big bags of candy (about 220 pieces all together) - we started handing out 2 to each kid, but by about 7:45, we had to cut back to one per customer... Frank couldn't do it. He didn't think it was right to give a kid one little mini package of starburst. I couldn't let him near the candy bowl -- I had to answer every bell. No sham in my game. I also took all the "lame" candy out of Nathan's bag and handed it out, too (goobers,... I mean, the kid can't eat peanuts yet anyways...) We shut it down at exactly 9:00 pm with no extra candy -- had we left out lights on any longer, we would have had to resort to handing out pennies or fruit snacks (just got a new big box from costco)... but we don't want to be THOSE people... not when there were three "full size candy bar" houses on our street alone... we don't want to get a bad reputation our first year here!

All in all, it was a fun week, albeit a little lonely on Friday. We usually host a little trick-or-treating party for the grandparents at our house on Halloween. We still bought pumkin napkins and we still made chili (and of course, it was nearly 70 degrees!), and the kids were asking if anyone was coming over. (I think it's a good thing that they still don't really get it that we live so far away from everyone!) Hopefully, we got enough good pictures to capture every moment!