The Omaha Journey

1st day of school

2009-08-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

I know it's been forever since I've posted anything, but what can I say?? Ellie's first day of Kindergarten seems like a worthy mention :)

Ellie has been so excited to start Kindergarten -- like ever since preschool ended in May. I guess I can't blame her -- she must be bored hanging out with me and Nathan and Lucie all the time. She is a thinker, though... lots of things goin' on in that little head of hers! What will her teacher be like? Will it be very hard? (She had a real issue thinking that school was going to be ALL work and NO fun...) What would she eat for lunch? Who would she eat with? Even with all of her thinking / worrying, she couldn't wait to get out the door on the first day.

Frank went to work late that morning so that he could be around for "the moment" where his little girl entered the big bad school and did her very own thing for the very first time. She appreciated it very much -- after all, it must be a big deal if DADDY is around for it, when he would normally be at work... We all made the walk (it's like 2 blocks from our house) -- us and the rest of the neighborhood -- seriously - felt like we were part of a parade... Got to school and managed to spot Ellie's teacher in the midst of the "first day drop-off chaos" -- she (although she looked a little unsure at the last moment) could almost not be bothered with "good-byes" -- it's like she didn't want to miss anything that was going to happen -- not even to say good-bye. She did great. Mom and dad did OK, too :) We knew she was going to have a great day and a great year - so exciting for her!!

She came home with LOTS of stories -- an almost verbatim account of the whole day, it seemed. She's like that - very shy, kind of quiet, but totally studying everything and committing it to memory. We heard all about the school song (seriously, an elementary school song!), the "beautiful" teacher, the kids at her table, the lunchroom routine, the music room, the gym,. . . she was pooped - cashed out after school for about an hour. But day 2, she was up early and ready to go back for more! She was sad to see Friday come this morning -- "Man, two days this weekend with NO Kindergarten?? What am I going to do??" Ahh, the mindset of a five year old -- where Monday is exciting and Fridays are a big disappointment... can't even recall what that's like!

4th of July in Omaha

2009-07-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Well, the fourth of July weekend reminds us a lot of last year when we were brand new to ol' Omaha. The difference is last year, we had the Hilts in town - and we played tourists all weekend. This year, it was just us, and we painted the basement :)

Actaully, it was a perfect blend of productivity and play. We kicked off the weekend with "family night" at the pool on Thursday night. The kids love it and it was the perfect night - HOT and sunny. They play tunes and of course, Nathan really loves that. Friday, Frank and Ellie went to see Ice Age 3... Nathan opted to stay home again. The kid is afraid of the movie theater for some reason -- "too much dark" is the reason he's giving lately, but who knows. Don't know how much to force the issue -- I'd think he'd go just for the lemonade and popcron, but no...

Saturday - "the" day... the weather was fairly crummy - cool and drizzly rainy! Frank and Ellie went to the neighborhood bike parade, but they were home within a half hour. (nathan, again, elected to stay home -- could a three year old turn into a raging agoraphobic, and would they blame his parents??) We went out to dinner on Saturday night - apparently, if you want to go to dinner and fight absolutely NO crowds, 5 pm on the 4th of july is the time to go! It was fun, but we were home early and faced the task of keeping everyone awake until dark for fireworks. We enlisted the help of videos... Cars, anyone? We remembered the fanfare of neighborhood fireworks from last year, so we didn't plan to attend an official fireworks show (especially since it was still cold and wet outside.) 10:00 pm - finally dark, and the kids really enjoyed seeing the sky light up -- best view was from Lucie's room, but the kids liked the excuse to run around the house to check out all the views... driveway, deck, Lucie's room, Nathan's room... it was fun, and no - staying up late did not make anyone sleep in later on Sunday morning... :)

Sunday, we spent a fair amount of the day putting the basement back together - we painted off and on all weekend (naps, night time, anytime we could catch a break from those kids!). But, ti took a better part of Sunday to strip all the tape, put the railings back on, switchplate covers, etc. -- such a great feeling to have another room freshly and cleanly painted!

Dykstras visit Omaha

2009-06-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

My parents came out for another visit -- I won't fool myself into thinking they wanted to see me... it was a "grandkid fix" I'm pretty sure! :) They were here for just a few days, and the weather was iffy at best, but it was great for us to have them here. Despite trying to get our whole crew moving in one direction and Lucie's "schedule" -- it's a wonder we did anything at all. We managed to go to the park...twice. We met Frank for lunch one day. My dad offered to watch the kids on two different occasions while my mom and I went out... once to the Quilted Moose (I'm not the authority on fabric stores, but my mom says it's a good one - i'll trust her opinion.) and once to Village Pointe, your typical outdoor shopping mall. Fun. It's been a long time since I've just "browsed" for a couple of hours. And the kids were all too excited to have poppa all to themselves -- he is a very good sport about playing hide and seek, "school bus" and "horsie" and a whole bunch of imaginitive games of make-believe. Frank and I even got out one night to go to dinner, which hasn't happened since Lucie's been born, for sure! I always

think that people must be so bored here when we don't have any major sightseeing plans -- just hanging out with our crazy non-scheduled selves. We appreciate the visitors. As soon as they left, I instantly noticed that all three kids needed and wanted MY attention -- when Grandma and Poppa are here - they want them to read stories, they want to play with them... when they're not here - I guess I'm the best thing going :)

Lucie is 2 months old!

2009-05-30T15:36:00.001-07:00

2 months already?? Lucie is a keeper -- we weren't sure, but she started smiling and sleeping through the night just in the nick of time! :)

Memorial Day Weekend 2009

2009-05-30T13:58:00.001-07:00

Another quick trip home...but any trip home is a good trip home! Frank was headed that way anyways for the annual trip to the Indy 500, so the rest of us decided to hitch a ride as far as chicago! We left Friday morning around 7 am -- had to make 2 stops as opposed to our usual 1...thanks, lucie! Add in Friday of Memorial Day weekend chicago traffic and the whole trip was about 9 hours (compared to the usual 7 1/2). Overall, Lucie did well on hir first (of many) roadtrips to chicago. We stayed with Frank's parents on Friday night - got to see Emma and Gina (and Oliver, of course). That's the second picture above...the cousins on the Williams side. Fun times.

Saturday morning, Frank and "the guys" left for Indy...they've got this trip down - the whole guys' weekend seems fairly routine for them at this point... but, that's what keeps 'em coming back! The kids and I and Frank's mom went to Emma's for lunch, which was excellent...and something about her place makes Ellie and Nathan run frantically in circles - also excellent. After lunch, the kids and I headed down to Glen Ellyn to see my family. The Hilts came over for dinner on Saturday, lunch on Sunday and we went to their house for dinner on Sunday -- lots of good cousin time (and the kids are all old enough to really "disappear" and play well together -- it's awesome!)

Ellie was very excited to show Lucie around nana's house and grandma's house...cute. It was the perfect way to kick off summer -- and I hope everyone in chicago had as much fun as we did... we'll be back in July for a longer stint (if they'll have us!).

Once Frank returned from the race (sweaty and tired, as usual), we pretty much took off for OMaha first thing Monday morning. the return trip was only one stop again (go, lucie!), and only about 8 hours (including a stop at McDonald's for lunch that included 2 trips to the bathroom for ellie, nathan spilling his milk to the tune of needing an entire new outfit, and lucie having one of the worst poop "blowouts" in williams kid hisotry...also requiring a full outfit change.) SOmehow, with all of that, and a stop for gas -- and I think we actually ate lunch, too -- it was a 45 minute stop. Not too shabby. In the middle of all this chaos, without fail, an elderly couple stops and comments on how "cute" the kids are (the poopy one or the milky one?) and how it reminds them of their family years ago and how...(they always say this)... we should enjoy every minute. (again, the poop or the milk?) :)

Frank brought back souvenirs for the kids... a onesie for Lucie, and a couple of matchbox-like cars for ellie and nathan. I think he stresses out a bit about ellie's souvenir - not the easiest place to shop for a girly-girl. No princess stuff at the brickyard! She was happy with the replica of Danica Patirck's racecar. She was all, "oh, a racecar...COOL! IT's a GIRL driver!?!?"

It was a fun weekend - we'll be back soon. :)

Mother's Day 2009

2009-05-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

Here are Ellie and Nathan (Lucie was sleeping - slacker!) were up early and very excited about Mother's Day... what great kids! :) My only request for the day was Grands... yep, cinnamon rolls in a can... yummmm.... my favorite! The kids had never had them, so they were looking forward to trying this new breakfast treat. Ellie got the idea (from Caillou, I think) to do "breakfast in bed" (one of the more overrated concepts around, but..) and she was all jacked up about it. So, around 7:30 (I know! Sleeping in!), up came the troops (Lucie still sleeping at this point...) with the Grands. Delish! And, the kids wanted to eat "in bed" with me - yikes! Frank brought up the card table instead, so they could eat with plated flat on a table and chairs at a table -- always thinking! But, a lot of work for cinnamon rolls in a can :) It was fun.

After breakfast, we headed to the zoo -- it was a gorgeous day, and plenty of other moms were celebrating their day at the zoo, too. The new "skyfari" was open, and Frank and Ellie took the ride. Basically, a chair lift that "flies" about 30 or 40 feet off the ground, and goes over several exhibits, like the giraffes, rhinos, elephants. I would have been too scared - so would Nathan - and Lucie can't quite jump on or off a moving chair lift, so the three of us headed to the monkey house instead. The skyfari got great reviews from Ellie (and pretty good reviews from Frank). Some day, I'll try it, too.

On the way home from the zoo, we drove through Arby's (it was a real "mom's choice of un-nutritious foods kind of day!). We spent the rest of the day kind of hanging out and enjoying the day. It was weird to not be home to see OUR moms, but it was a nice kind of quiet day here, too. And it was a day that was relatively bicker-free between ellie and nathan, so perhaps that was the greatest gift I could have asked for. :)

Have a great weekend!

Lucie's first month

2009-04-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

I realize that I haven't posted in a while... I guess we've had a few things changing around here.
Here are the highlights of the last month:

Easter: Frank's parents and his sister Emma came out to Omaha for Easter (and to meet Lucie, of course). It was very fun! 2 weeks after Lucie was born, and I was feeling much better. We did the neighborhood Easter egg hunt and did a brunch on Sunday. We even squeezed in a trip to the zoo and yet, it seemed like we had plenty of time to just "hang out," too. It was great to have visitors again - what a fun weekend!

Back to the Routine: Not much of an event, but April 15th, I got back to our routine here officially. Ventured outside of the house with ALL three kids (OK, it was just to preschool, the dry-cleaners and target, but still!). It was fine - Lucie screamed (that infant "i'm starving" blood curdling cry) the entire trip through Target. Why do strangers feel the need to stop you and say dumb stuff like, "somebody doesn't sound happy." Really, captain obvious?? Oh well, it was good to get out and not as bad as I would have thought to keep track of all three at once. :)

"The week of the young child": Yes, a whole week devoted to the "young child" -- it was tons of fun for Ellie, that's for sure! A preschool field trip to go see Disney's "Nature Earth" on earth day, a preschool picnic for the whole family on Friday. And the biggest thrill for her that week (nothing to do with the "young child") -- Kindergarten Round-up. She couldn't be more excited to be in Kindergarten (and I really couldn't be more excited either!) :) Full-day Kindergarten in Nebraska -- Omaha does a FEW things right! She had a blast - met all the K teachers, saw the classrooms - she loved it. (phew!)

Lucie: has it been a month already?? She's a keeper, of course. She is starting to really try to look at us and she is starting to have longer "awake" periods during the days (which has eased up the night time wakings a little bit). She's pretty consistently doing a good 4-6 hour stretch every night - who can complain about that? We think she is trying hard to smile at us, too... but not quite yet! Ellie continues to be very "into" her and Nathan is definitely coming around - asks to hold her and give her bottles and even offers to "check on Wucie" -- it's cute -- they'll all be buddies someday (I have to remind myself of that as Ellie and Nathan are in a serious sibling - bickering stage right now - ugh!)

More soon - I'll try not to go weeks between posts anymore! :)

Lucie's Arrival

2009-04-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

After 9 months of worrying about the fact that we really had no plan for the arrival of this baby (and yes, just worrying about it... not actually MAKING a plan...), everything worked out just perfectly! My parents arrived in OMaha on Saturday (3/28) and Frank and I went out for a last "date night" - very fun. Dinner and a movie is never as exciting as when you know that it probably won't happen again for a while! :) On Sunday, Frank and my dad played golf - beautiful weather for the end of March. And Sunday night, we all turned in early to try to be ready for the "big day."

Frank and I spent some time on Sunday night ironing out the names for the baby (oh yeah, still didn't have "sure" names as of 10 pm on Sunday night...thrid kid!). The alarm went off at 4:30 am and I did my best to get showered and ready as if I never would get a chance to shower again! Off to the hospital - checked in at 5:30 am - did all the paperwork (how binding ARE all of those waivers??), did the IV thing (they shouldn't let nursing students "practice" on nervous pregnant ladies!), the monitor thing, and before we knew it, it was time to head to the O.R. ...

Everything went well (well, after the spinal finally took - I was really worried for a minute there that they were going to start cutting before I was numb... I was practicing my story for when I would be interviewed on 60 minutes or something... I had lots of time to think - took almost 40 minutes for me to be numb enough to slice me open... Oh well -- all's well that ends well. :)

There was the big moment "It's a girl!" (totally knew it the whole time!) -- when I saw Lucie for the first time, it was total deja vu from when ellie was born -- clones! Then all the chatter starts (between Frank and the staff, mostly) -- "oh, she's so cute" "what's her name?" "she's really big" Everybody's yucking it up as I get put back together - good times.

The kids (ellie and nathan) were waiting with my parents in the waiting room by this point and Ellie for sure was excited that she got a baby SISTER (Nathan took a while to warm up, but he's coming around slowly but surely!) Today, he even asked, "where's Lucie?" That's a big step for him! :)

It was HUGE to have my parents here - Frank even worked a couple of half days while they were here, everyone could make daily visits to the hospital and the kids could still have their down time at home and naps, etc. It was such a load off our minds - and ellie and nathan were thrilled to have grandma and poppa here with them - what a treat for all of us. (Except maybe grandma and poppa!) :)

Meredith and her family arrived on Thursday (4/2), the day I came home from the hospital. It was great to have more company - the kids were thrilled to have the cousins around to play with and the adults were all very understanding about our lack of "hosting" skills that week :) (Not that the karaoke-on-demand isn't fun enough, but...)

It was sad to say goodbye to everyone when they left - can't wait to make a trip back home soon!

Lucie Anne

2009-04-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks fall into the "lost" category - always seems to happen when a new baby is born...where do the days (and nights) go? Here she is.

Lucie Anne Williams

March 30, 2009 8:09 am

8 pounds, 13 ounces 20.5 inches

Ellie's 5th Birthday Extravaganza!

2009-03-18T10:21:00.001-07:00

Ellie's birthday FINALLY arrived... she thought she would never turn five! My parents came all the way out to Omaha to help her celebrate, which was very fun for all of us. We had a great time - and we hope they did, too (especially since they are making a return trip in less than two weeks to help us out...AGAIN... when this new baby arrives). :)

On Saturday, we went to the zoo. It was a nice day, compared to what we have seen recently - temps in the 50s... not too crowded at the zoo, and we managed to see a lot of the "hot spots" - the aquarium, the butterfly garden, the desert dome - Ellie's choice, of course, for her "birthday" and it was a fun morning. While the kids were napping in the afternoon, my parents and I headed to the Nebraska Furniture Mart - I don't think my dad was too cracked up about it at first, but once he saw it... he was converted, for sure! (I don't think my parents shop at many "cheap furniture" stores at home... he couldn't believe some of the prices) They found a table and chairs for their new condo downtown, for a very reasonable price! :)

Saturday night - Ellie's birthday continues -- we went to Mimi's Cafe for dinner (again, ellie's choice). It's fine - she really gets a kick out of it for some reason - she thinks it's "fancy" because the forks only have three prongs - I guess, when you're five, that's worth something, but...
We came home, did the presents and cake and ice cream thing. (Always a little much to be eating a big dessert right after filling up on a restaurant dinner, but somehow, we all managed to get the cake and ice cream down!) I think Ellie was pleased to have such an "Ellie day" and to have grandma and papa here was even better!

On Sunday morning, before my parents left, we went outto breakfast and then jetted over to the hospital to show them around (well, this was mostly for ellie and nathan...) The hospital is pretty small in comparison to those in CHicago, but we thought the kids might like to catch a glimpse of it before the "big day." We saw all of the highlights - the piano in the lobby that plays itself (nathan was mesmerized!), the waiting room outside the maternity ward (which has a vending machine - too exciting!). Hopefully with a planned c-section, no one will have to be waiting long enough to need snacks, but you never know... soon enough - can't wait!

On Monday, Ellie's actual birthday, she brought shamrock cookies to school for her treat (they have really been hyping up the St. Patty's Day over there...). She came home in a birthday crown - tickled to have been the "birthday girl" at school. For dinner, we went to the Amazing Pizza Machine (a glorified chuck-e-cheese -- again, it was a 5 year old's choice). Not a bad time to go, actually. Monday night - no crowds. Easy to get everyone to be ready to leave - more cake and presents waiting at home. Nathan was starting to get a little suspicious as to why Ellie was getting so many separate birthday celebrations, but he was pretty good about it. After all, he did get to ride the go-karts with daddy (oh, wait, that was more of a treat for daddy!). Nathan had the birthday spirit - as we are pulling out the other half of the cake left over from Saturday, Nathan demanded another party hat before he would eat it -- the kid is all in for birthday fun!

Feeling a little guilty that Ellie didn't get a "friend party," but two celebrations so far, and when the Hilts come in April, we're going to do another "party" with the cousins. She should be alright :)

More soon - hopefully before this baby comes!

Coco Key Adventure

2009-03-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

We finally went... For Christmas, Frank's secretary got us passes to Coco Key - the indoor water park. It's a national chain, but we never went to the one in Chicago. It's one of the big attractions here in Omaha. Ellie was super excited to go - Nathan was interested in "swimming" but I don't think he really knew what he was getting into. We decided to make a mini stay-cation out of it. We picked Frank up after work on Friday and headed to the Holiday Inn (Coco Key is attached to the Holiday Inn) - took us about 5 minutes after getting to our room before we were all suited up and ready to get wet! (Well, most of us...no matter how temperature controlled, I have a hard time getting into "swimming mode" when it's 5 degrees and snowing outside...) But, we did it -- plenty for the little kids to do - lots of little slides, basketball hoops in pools, fountains, spraying things... ahhh, yes... classic water park stuff. We had everyone pretty well tuckered out by 8 or 8:30 and (since it was "vacation") we topped off the evening with ice cream and once we got back up to the room - everyone was asleep within minutes! Excellent.

The water park doesn't open until 10:00 am, so the next morning (when everyone was awake by 6:00), we killed some time wandering around, ate at the hotel breakfast buffet (kids eat free...they've probably changed that policy after Nathan consumed his body weight in Frosted Flakes!), took Flat Stanley around for some photos and even swam at the regular hotel pool (oh yeah, more swimming...not at the water park, but the regular pool opened at 8:00). Even though we had to check out of our room by 11:00, we were allowed to stay and play until 3:00 -- we almost made it - we ended up leaving around 2:00 - which was plenty for all of us. Even Ellie, who would never have admitted it, was exhausted and didn't put up too much of a fight to leave. You know, besides all of the people staring at me (and my ginormous belly), it really wasn't that bad... and the kids DID have a blast (and that's really who it's for, right?). We will probably go back, but not soon - it's more like a "once a year" type of a treat...

Besides that, Frank has been busy busy busy around the house. He painted our room, and our bathroom, the downstairs bathroom. he put up new light fixtures in the dining room, living room and a new fan in our room. This dump is starting to look more like "us." By the time we get it the way we want it... it'll be time to come back! We have this "list" of things we want to accomplish before this baby comes, and slowly but surely, we're (well, Frank mostly) is chipping away at it. Of course, the things we still have to do are things like "think of baby names" and "pack a bag for the hospital"... yeah, important things... but at least we have a new light in the dining room! :)

Hope everyone has a great week -

Happy March!

Valentine's Day Weekend

2009-02-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

Friday, Feb. 13th:
In true Omaha fashion, Ellie's preschool Valentine's Day party was cancelled due to snow. I felt bad for her, mostly becuase (being from Chicago), it had never even occurred to me to check for school closings. I knew it was supposed to snow that day, but as of 8:30 am -- not a single flake had fallen. (Preschool starts at 9:00... I thought we were "safe.") Actually, it's pretty lucky that I turned on the TV before we left -- that's when I noticed all the school closings on the crawl at the bottom of the screen -- oops! So, the second holiday party cancelled due to snow... Ellie handled it alright - I convinced her that they would "do" the party on Monday (I hoped they would, anyways.) We went to the grocery store, where all of Omaha was (apparently) stocking up before the "big storm." Total chaos. By 10:00, we were back home, ELlie and Nathan switched back to their pajamas and we were in for the day -- big pot of chili for dinner - kind of nice, actually.

Saturday, Feb. 14th: Valentine's Day

Not a big holiday for us, really -- usually just a bag of candy hearts and a couple of cards. But, this year, Frank sent flowers on Friday and the card read: "How about dinner tomorrow night?" OK, I'm thinking our usual romantic "order a pizza after the kids are asleep...." Sounded good to me - but NO, he had arranged a babysitter to come over and we...wait for it...went OUT - dinner AND a movie (and we even stopped b the hospital in between to get a quick tour of the maternity floor -- like most other things in OMaha, it was nice -- small, but nice and new-ish). It was a fun night - always takes us about 20 minites to adjust to the fact that we can finish a sentence without being interrupted by one of "them." It was very fun!

Sunday, Feb. 15th: Oliver's baptism

Frank took the trip alone - we wish we could have all been there, but for us all to fly would have been pretty pricey (especially since we waited too long to finalize plans!) and it would have been hard to drive it without Frank taking a vacation day (he's a little protective of using them so early in the year...especially with baby coming up soon.) He said it was a nice day - he took lots of pictures and it looks like the event was a "success." :)

The Hilts Visit Omaha and Nathan Turns Three

2009-02-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

Getting spoiled -- another fun weekend with visitors to Omaha! We love it! This weekend, the Hilts made the journey west. They arrived around 1:30 on Friday afternoon and Ellie and Nathan could barely contain their excitement. The cousins were in the door just long enough to take off their shoes and then the whole foursome disappeared up the stairs together to go play - a beautiful thing! They actually did a great job "playing nice" all weekend - there was a lot of hanging out time (I'm sure they were glad to have driven all that way to just "hang out") :)

Saturday was Nathan's birthday (the big 3!) and we spent the morning at the Children's museum downtown. Very fun. There was a new traveling exhibit opening on Saturday and they had a special "member preview" an hour before the museum opened to the general public. That was nice - to be in there for almost an hour with no crowds. We were able to see everything in the museum and still be out the door by 11:15 or so -- plenty of time to stop for lunch on the way home - and attempt to get everyone down for "quiet time." (Or not so quiet time with all three girls in one room - oh well...) We ended up doing Nathan's presents late afternoon, so we could fit in an early dinner and still have time for cake and ice cream and of course an after dinner "video night" for the kids :) We (the adults) entertained ourselves into the "wii" hours of the night playing just about every wii and wii fit game that we have. I must admit, I was pretty much humiliated in everything except darts and "dancing with the stars", I clearly dominated those! :)

It was a fun weekend -- weird to think that we probably won't have any visitors until "baby-time" (which is 8 weeks from tomorrow, but who's counting??). Lot's to do before then, so hopefully these weeks will go by quickly!

The Roderick's Visit Omaha

2009-01-25T18:30:00.001-08:00

Frank's sister Gina and her husband Kip... and of course, Oliver came out to Omaha this weekend. We had a great time - we hope they did, too! Ellie was beyond excited to have "baby Oliver" here for the weekend and Gina and Kip are very gracious to let her "help" whenever she could. Other than constantly reminding her to stop "jumping around" near his head (she was THAT excited!), she did pretty well as the designated helper. We can only hope that she is that excited / helpful when the new baby lands here for good!

It was a cold weather weekend here this weekend, but we didn't let that stop us. We went to the Children's Museum - the new exhibit is all about "presidents" -- it was a little old for our kids, but there were a few fun things for them. Ellie and Nathan both did the "make a campaign ad of yourself" running for president. There was like a web-cam thing that took their picture and put their face on a grown up body and made a commercial... Ellie wanted to be a man, and the picture of her face on the man's body looked exactly like Frank - it was eerie (and hilarious). We also braved the zoo -- not the best day to be tromping around outside (high of 15 degrees), but we didn't stay long. We hit the big (indoor) exhibits that were near the entrance -- the aquarium, the butterfly garden, the "jungle" house,... When all was said and done, I think we'll have to go back on another cold and snowy day -- we literally had the place to ourselves. The kids had the run of the place - we probably saw as much of the zoo in the one hour today as we usually see in twice that amount of time. Very cool (or cold, I guess...)

It was very fun to have them here -- always sad to see visitors leave :(

It helps to know that we have the Hilts coming next weekend -- full report to follow!

Potty training...mission (more or less) accomplished!

2009-01-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

Well, after a solid week of constant reminders and even more constant rewards, we are far less frightened to be away from "the potty" for any length of time. We ran errands as usual last weekend. Sometimes, we even let him decide if he "has to go" or not...risky, but... This may be the first thing that's been easier to accomplish with Nathan than with Ellie, and I think the reason lies primarily in the fact that we were just plain less spastic and stressed about the whole thing. We were on Ellie's case constantly! With Nathan, we're just sort of like - what's the worst that could happen? Pack some extra clothes and we'll see how it goes. We've still got him in pull-ups at night (necessarily!), so that will be the part of this puzzle that doesn't go as quickly as with Ellie, but every kid is different, right?

Enough about that - we spent yesterday and today celebrating "black history" here :) Ellie came home from preschool yesterday (MLK Jr. day) with a whole host of questions about Martin "Luber" King -- about the only thing she picked up from school was that he was shot and that he wanted boys and girls with white skin and boys and girls with brown skin to go to the same stores. (It's a start...) We spent a lot of time trying to explain the civil rights movement to a four year old. She also knew bits and pieces of the Rosa Parks story, so we got that all cleared up, too. Transition to today (1/20), when "barackO" (as she calls him) was inaugurated. She was mildly interested in the coverage (probably because the TV was on more than usual today!) and "got it" that he was our "first president with brown skin." After watching a montage of previous presidents taking the oath of office, she asked, "why are all presidents mans? Why arent' there any lady presidents?" Atta girl. She also hopes to live in "a white house" someday... Frank said that the only way this could happen was if he was the president -- she chanted all the way through dinner "Frank Williams -- president of the whole world!" When Frank said that that would likely never happen... and maybe mommy should be president -- Ellie started cracking up and decided that no, that would not be likely either, you know, with my "big belly" and everything! We all decided that Ellie would be the most likely candidate from our family to ever become president and then we could all come and live in the white house with her :) (During this whole discussion, Nathan was eating as much pasta as possible without interruption!)

Otherwise, we are gearing up for our weekend with Gina, Kip and Oliver. Ellie has been very interested in pulling out the high chair, bottles, and all the gear -- I can only hope she has half of the enthusiasm for her soon-to-arrive sibling as she does for her cousin! We can't wait to have visitors in Omaha -- we'll post pictures on Sunday! Have a great week!

Potty Training... sigh...

2009-01-13T11:38:00.001-08:00

OK, so "after the holidays" is here at last and we no longer have any excuses to put things off! We are not much for New Year's Resolutions around here, but we did make a list of things that we've been meaning to get done for a long time... at the top of the list was potty training Nathan... quick! Before this baby is born... This is one of my least favortie parenting tasks for sure!

So, we went cold turkey, like we did with Ellie -- no more diapers, no more pull-ups -- we started on Saturday (I just can't imagine doing those first couple of days without Frank around...). And we had all the rewards in place - the jellybeans, the stickers, the "potty presents" from the dollar store. No more fooling around on our parts - On Saturday, it was just as we expected - about 12 "accidents" throughout the day. We could barely keep up with the laundry! SUnday was a little better -- down to maybe 4 or 5 accidents. Still not really convinced that he was "getting it" but less laundry anyways. Monday was better still - only three accidents and all before noon. And Tuesday (today) - we have turned the corner, officially, I think. Now that he gets how to "let it out" and how to "keep it in" (too much information??), he gets a kick out of going potty "standing up like daddy" -- it's a hoot and he cracks up the whole time! He even has so much FUN going potty today, that he has even refused the jellybeans and the potty presents (which is good... there's only one of those left!). So, (knock on wood), NO accidents so far today - much less stressful day (and much less laundry...)

So, we'll see if we can keep the good momentum going - next phase, staying dry overnight... we're on a roll so far, so we'll see how it goes.

Have a great week - stay warm!

Home for the Holidays

2009-01-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

Our first holiday season out of state... hmmm... it was different for sure! We celebrated Christmas on three diferent days instead of one. Here's how it went down:

December 25th -- Just the four of us in Omaha.

The day started out much like any other Christmas (besides the fact that we had to really be sure the kids were asleep before we snuck all the loot out of the attic -- right past their rooms -- and downstairs to the tree. We've never had such a treacherous "santa route" before, but it worked out OK. We ran them around pretty good on the 24th, so they were asleep pretty quickly. Ellie woke up at 6:00 am on the nose (we sort of have a rule... no getting up 'till the "sixes" on weekends / days off...) And like a good little rule follower, she told us she was awake for a while in her room ("It took forever for the 5 to change to a 6"), but she waited. And at 6:00 am, she came in shouting, "It's Christmas, it's Christmas, it's finally here, ...." Cute. Nathan didn't wake up until almost 7:30... it was agony for her. (And we kind of woke him up - seriously! What kind of kid has to be woken up on Christmas morning?!?!?) We got downstairs, did the present thing -- gifts were well received, I think. Frank purchased a doughnut-maker for the family - and of course, it's the first thing we opened to try out. When we lived in Chicago, it was a quick present-opening and then off to shower and get ready to go to Cary and Glen Ellyn. But, this year, we had the day to ourselves -- nothing to do but lounge around, play with our new stuff, and eat doughnuts of course :) It was a relaxing day -- Ellie was all about staying in her jammies all day (Nathan is still a man of routine... about 11:00 am, he started requesting "pants and a shirt.... get dressed?" We were amazed at how tired we were after a day of lounging, but it was fun to spend the day lounging together!

December 26th: Clean-up and Pack-Up

Frank had to work on the 26th, so the kids and I spent the day cleaning up Christmas, opening up more toys (i.e. fighting with all of those plastic ties!) and taking down the tree. I know, kind of hasty, but we were heading out of town for a week and I didn't want it to be up all week drying out and then having to deal with it when we came back. Lucky for us, it was near 60 degrees that day and Frank was even able to tear down the outside lights before we left, too! Another good "home day."

December 27th: The journey to Cary

This day would have been a lot easier without the ice storms through Iowa. It was a tricky drive...and long. A trip that normally takes us 7 1/2 hours took a good 9 hours. But, it wasn't the extra time that was the killer, but the weather! Rain, ice, "wintry mix", potholes, traffic (in chicago, of course!). It was a long day in the car, but once we got to Cary Christmas, it was all worth it. Unfortunately, the Williams clan had been hit with some kind of nasty stomach bug. It started with Gina, and had been passed on to Richard and Rich. Rich wasn't even able to make it out to "Christmas" -- we entered the infirmary trying to avoid the inevitable. While we were at the WIlliams', Frank also caught the bug, but the rest of us were clear! We had a great visit... Frank and Nana took the kids ice skating (which Ellie LOVED!), we went to the movies (which both kids loved) and we got to go visit Emma at her new place again. It also shouldn't go unmentioned that we were able to hit a few of our favorite "not in Omaha" restaurants: Portillo's and Potbelly...yum! A fun first half to the week!

December 31st: Transition to Glen Ellyn

We headed south to GLen ELlyn on Wednesday -- we usually celebrate New Year's Eve with my sister and her family - always a good time. Until this year, when Ellie came up to us with that "look" in her eyes around 8:00 pm. "What's the matter Ellie?" The gag, then the full blown "spit out" (as she calls it) Puke everywhere! Well, now Ellie has the bug - ick! She had a rough night (all night), which means we all had a rough night, but she woke up on the 1st ready to go and no further "incidents." We had spent the night at my sister's house. So, we all headed back to my parents house to do the "dykstra christmas." Another fun scene -- 4 grandkids and wrapping paper everywhere! We were grateful again that our families would postpone their Christmases until we got to their part of town -- we sure would have hated to miss it :) The rest of the week was fun -- lots of cousin time, another trip to the "choo choo train restaurant" (see the Thanksgiving post for the details on that one!), and plenty of time to hang out with Grandma and Poppa and all of their new stuff. We even managed to squeeze in a pseudo-birthday celebration for my dad, whose birthday is on the 6th of January... and we ordered pizza -- good ol' non-omaha pizza. I think that was a treat for us, not my dad, but...

We left chicago on Sunday, January 4th. What a difference a week makes! We made it back to Omaha in the standard 7 1/2 hours. Plenty of sunshine and not a lot of traffic -- a much more pleasant drive! We have been getting back to our "routine" - Ellie is back to preschool and we finished putting away Christmas, officially. Now, we are on to the list of things that we have been putting off, you know, until "after the holidays." And, as always, it's a big list. This year, it seems to be more baby-related than anything (think of a name, for starters!) :)

Happy New Year to everyone! Hope 2009 is good to you all!

A Christmas Miracle?

2008-12-23T18:14:00.000-08:00

I am still trying not to get my hopes up on this one, but I do think that it could be a Christmas miracle. Let me start at the beginning...

I took my one hour glucose test last week on Thursday. (Yes, the test that I failed in both previous pregnancies). I was fully expecting to fail again. If you fail the one hour test, you have to take the dreaded three hour glucose tolerance test. My record is 1-1 with the three hour test. With Ellie, I failed it. With Nathan, I passed it. So, I was preparing myself for the fact that I would undoubtedly fail the one hour, and maybe I could eek out a "pass" on the 3 hour again...
So, I gulped down the nasty orange drink (and for the first time, I didn't get light-headed or nauseas after drinking it...). I went in for my appointment and made sure that they didn't draw the blood until one hour had passed to THE minute (with my experience with blood sugar...every minute counts!). Considering my history, the doctor almost made me skip right to the three hour, but I convinced him to let me try the one hour. He said they should have the results back by the end of that day or the next day and that they wouldn't call unless I "failed." He added that if I didn't hear from them by Monday or Tuesday (today), I could assume that I passed. No phone call. Either they forgot to call me, or they are letting me enjoy Christmas with my sweets, or maybe... just maybe...it could be the greatest Christmas Miracle of all!

The first Omaha snow

2008-12-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

I know, I know...Chicago has had a ton of snow already this year. Plenty of shoveling has already occurred there. But, here in Omaha - we experience our first snowfall of any significance this week. On Thusday night, we had the ice / sleet / wintry mix stuff followed by 3 or so inches of snow. I had a few interesting revelations as I watched this "storm" unfold...
1.) Omaha does not believe in using salt on the roads (or they refuse to pay for any). Instead, they come through and pour sand and gravel on top of the snow. What does that do? Absolutely nothing, in my opinion, other than make the snow brown.
2.) Omaha does not much believe in plows, either. This snow occurred 48 hours ago -- and I'm not kidding when I say I have not seen a single plow yet. No kidding. Parking lots are not plowed, our subdivision is not plowed... just packed down snow turned to ice from cars driving on it... with sand dumped on top of it.
3.) I don't know if this happens every time, but most schools in the area were closed for the following day before the first snowflake even fell. It's like this town doesn't know how to deal with snow, and they know it - so the whole place just about shuts down. Even ellie's preschool was closed... she was bummed - it was the day of her holiday program and party. The "chicago girl" in her couldn't understand why they could have school at 10 am when the snow had stopped at 4 am... it was puzzling for us all.
4.) We may need to break down and buy a snowblower -- the three car garage is all fun until you have to shovel that whole wide driveway! (OK, Frank has done most of the shoveling this year -- taking pity on the pregnant lady, I guess.)

Now the snow is done (but the memories of the packed down ice mixed with sand will linger on until May, probably...) and the weather has turned to bitter cold -- below zero for the next few days. ugh.

The kids are still all jacked up for Christmas! It truly is the day that the entire kid year revolves around, and it shows. I think this is the first year that they are BOTH aware of what's a comin' -- very fun...

Have a great week - Merry Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2008-12-14T18:31:00.000-08:00

We are (mostly) recovered from our bouts of strep throat (ellie), croup (nathan) and remnants of both of those "landing" on Frank and me. We have spent a lot of our spare time recently gearing up for the holidays. Ellie is beyond excited... very into the whole Santa thing. She's got a lot of questions, too... and not growing up with Santa myself, I'm not sure that I even know the whole "lie" -- it's a bad combination. She's a sharp cookie - I figure we've got like one or two years tops left with her "believing." And Nathan is still blissfully unaware... no list of "I wants" and he'll be happy with whatever shows up under the tree. His big thing this season is "ho ho ho...happy halloween." He's always at least one holiday behind. He didn't stop with the "happy mother's day" until like September - gotta love it.

We got our tree last weekend. Not at a real nursery -- at Lowe's. It's not our finest tree, but it'll do for this year -- and the price was right -- $35! We were paying like $75 or $80 in chicago from a local nursery. Between the Omaha factor and the Lowe's superstore factor, we got quite the deal. Sure, it's decidedly not as fresh, but whatever - we only have to leave it up for a few weeks. We will likely "take down" Christmas on the 26th anyways, so it doesn't have to last long. The kids had fun decorating the tree and seeing all of the ornaments again. I love the lower branches the best -- most of them have like 4 or 5 ornaments each - all clumped up together :) We didn't even "fix" it -- sort of sums up the tree trimming experience this year.

This morning we went to the club (la dee da) for "brunch with Santa" -- it was fun. We don't go to "fancy" places to eat very often. Ellie got a kick out of dressing up and putting her cloth napkin in her lap. Nathan was absolutely tickled to be drinking apple juice out of a big fancy wine glass. Both kids were happy with the "buffet style" set-up -- eat as much of whatever you want and don't choose anything you don't want. Ellie was also surprised to see the huge table of desserts. I mean, was this a dream come true? Unlimited waffles and bacon...and then a chocolate brownie? Santa and Mrs. Claus were just kind of fixed by the front door. Neither one of the kids was too interested in sitting on their laps, but we were "allowed" to take one photo (the one above) if Frank held nathan and ellie could just stand next to Mrs. C. Good enough... brunch with santa...it's a wrap.

Hope everyone has a great, stress-free week!

Back home again...ahhh!

2008-12-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

We have been back (for almost a week) from our trip home for Thanksgiving. The whole family drove to Glen Ellyn on Saturday (11/22) -- even though Frank turned right around that night and flew back to Omaha... I guess that's a price we had to pay for going to Hawaii in October - no more vacation days for Frank! So, while Frank was back here working and tiling the upstairs bathrooms (no joke! that guy is motivated... and the tile looks amazing, by the way -- a big upgrade from the linoleum that was there, for sure!), the kids and I were "playing" in Illinois. The time in Glen Ellyn consisted of a lot of cousin time, a lot of Grandma and Papa time, a shopping trip with just me and Meredith (super fun!) and even a trip to the newly opened Too Toots restaurant in town -- a whole train themed restaurant. Nathan was in train heaven - the most well behaved he's ever been in a restaurant since Cheeseburger in Paradise. There was no live music, but trains might be even better when you're a 2 year old boy!

We also got to spend a couple of nights at the Hilts house - two nights of fun "sleeovers" for the cousins - complete with videos and popcorn - who could ask for more? We also had the annual "cousin" photo taken - they all did great - smiles all around (and from 4 kids...that's no small feat!). We did the traditional "double" thanksgiving on Thursday -- noon meal with the Dykstras in Michigan and afternoon meal with the Williams' in Cary. (This was the official "switch-over" point in the week - packed our bags and stayed in Cary for the rest of the weekend...)

The time in Cary also was very realxing - lots of visiting, lots of eating and even more shopping. Frank and I even had a date while we were there (awesome!) and we spent the evening eating (of course...Houlihan's - a sentimental favorite of ours...) and yes, more shopping. It was after this evening that Frank looked at the back of the car and decided we had better not make any more purchases in illinois or we would never be able to haul it all back to nebraska -- needless to say, we made a good dent in the holiday shopping, which is a good feeling!

It was great to be "home" for longer than just a weekend.... (Our families might say otherwise!) I am already looking forward to Christmas time -- we'll do it all again, and Frank can be there the whole week! Well, hopefully without driving through the hours of snow in both directions to and from Chicago -- seriously - I-80 in the snow is no fun at all!

I am always most homesick right after we get home...good thing there's this whole Christmas thing to keep me busy for the next few weeks -- we don't even have our decorations up yet - we are slacking! We are using the excuse that we came home to Ellie coming down with strep throat and the rest of us just feeling generally crappy -- we'll get the tree up this weekend, hopefully!

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

2008-11-21T13:26:00.001-08:00

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...

2008-11-11T11:28:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

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!

Ahhh...Maui!

2008-10-29T11:30:00.001-07:00

Well, Maui fails to disappoint again! This was our first trip to the islands in October and it was hard for me to believe that the weather would be as warm and sunny and consistent as it is in the summer months...but, it was beautiful (and noticeably less crowded!). Highs in the upper 80s every day - the evenings were cool and pleasant - lows around 70 -- it was great! Windy at times, which didn't always make me want to jump in the pool or the ocean, but... the kids were completely unaffected. Ellie would swim day or night, sunny or cloudy, even the morning it rained for a few minutes -- she wanted to be swimming 24-7! Frank was a good sport - he always jumped right in with them. (Ellie did tell me that "daddy was way more fun than mommy at swimming." Fair enough :)

We visited our favorite restaurants -- Cheeseburger in Paradise (Nathan's new favorite, too -- they have live music -- he was hooked -- best behavior from him at a restaurant ever!), Longhi's (Frank and I got to go alone...left Grandma and Grandpa in the pool with the kids...), Leilani's on the Beach (they got rid of my chicken teriyaki sandwich, but it was still good), and of course, Pizza Paradiso (ok, we did this one more than once!)

We tried some new places, too. We went to Kimo's (great location / view...food OK, too!), back to Longhi's for breakfast (always wanted to try it in the a.m. -- we were not disappointed), and the Cool Cat Cafe (yum - burgers!). Overall, we ate like kings (as the scale would indicate... I gained some weight last week in Maui, and a couple more pounds than can be accounted for by "baby"...) Home again, and time to be "good" and get back on track - bummer!

We also did a couple of "kid-friendly" touristy things while we were there -- a couple of boat tours. The first one was called the Reefdancer -- it was a semi-submarine -- the bottom half of the boat was under water - that's where we sat - there were big glass windows to look out. The boat sailed out to the reef and we enjoyed the reef-life. They also had divers go down to the ocean floor and bring up things we might not notice on our own -- urchins, octopus, etc. That was cool -- Ellie got a big kick out of it - especially the octopus! The diver stuck it right to her window and spread out all of its arms -- she was impressed... It was a nice alternative to snorkeling... all the views, without any of the actual snorkeling (which our kids could definitely not have done...) The other boat tour that we did was a "Dolphin Adventure" put on by the Pacific Whale Foundation -- it was a longer tour (about 3 hours) and it was very cool! We sailed out off the coast of Lana'i -- and once we found where dolphins were hanging out that day, the boat was surrounded by them. It was amazing (and hard to capture on film)! They were so fast - they were racing the boat, jumping into the air (yeah, like at the zoo shows). Ellie thought the trip was all worth while because she saw a baby dolphin swimming with its mommy and daddy. It was very cool to see this dolphin family swimming along together -- she called it "even amazing-er" than the octopus!

Besides the two boat tours, we spent most of the week, souvenir shopping, swimming (at least once, if not twice a day!), playing in the sand, and of course, eating! The week went by so quickly -- the kids were great (busy all the time - always ready to nap / sleep). Even the traveling was smooth -- Nathan had his "tunes" and Ellie was happy to watch DVD's and do dot-to dots. The 8 hour flight over was almost enjoyable! (OK, so after the overnight flight back to O'Hare -- nathan didn't sleep hardly at all -- we would have rather not had to wait 2 hours to get on another plane back to Omaha, but you gotta do what you gotta do...Nathan was asking for "no more air-panes")

We are still recovering from our jet-lag. The kids are a bit thrown off still. (the first morning we were home, ellie was surprised that when she woke up..."the sun was already up!") It has been a while since that has happened! We're getting there, though. The jet lag is all completely worth it -- we always leave Maui wondering when we will return, but it's never long before we find our way back.

A day of TOO much fun??

2008-10-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

We were home the first weekend of October, and next weekend Frank is working "inventory" at the plant on Saturday and then we are off to Hawaii on Saturday night, so... that leaves us with THIS weekend to explore all that Omaha has to offer in terms of Halloween fun. Here is the fun-filled adventure for today --

Saturday morning: Vala's Pumpkin Patch; Gretna, NE

OK, we had heard that this was a "must see" -- people described it to us as "very commercialized" but "well run" and "constantly being improved," so of course, we decided to give it a go. Pricey, by Omaha standards (about $12 per person - kids and adults...Nathan was still free - whew!), but once you get in the doors, most stuff is included with the admission and the place is HUGE. We were there for almost three hours and judging by the map, I think we saw about a half to 2/3 of the whole place. Very cute stuff -- lots of familiar favorites from home -- the "How tall this fall?," lots of animals to feed by hand, lots of photo-ops where the kids could put their faces in the "holes." There were also a lot of free "shows" -- the pig-tucky derby races (groups of pigs running around in a circle), the pumpkin canon shooter thing (even cooler than it sounds), lots of robotic sort of entertainment (not dissimilar to the country bear jamboree at disney world only more halloween themed - skeletons and stuff like that) -- the kids loved these shows - music for nathan and ellie was just singing along and clapping at the end of each song. There were haystack rides and corn mazes and lots of cutesy little fall displays (storybook village, pirate themed "playgrounds") to walk around. After a few hours, we had had enough (mostly Nathan, who kept asking for "mommy's car car? go home?") On the way out we each chose our treat for later: Ellie and Nathan chose cotton candy (surprise, surprise after the cotton candy meltdown at Sonny Acres last weekend... and incidentally, Nathan chose a roll of smarties after lunch instead of the cotton candy...), Frank chose handmade fudge (very yummy - reminded me of Mackinaw Island Fudge) and I went with (shocker) the homemade cheese popcorn (also very yummy - reminded me of Garrett's popcorn in chicago -- it was a very samll bag, but it's just about gone already -- no shame in my cheese-corn game!)

Saturday afternoon: Children's Museum Halloween Exhibit -- Cobweb Castle

Since we have a membership to the Omaha Children't museum (and I think we've been enough times already to more than pay for itself...the kids love it there!), we decided we could jet "all the way downtown" for an hour or so to see their Halloween exhibit: the Cobweb Castle. The museum closes at 5:00, and we got there around 3:30 -- it was more than enough time. On another fortunate note, there was a Nebraska football game in progress, so we literally had the place to ourselves...worked out pretty well. The cobweb castle itself was more or less just a (dark) room with mazes, "stick your hand in the hole and pull out something creepy," and lots of tunnels and black lights and all sorts of "scary" things for little kids. It was cute, but we were literally in that part of the museum for about 10 - 15 minutes. But, the kids didn't waste any time making their way to their long standing favorites... the dinosaurs, the "ball room" (they call it the science center, I think), the giant piano, the craft room. Still, all in all, we were there for a little over an hour and we (frank and I) had had plenty of children's museum fun. And, of course, we were glad to satisfy the curiosity of the cobweb castle before we ran out of weekends before Halloween!

Saturday evening: Dinner at the Old Market

Since we were already "all the way downtown," and we were done at the museum by 5:00, we decided that it might be a good night for a family night out on the town, so we went to eat at a pizza place (I know, risky in Omaha) called Old Chicago. It's a chain down here (they must have them somewhere else, but who knows) and we figured with a name like Old CHICAGO, it must be good. And you know what? It really was one of the best pizzas we've had here -- pleasantly surprised by an Omaha pizza for once. We have a couple of leads on some other places, too (from the girl that cut my hair - consider the source) so our search will continue for the best pizza in town, but so far - Old Chicago has the lead.

We piled all the fun stuff onto today - tomorrow, it's supposed to rain here, so we will likely spend the day doing errands and oh, yes... frank continues to paint the trim upstairs -- only two rooms left!

The week of birthdays...

2008-10-06T18:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, so here is the week of birthday celebrations in review...

Monday, September 29th (Frank's birthday):
Ellie had the day off of preschool, so we spent the day doing "birthday chores" -- we baked and decorated cupcakes, we wrapped gifts, signed and decorated cards, we dug through the "party cupboard" and found enough stuff to decorate the house - a few streamers, some confetti. The kids were really into it -- it was like a whole theme day -- it was great to have something different to break up our day. We also met Frank for lunch at jason's deli (yum!) and went out for dinner. Yes, basically, we ate our way throught the day. It was Frank's birthday, but apparently that means I don't cook -- works for me!

Thursday, October 2nd (My birthday):
I was geared up for a quiet day ending with dinner at Sizzler... you see, I haven't seen a Sizzler since the '80s and I just remember them having (although not the greatest meat...) THE greatest salad bar. So, Frank agreed (reluctantly, probably) and that was the plan. As the day progressed, I was really starting to second guess my pick -- I mean, should I really "waste" a dinner out on the Sizzler?? Why not, right? So, anyways, I had a few things to do before we set off for Chicago for the weekend while the kids were sleeping and I told myself that since it was my birthday -- if I got all of those things done, I would just sit and read a book until they got up. Well, while I was sitting, doing nothing but reading, the doorbell rings -- I was shocked to see my dad standing at the front door. After all, it was my birthday, and we "always" go out to dinner for my birthday.... I guess I just didn't expect the tradition to continue when we live 400 miles apart and we were planning to be in chicago the very next day. He surprised me for sure! We actually didn't end up at the Sizzler -- we went to a place called Firebirds (which I guess is a chain, but we didn't have them in Chicago) -- it was very yummy (at least I thought so -- I don't get out much!) It was a perfect birthday, full of surprises! My dad spent the night here, and rode to Chicago with us the next day....

October 3rd - 5th: The trip to chicago
My dad was a good sport, taking 2 turns in the backseat between the kids...he claims it was not that bad, but we all had our turns back there...it was pretty tight. Although, it was nice to have an extra adult in the backseat at all times to "fetch" for the kids. We made pretty good time (about 8 hours) and by the time we got to Glen Ellyn, the kids were just about tripping over their feet to get in the house to see grandma - very cute! They both quickly ran around, making sure all of their favorite toys were still in the same places and just generally checking the place out to make sure that it hadn't changed since we left. (Ellie was proud to announce that she remembered grandma's house - both the inside and the outside... I would hope so - we've only been gone a few months!) Shortly after we got there, Meredith and Kathryn and Lindsey arrived - holy cousin fun! The four kids disappeared upstairs and played for a long time, pulling either grandma or grandpa into their fun periodically. So fun to hear all of the laughs and "screams of joy" again... When Marc arrived after work, we ordered pizza.... mmmm... Chicago Pizza (of which I ate my weight). I hardly said a word during dinner - just enjoyed the taste! All four of the kids had a "sleepover" in one room (I don't think anyone slept until at least 10:00, but...) On Saturday morning, we headed out to Sonny Acres (the pumpkin patch) - ellie was so excited that we were going to be able to go "even though we moved to Omaha." It was very fun, despite the tantrum ellie threw all because we didn't get cotton candy like we did last year... ugh!
We ended the first half of our weekend at Augustino's Deli, another hometown favorite -- yum, again! how did I not gain weight this weekend??

After we left Glen Ellyn, we drove up to Cary to see Frank's parents. On our way, we drove past our old house -- Nathan recognized the old park from blocks away! I have convinced myself that our Omaha house doesn't look that much bigger than our Illinois house, but as soon as we pulled into the old neighborhood -- we were both like, "ok, these houses are smaller...and they all have (very small!) 2 car garages... and they're all so close together..." But, our old house looked pretty much the same (they have managed to control all of the dandelions that we spread for them before we left). When we got to Cary, the kids did their "check" of nana's house - found the favorite toys and made themselves at home. We walked up to the park to burn off some more energy (which must have worked -- Nathan slept for 14 hours that night...that's not a typo...that's a Nathan record!) On Sunday, all of Frank's siblings came over - so great to see everyone again! Ellie was nearly obsessed with baby oliver, and nathan didn't really even want to acknowledge that there was a new kid in town... hmmm... flash forward to march? I'll bet neither one is as extreme when the new kid in town lives at our house. We wish we could have stayed longer, but the long trek down route 80 was calling... we left around 2:00, and (despite running into THE slowest fast food dinner stop in Des Moines) and got to our house around 10:00 -- again, not bad time, but the kids were zonked - and so were we.

One benefit of me not having to be at work today was that we pretty much left the car as is and came inside and crashed. I spent today (literally the entire day) unpacking the car, doing laundry, putting stuff away. It was a great weekend - I am always most homesick right after we go home. Looking forward to going home again at thanksgiving, when we'll have more time to spend with everyone!

Whew! Thanks for reading all about the birthday week -- it was awesome!
More soon!

Oh, Baby!

2008-09-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Most of you already know this, but for those of you who are in contact with us by "blog only"...baby #3 is on the way! I guess no one will need Dr. Phil to break this one down for them...After going back and forth for like a year whether or not this would be a good thing, we got to Omaha - finally had our whole family in one place after one heck of a long year and it just sort of seemed like the right thing. Consider the built in "leave of absence" for me, and the timing couldn't have been better. We are excited -- well, Ellie is the most excited -- never mind the fact that she only refers to the baby as a "she"... we'll see what we can do about that! Due the first week of April, officially, but with the "luxury" of the planned c-section, we're pretty much advertising "the end of March." (And if they would do it in February, that would be even better!)

Everything is going well so far -- except that there are NO doctor's offices in Omaha that are open in the evenings or weekends (none that are affiliated with our hospital and insurance, anyways...) That has made scheduling appointments a little tricky - we've been trying to make them all for "lunchtime" - Frank comes and meets us in the parking lot at the doctor's office, takes the kids to lunch, and meets me back at the office...a great plan in theory, but when you're dealing with any doctor's office, you never know the kind of hold-ups you'll run into...even on a perfect day, he's away from work for over an hour. I guess he's the "boss" so it's all good. It's worked out OK, so far (don't know HOW we'll handle the 3-hour glucose test when I no doubt flunk the first one again -- maybe Frank can just take the whole day off!).

So, the upstairs bedroom that we had set up as an office (and had painted a nice shade of taupe) has since been painted a nice baby shade of yellow (it's called "cuddle" -- awwwwww) I know - who the heck paints a baby's room when you're only in the first trimester? But, as frank asked me "well, how superstitious are you? I mean, I'd rather just paint it again while the tape is all still up and the furniture is still in the middle of the room..." Solid plan -- and see? Now we're out of the first trimester, so it all worked out for now...

Had an appointment yesterday - everything is good. Baby is already measuring almost a week larger than its due date, so at least we know it's really our kid :) We'll really be sure when the head continues to measure large and the rest of the body levels off -- :)

Have a great weekend!

AppleJack Update

2008-09-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

I am sure that most of you are concerned after the last post... let me assure you of two things:

1.) We are about halfway through the the 10 pound bag of apples that we picked - I found a recipe for apple muffins which took up a bunch. I am the only one eating them, however. Nathan says, "uh, this is not good..." and ellie said they were good "except for the apple part." Hmmm - at least they both enjoyed "helping" me make them (and we used up a bunch of apples...)

2.) Nathan's hair situation has been remedied - it was looking a little wild in the orchard picture. It has since been cut and he looks like a little boy again. :)

The AppleJack Festival and the Block Party

2008-09-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

We got a tip from a co-worker of Frank's to head out to the Applejack Festival in Nebraska City this weekend. So, of course, we have nothing to do here and we're pretty much up for anything these days, so we went. It's about an hour drive from here - we didn't really know what to expect, but what the heck. I think that we really only saw one tiny piece of this festival. We ended up at the Arbor Day Farms, but from what I understand, the whole town of Nebraska City has events going on. We were most interested in finding an orchard (or as ellie called it "torch-ard") so that we could pick our own apples. At the Arbor Day Farm, we could pick our own apples and the kids were really into it - they had trees that were low enough to the ground that they could easily reach them... the 10 pound bag filled up pretty quickly! (Everyone has promised to eat apples every day until they're gone and you never know, I might be baking another pie pretty soon...) :) After we picked our apples, we set out on the "exploration trail" - very Arboretum-esque... nice trail, pretty scenery, lots of trees, and plenty of things to look at and read along the way. There were also lots of "nature playgrounds" and the kids found it "worth the trip." We ate lunch there - just at one of those "food tents" - burgers and dogs and chips - that'll be $30. Funny to say, but it felt kind of good to be ripped off for once (just like home!) :) We decided that it was a very fun day - I don't know that we would be driving all the way down there every year to do it, but it was definitely fun to try once.

Now, on to the Block Party...we were all pretty tired after the apple-palooza of the morning, but we mustered up enough energy to head out to the front yard for the Dickinson's Landing Block Party - quite the extensive affair. Maybe it's because we'ver never really lived in a neighborhood that did an official "block party," but whoa! There were three of those big inflatable "bounce house" things for the kids, a live band (the first song they played was "sweet home chicago"...the irony!), pony rides (right in front of our house, as luck would have it...there's still the ring of brown to remind us of all the fun...). As you can imagine, when the ponies pulled up (again, RIGHT in front of our house) the kids could not wait to get out there! There were a good two or three hundred people out there, and we were encouraged to see that there really are a lot of people with little kids here. Ellie and Nathan had a great time (Nathan, unfortunately, missed his last pony ride becuase he asked to go inside to go potty...major success!) He also requested to go to bed around 7:30 -- it had been a long day at the apple fest and all with not much of a nap...so Frank and Nathan headed in around 8:00. I thought the bounce house things were supposed to "blow down" at 8:00, so I told Ellie we could stay out until they were done...well, I waited and waited and waited and it never happened ... basically, I convinced Ellie to come in around 9:00 -- it was pretty dark - I don't know how more kids weren't getting hurt in those things! She was also pretty tired and agreed without much of a fight... when Frank and I looked out the window around 10:15...the bounce houses were STILL UP! yikes. Ellie thought the block party was the "most fun ever" and we met lots of new aquaintences, so it was a success all the way around.

The week in review

2008-09-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

Not too much to report this week, but I thought I should update...

Ellie continues to go to preschool -- the first two days were "shy" days, as she put it. She would get in the car at pick-up time and say, "I have so much to say right now, because I've been so shy and quiet all morning at school -- I didn't talk at school -- and now I just have to talk a lot!" She comes by it honestly - exactly what I was like in school as a kid! (And Frank says she's gotten a "double dose" of it... he had a little bit of it himself...) Anyhoo, day three was "magic" as Ellie puts it -- she talked to her teachers and to the other kids and even took to comforting the ones who were still "crying and wanting their moms" -- She even made amends with one little girl (Tatum...now that's an Omaha name, huh?) that she alienated while she was being "shy" on the first day... so all is well at the Education Station! And for our Friday treat, we (again) met Frank for lunch -- at McDonald's this week -- it's just such a nice way to break up the day (and the kids are always in the mood for McNuggets...) Maybe we can make this a Friday ritual (and work in a subway or a panera once in a while...)

Nathan is also getting used to Ellie's preschool routine -- as soon as we get back from dropping her off (and whatever errands I drag him around to...), he drags ME down to the basement and commands my one-on-one time, which (of course), he has never had before. So, we play mostly with the train set and do puzzles and I desperately try to teach him his colors, but he is still "refusing." I'll say, "nathan, what color is ____?" And he'll just reply, "no." Hmmm - I guess a kid who didn't walk until he was 22 months old is marching to his own drum... he'll learn colors when he's good and ready - maybe when he's 12? :)

It's been a dreary week here in terms of weather -- lots of rain! Our nightly family game of freeze tag (oh, yeah!) has been rained out lately... can't say I've been too bummed out. How do you know you're officially out of shape? When you have trouble keeping up with a four year old! Man, she's quick! It's probably pretty sad when nightly freeze tag is the only exercise we are getting (and it's a pretty good workout, so far!)

Have a good weekend - more later!

First day of Preschool

2008-09-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

The first day of school for Ellie was a smashing success! She woke up excited this morning, but I was still a little nervous after the princess camp experience -- she was excited that day, too... But, the whole drop off was seamless (and there were cryers there, too -- I was glad that it wasn't my kid this time...) :) She came home with the play by play about the whole morning -- lots of comparisons to Bright Horizons (the daycare in Illinois) - which kids reminded her of her old friends, which songs were the same (the weather song), which songs were different (the good-bye song)... and luckily, she was able to play with all of the toys that she remembered from Wednesday's Open House. As predicted, Nathan did want to stay and play -- and he was pretty confused all morning, "where's ellie?" "Mommy's car-car? Ellie?" He was glad to go pick her up (but again, he wanted to stay and play...) and then we all went and met Frank for a "first day of school lunch" -- one of the benefits of living in Omaha -- everyone is close enough to "lunch" together! Crazy to say, but it was good to have somewhere to go - a little structure to the day went a long way for us!

Preschool Open House

2008-09-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to the Education Station's Open House - come and "meet your teachers and see your classroom." Ellie was very excited all day about going - we all were, actually...
It was a very positive experience for Ellie, I think. We underestimated how many kids were involved in this program, though. Ellie is in the MWF am class (20 kids), and there's a MWF pm class (20 more kids), a T/Th am class (another 20)... and that's just on the west side of the buiding -- that many kids will attend on the east side of the building as well! Needless to say, all of those kids plus their siblings plus their parents made for a pretty crowded event last night. But, nonetheless, Ellie enjoyed meeting her teachers - when I asked her if she thought her teachers were nice, she said, "all teachers are nice...duh..." All of the kids had different colored name tags on depending on what class they were in - she got really good at spotting the other "red circle" nametags and she was just going up to kids and saying "hi, I'm ellie, I'm new." It was pretty good (she didn't get that "outgoing-ness" from either one of her parents, that's for sure!)
Even though the building is pretty different from the daycare center they went to in Illinois, I think she was "comforted" to see that it was a lot of the same stuff - a rug for "circle time," a "housekeeping area," a "math center," etc. etc. etc. We were there for over an hour just checking it all out -- nathan was having fun, too. That will be the trick tomorrow moring, getting Nathan to leave...hmmm... we'll have to find something fun to sign him up for on MWF's, too!

First day of school tomorrow - full report coming soon...

The Williams' visit - Labor Day Weekend

2008-09-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

What a great weekend! Frank's parents and his uncle charlie came to Omaha this weekend for a visit... we love visitors! Seriously, we do! Frank's dad and Uncle had not ever been here before, so we did a lot of the obligatory "touring" of Omaha (it doesn't take long - there's not much to see here...) :) We also hit the air and space museum, Boys Town, the River Walk and of course all of the "vacation" eating out -- dinners, breakfasts, ice cream -- yummmmm! We also used the club a couple of times, too - a round of golf for the guys and an evening swim for the whole group.

We all had a great time, and the kids are still "coming down" from all of the excitement - they both took HUGE naps this afternoon and woke up wondering what "fun thing" was next. Disappointed to be left alone with only their (totally un-fun) parents again, they lobbied for a "video night" and we just kind of chilled out.

And so the end of summer has officially come and gone...not that it has the same kind of impact that it did when I was teaching, but it is still a little strange nonetheless. Ellie starts up at her preschool this week on Friday - we are all looking forward to a little structure (and one more "network" to meet people, even if those people are only 4 years old!). A complete preschool update to come soon...

This weekend's tourist adventures

2008-08-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

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!

We got out!

2008-08-18T11:56:00.001-07:00

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 -

She finally broke us!

2008-08-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

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!

You win some, you lose some...

2008-08-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Nebraska License Plates

2008-08-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

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...

Sweet Home, Chicago!

2008-08-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

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!

Welcome to our newest cousin / nephew!

2008-07-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Gina and Kip -- the proud new parents of baby Oliver William!
We can't wait to meet him this weekend! (Ellie has convinced us that we should go out for ice cream to celebrate "baby Olive" -- that's her nickname for her newest cousin...) :)
Sounds like a plan!

The Dykstras visit Omaha...

2008-07-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

...and claim to like it! :) It was a very fun weekend, at least for us. (You'd have to ask them if the 16 hours in the car was worth it.) They arrived on Friday and we didn't do much but hang out that afternoon. Ellie did manage to work in a few rounds of hide-and-seek with Papa withing minutes of their arrival. She seriously was planning out hiding spots for days before they came (after all, it was a "new house that Papa's never seen before -- he's NEVER gonna find me!") It was cute and the grandparents graciously obliged the hide and seek request. We went out to eat and did a mini driving tour of West-O (yeah, that's what they call west omaha around here...) and pretty much just hung out in the evening.

Saturday, we went "all the way" downtown to the Old market area - they do a nice Farmer's Market that we strolled around for a while. Ellie behaved herself because of the promise of the Children's Museum afterwards (also in the same neighborhood). That was also fun, especially for the kids and once again, the grandparents were good sports. After lunch, my mom and I headed to a quilt store in Gretna (about 10-15 minutes from here) called the Quilted Moose. I am not a quilter, but it was a fairly impressive fabric store! We left my dad with the sleeping children and his newspaper -- I think everyone was in a happy place that afternoon!

On Saturday night - my parents offered to watch the kids while we...wait for it... went out to eat! We were out of the house withing seconds of this offer --we headed "all the way" back downtown - ate a place called "stokes" -- a southwestern / american grill -- it was different, but good. Good to be out, that is! It was awesome - recharges us on the whole "find a babysitter" thing!

Sunday morning my dad and Frank went golfing - it turned out to be good weather for them (a little hot for me, but...) My mom and I and the kids went to Target (do we know how to entertain out of town guests or what??) and then hit one of the playgrounds at Lake Zorinsky that we have never been to before. It was a relaxing (except when Nathan was being a "crazy man" at target) morning. The photo above is of the gang right before they left (when are we going to learn to take these photos at the beginning of the visit?? Can you tell that Ellie isn't very good at good-byes?)

It wasn't a terrible good-bye - after all, we'll be in chicago next weeked to meet the new cousin and to celebrate birthdays with the other cousins! Can't wait!

We met our Omaha Pediatrician

2008-07-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Nathan (and we all knew it would be Nathan, right?), we got our reason to find a new pediatrician...fast. Yesterday, we spent the morning running errands and playing outside. When we came in for lunch, I noticed that Nathan had a few (what I thought were) bug bites on his left arm. No big deal - he was rolling around in the grass and crawling around the garage, so I figured he just got into something buggy... By the end of lunch, his whole arm was covered with "bites" and it had spread to his back and sides. Before naptime, it had spread to his legs and face. And it didn't look like bug bites anymore - it looked like a red, sometimes bumpy awful rash. Of course, he did not seem fazed by his new condition at all. He seemed a little annoyed that I kept looking at him, but... We called a pediatrician's office that I had scoped out (luckily, all of ellie's preschool registration forms require the name of her doctor, so I had done some preliminary research...) and they were able to see us yesterday afternoon. Nathan slept his usual 2 hours at naptime and when he got up, he looked just as awful and was acting just as normal - weird. So, we went to see the new doctor (which Ellie was SO excited about - after all, it wasn't her visit...). The doctor walked in and instantly diagnosed it as hives. Sounds like something that I maybe should have recognized, but I have never seen anything like it in my life. It was a simple Benadryl fix (again, something I should have probably known...) and they were gone within a couple of hours. I was impressed with the office overall - I think it was a good pick "on the fly." The doctor asked me to call back in two days because she wanted to know how he was doing - I thought that was nice. In EGV, our pediatrician would always be like, "call us back if he's not better in a week." (And I really liked our doctor in Elk Grove, they just seemed more "don't call us unless something's wrong.") So, that was our adventure for yesterday -- leave it to Nathan to be the first one to need a doctor here!

Princess Camp Grand Finale

2008-07-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

Ellie finished her week of Princess Camp -- it was mixed reviews all week long. One minute, she was practicing her "moves" at home and talking about all of her dance friends and the next minute she was saying that her stomach hurt because she didn't want to go to princess camp (sad, I know, but...) Even if the drop-offs were not always completely smooth - she always came home in a good mood, (and therefore, I kept dropping her off!)

On Thursday, she came home with an "invitation" to her dance "show" on Friday at the end of class. That would be at 11:45 a.m. -- that leaves 15 minutes for the "show." She was so pumped about this -- she could not wait to show off her dances. So, we all went -- yes, even Frank -- that's another score for Omaha -- When you work 10 minutes away, you can scoot out for half an hour at lunchtime to see your little girl do a couple of dances. Coincidentally, every dancer except two of them had both their moms and dads present -- that's omaha for you -- nobody works very far away -- even if you worked "all the way downtown," it's still not far away!

The last picture is of Ellie before the music started -- strike a pose, girl! The song was something about big hair and big sunglasses. So, the purple sunglasses she is wearing was actually one of the crafts they did this week - they are all bedazzled with rhinestones... pretty fancy!

And Nathan could not get enough of this dancing thing -- after they finished the first dance, he was whining / chanting for "all done? more music! more music!" He clapped the loudest of anyone... "Good job, eh-wee -- hurray -- hurray!" It was cute.

Ellie is all thumbs up for dancing and princess camp now. (I think, partly because she knows it's over...) :) It was a welcome diversion for us this week -- pretty much took up the whole morning -- really broke up the day nicely! It makes me look forward to the routine of the fall with preschool starting up -- a different routine to fall into.

This weekend, we decided to touch up the paint in the family room -- of course, the previous owners did not leave any of the right color to do that with. So, we decided that we would re-paint instead. That will be a big project, since our family room connects to our kitchen and our eat-in area and the back "hall" to the garage -- we're going to start with 3 gallons of paint and go out for the fourth if we need it... I guess it'll be a couple of late nights this weekend (but it will be nice to have it done!)

More later -

Princess Camp, Day One (...and the new TV)

2008-07-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Ellie has been waiting for this day for a long time - thank goodness it finally arrived. She was up early this morning, packing her backpack full of all of the princess camp necessities: tap shoes (still...why??), ballet shoes, etc. etc.

She had so many questions - "what will we do first?" "do we have to check in when we get there?" "What will my teacher's name be?" "What color will her eyebrows be?" OK, I was with her until that last one...

We left the house in plenty of time (becuase I am still not confident with where everything is around here...even though it's not tough, and also because I continue to overestimate the amount of time it will take to get anywhere ... not nearly as long as you think it's going to...).

We got to the dance studio and it was quite obvious who was there for Princess Camp -- although, one girl was wearing plain clothes... the horror! (I guess her mom didn't call ahead of time... I bet she'll be fully outfitted by tomorrow...tap shoes and all!) Well, everything was going well until I went to leave -- Ellie freaked out - crying, clinging and all of that good stuff. "don't go" "I've never been here before" "Don't leave me here" "I dont' want to stay here" "I want to go home" For a kid that's been dropped off at daycare everyday for the last four years (and loved it) and for as excited as she was about "ballerina class" - it really kind of surprised me. (I guess four weeks of being with no one but me sort of ruined any kind of independence she had...) I convinced her to stay and I watched from the behind the two-way mirror (must be a dance studio thing...) She was (of course) fine within five minutes of me leaving and by the time I picked her up, she was gushing about all of the fun that was had -- they did "acrobats", crafts, snacks, dancing, and "rocking out" (is that different than dancing??). Anyways, she had a great time and she can't wait to go back tomorrow... thank goodness, call me a cynic - but as she's holding on to me for dear life at drop-off, part of me is thinking -- "uh-uh - we bought tap shoes for crying out loud... you are going to at least try this!"

The most ironic thing, perhaps was that I had to practically restrain nathan from breaking into the dance class room -- between trying to get ellie to stay and getting nathan to stay out, it was kind of a stressful 20 minutes or so... Nathan wanted so bad to be at "belly class" (that's ballet class in nathan-speak) -- maybe someday... after we try soccer or baseball or something... :)

In other (more exciting, frank would argue) news is we finally did it -- bit the bullet and bought one of those fancy-schmancy-big-ass-tv's. It's been a long time coming - frank has been talking about it for years (literally) and we said when we got to omaha, we would probably have a room big enough to accomodate one, and we do, so we did. It's pretty nice - better picture qualtiy and all that (which is important when you watch shows like the bachelorette like me...) :) We went to our new favorite store for home furnishings -- the Nebraska Furniture Mart. We like it there (and they are probably starting to like us there, too!) They just make it so darn easy to buy things -- I guess that's part of their winninng formula. I knew that if we went to look at TV's, we would end up buying one (Frank pretended that he "didn't think we'd buy one today..."). So, we loaded up the 46-inch sony something or other -- it was a tight squeeze to get it in the back of the Pilot (Frank offered to leave the kids at the mart if he could get the tv in...) We made it fit and then drove home. Frank drove more cautiously than I have ever seen him drive before -- he likened it to driving home from the hospital with you first child.... really? It was cute to see him so excited -- he spent the day setting up the tv, which involved altering (i.e. "sawing apart" the built in cabinet in our family room -- it was touch and go for a while, but it's all good now. We stayed up all night watching stuff in HD (ok, not really - but we did spend a couple of hours finding all of the cool features -- found some "scene it" type trivia games, so we played those - weird, but fun...)

More later - gotta go watch TV! :)

Gearing up for "Princess Camp"

2008-07-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

Just kind of a "normal" weekend here -- running errands, and plugging away at the endless list of projects around the house. There was (another) huge thunderstorm all night last night, and that kept us all up at different points - so we are all a little sleepy today, but...

Ellie starts "Princess Camp" on Monday -- it's just this week, Mon - Fri from like 9:30 - 12:00 each day. She is so excited! It's at a little dance studio here - Frank found it a few months ago when ellie was really hopped up on taking "ballerina clases" -- so, he foun this and signed her up. The flyer boasts activities like, "dress-up," "tea parties," "painting nalis" and of course, "dancing." Cute enough. So, last week, ellie keeps saying how she has to wear her tu-tu (her HALLOWEEN costume from last year) so that she looks like a ballerina. Of course, I don't want her look like a goof-ball, so I called the studio just to see if she should wear anything specific or bring anything with her. And, wouldn't you know. . . no tu-tu, but . . . she "should wear a leotard and tights (??) and she should bring both ballet shoes and (get this) tap shoes." Whoa! These people are serious about dance! I was seriously just going to send her in gym shoes and a nice sundress - glad I called, I guess. So, today, we went to a "dance supply store" (because where the hell else am I going to buy tap shoes??) and got the shoes. It actually wasn't too pricey, which was good -- I started to hyperventilate a little bit thinking about what an expensinve "tea-party" this could turn into, but ellie was thrilled and wore her "tap shoes" all day (I kept trying to get her to "tap" on the carpeting, but she was wise to that! No such luck...)

Otherwise, we spent the day cleaning - mostly bathrooms and those darn kitchen cabinets, still!
What a thankless job that is. I mean, the cabinets are so disgusting - even after they are "clean," they still are not "like new" -- lots of scratches and imperfections that you can't clean off. I don't think they look that bad from a distance, but they are not good up close, that's for sure!

Full update on Monday after the "princess" gets home from "camp." :)

Our anniversary

2008-07-10T12:04:00.001-07:00

Nine years! Can't believe it -- who knew I had married a "man of steel" that would carry me off into the sunset of Omaha?? Well, here we are - only two weeks in town, so there are no babysitters on our radar yet. The whole family is planning to go swimming at "the club" tonight. Ellie is so excited - we have not been over there to swim yet (the weather has always been iffy whenever we think about going...). The kids are going to eat early (cheese pizza - everyone's favorite!) and then we will swim right after Frank gets home. After the kids go to bed, Frank and I will probably do something "take-out" style -- doesn't sound too exciting, but the proposition of eating by ourselves without being interrupted or having to get up a thousand times during dinner and not having to scarf it down to "keep up" with the midgets -- almost worth it to not eat until 8:30 or so!

"When I get to Omaha" Goal #1 - I have done it... I made a pie. I joked before we came here that I would become some sort of domestic pie-making person (because I would have so much time on my hands...). Well, after coming home from the grocery store with three different types of pre-made pie crusts (already - the undomestic side from chicago is coming out), Ellie and I made a fresh strawberry pie (her choice). It looks yummy, but we'll see how it tastes. Baby steps -- when the ready made pie crusts are gone, maybe I will venture into making them from scratch - just trying to pace myself... :)

The fourth of July - Omaha Style

2008-07-08T13:20:00.001-07:00

We spent our first major holiday in Omaha - the fourth of July. The Hilts made the journey west to spend a few days with us over the fourth. It was so fun I wish they could have stayed forever! We were debating whether or not to go see an organized fireworks display, but we decided against it as it doesn't get dark here until around 10 pm and we knew the kids would have a hard time lasting that long. As it turns out, we were able to get our fireworks fix right here at our own house. At the first sign of "dusk" the entire subdivision (and I can only imagine the whole city of omaha) erupted in amateur fireworks. I wasn't sure if it was the fourth or if our neighborhood was under attack -- from every direction and as far as the eye could see -- fireworks. We truly are in the "heartland of America" here. It was kind of cool, as long as you didn't think about the fact that it was probably fairly dangerous - a bunch of drunk people with explosives. Hmph.

the whole weekend was very fun - it was fun to be tourists in our own town (partly because we don't know or claim this town yet...). We hit the zoo, the botanical garden, the parks, and still had time to hang out here, too. the perfect balance of sightseeing and hanging out. I can't believe that they drove all the way from chicago to see us (and omaha, of course...) -- we really appreciated the visitors and I think a good time was had by all.

This is our first "normal" week in Omaha - Frank goes to work M - F (no out of town nights) and me and the kids are just kickin' around here. Ahhh. . . summer.

Ed Zorinsky Lake and other adventures

2008-06-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

Since the "grannies" left yesterday (was it just yesterday?), Frank and I painted the office (classic taupe!) and the linen closet and unpzcked the rest of the boxes in the office and the garage. There is still quite a bit of organizing to do, but we are on our way to being "done" with the boxes, at least. We also had a thunderstorm that went through Omaha yesterday at 5:00 pm that produced 80 mph winds -- the weather here is ridiculous! The kids and I were outside playing when the sirens went off -- didn't look too bad, but we decided to go in -- within minutes, it was near hurricaine conditions -- it's good to have a basement that's big enough to hang out in during sotrms - I have a feeling that Omaha has more than its share of severe weather!

We try to work in some things that are fun for the kids so that they continue to "love Omaha." So, in an effort to have fun and get something done, we went to get the kids' haircuts -- this is major entertainment for them -- we take them to those "haircuts for kids" places - fun chairs to sit in and balloons and lots of hoop-la. And let me tell you - Nathan was LONG overdue for a haircut - it's amazing the little things that get lost in a move. But, all's well - he looks like a little boy again instead of the son of Einstein or Cosmo Kramer. We also adventured out to a "new place" for us for dinner - Culver's (I know, first Red Robin and now culver's -- Omaha is bringing out the crazy in us!). It was fine, but I don't think we'll be rushing back anytime soon - of course, Ellie orders the ham and swiss sandwich on rye -- the least "kid thing" on the menu -- she didnt' eat much of it - oh well. I guess I'd be willing to try it again for dessert, but not for the butter-burger. :)

We spent a long time after dinner at Lake Zorinsky (I know - catchy name!). It's a pretty big lake with something like 7 miles of paved walking (biking, jogging, rollerblading, etc.) trails around it. We threw Ellie's bike and Nathan's push-car in the back of the car - and walked the trail until we got to a park. Ellie was especially excited to find a playground with woodchips instead of sand! We stayed at the park for well over an hour (that's long for us - Nathan doesn't usually have that kind of attention span for anything!) Even after we left the area we were at, we spent some time driving around the other parts of the lake - there is a lot to see, for sure. It was very windy here tonight, so I would be interested in spending more time there on a more "perfect" weather day...

More soon -

The Grannies in Omaha

2008-06-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Our first week in Omaha - Frank tells me that he has to go out of town (just to Des Moines) for the night on Wednesday night -- do you get the irony? We have finally moved our whole family to Omaha to all be in one place and he "leaves us" during the first week!

But, we were not all alone! My mom and Frank's mom flew out on Wednesday morning. The kids and I picked them up at the airport (something else I probably would never have done in chicago...) But, just like everything's bigger in texas -- everything's smaller in omaha! We went back to our house, did the "grand tour" - had some lunch and then the kids went down for naps. Later in the afternoon, we went downtown (yeah, I know -- I drove to the airport and downtown on the same day!) to see the Old Market -- just a quaint section of downtown with brick streets and lots of restaurants and shoppes (not shops... shoppes). It rained a lot while the "grannies" were here, so we did a lot of indoor stuff. We went to see the furniture mart. That is good for as many hours as you're willing to spend there -- what a huge place! Everytime I go, I see parts of it that we haven't seen before... it's amazing. We also drove past the club, the preschool -- all of Omaha's higlights for us. We did manage to squeeze in a trip to the neighborhood park, which is fine despite the sand instead of woodchips and the fact there is "7th grade" graffiti all over the place. The kids like it well enough, so it's fun. On the way to the airport on Friday morning, we stopped by the Ryerson plant to see Frank in action -- the kids love it there, because they "get to" wear little hardhats to go into the warehouse part and I think the moms were impressed, too.

It was a VERY fun couple of days for us -- I hope the "grannies" had fun, too - even though the house is still not quite the way we would like it to be (OK, not even close!). They did unpack all of the boxes in the dining room - that was a job well done! Now we just have the office and the garage -- maybe we'll get to those this weekend. They were also good sports about sleeping arrangements -- the first night, Ellie and my mom slept in the same bed (Ellie didnt' want to sleep on the floor, and my mom said she "didnt' have to give up her own bed...") and Frank's mom slept in Nathan's "big boy bed" while nathan slept in his crib...in the same room! It was crazy, but everyone was very adaptable. I hope that they had enough fun to bring back positive reports to Illinois -- and encourage everyone else to come out and visit. My mom said that Omaha was "bigger than she thought it would be..." -- just like me on my first trip out here - "Oh, they DO have target here..." I know we've only been here for a week, but it was fun to show people around - it was sad to say goodbye all over again when they left.

We are anxious for our next visitors... the Hilts are coming for the fourth of July -- we are so excited -- I am already making a list of Omaha attractions to see and groceries to buy for when they are here!

And then New World Van Lines was gone...

2008-06-24T19:25:00.001-07:00

We were anxious for our furniture to arrive -- 5 days without all of your "stuff" is longer than it sounds... The "big truck" pulled up on Sunday and the same two mover guys popped out and started unloading. Two guys! Back and forth all day long -- they didn't strike me as the strongest guys ever, but impressive nonetheless - something about watching two guys carry in a piano is something else! About half way through the day, they told us that they didnt' think that they would finish on SUnday and that they would have to come back on Monday - bummer! We officially have too much stuff (mostly toys, we think) :) We unpacked what we could while they were there on Sunday, between entertaining the kids and staying out of the way. We pretty much kept up with them box for box until around noon (the morning was like half boxes and half furniture...) and then the afternoon kicked our butts -- the boxes were coming in faster and faster - too much too keep up. We did our best and did more that night after the kids were in bed -- when they came back on Monday (even though I knew it was the end) - I was dreading the onslaught of even more boxes!

We have done a decent job of putting stuff away, I think. There are certain rooms that haven't been touched yet -- the office (who really cares about flie cabinet stuff, right?) and the dining room (if we haven't used the china in 9 years, we probably don't need it unpacked today...) Otherwise, the house is starting to come together - now the work really starts -- everything is out of the boxes and in the right general area, but know we have to really organize and CLEAN everything (frank wants to hold a hand-washing seminar for the people that used to live here -- it's kind of gross - sticky cabinets - ick!)

Today, the kids and I ventured to the other"big" grocery store near our house -- this one actually counts as a "real" grocery store. The only downside is that they have those dumb carts shaped like cars (or a firetruck, as we chose today) -- I can't stand those things - they're harder to push and there is not as much space in the cart itself -- ahh, the things we do to have a little quiet time to shop in peace! And today, I needed to be able to concentrate -- I think we were actually in the store for an hour -- you take for granted that you know where everything is in your grocery store. Ugh, we made it, though. :)

Frank called at 5:42 pm to tell me that he was on his way home from work...for dinner...with us...! Throwback to the good ol' days. the only difference is that he was home by 5:53! That's Omaha "traffic" for you -- score one for Omaha.

Today we conquered the grocery store -- everyday will bring new "adventures" - stay tuned!

The Journey West

2008-06-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it. We really did it. We packed up our whole family and moved to Omaha. Sometimes I still can't believe it. After this past year of talking endlessly about moving to Omaha, it's finally here. Sort of like a wedding, I guess -- you spend so much time talking about it and planning it, that you can't believe it when the "big day" actually arrives. Well, here's how our "big day" went down.

On Thursday, the buyers of our Elk Grove house had their walkthrough (and of course, they had complaints...anyone surprised?) They thought that the storage area in the basement - yeah, the one back by the crawlspace and by the furnace and all that stuff -- was dusty and they were not pleased that there were nail holes in the walls. Are you serious? This guy is from another planet! They have never owned a house before and he just kept saying, "well, a leasing company would fill the holes and repaint..." And then captain obvious would say -- "there is no leasing company, you idiot -- YOU bought this house!" And, at the last minute they decide that they don't want the extra refrigerator in the garage (who wouldn't want another refrigerator??) and they asked us to have it removed - um, let me think about that. NO. And as a final request, at the closing, they asked our realtor if we would send a copy of all of the remodel / addition information that we had. uh, sure, we'll see if we get around to that one, too...

Friday morning, we took our time getting going. We didn't leave Schaumburg until 8:30 or 9:00. We kew it would be a long day of driving and we though it would be smart to start with everyone in a decent mood, at least. The trip was 8 hours (with two stops). It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - the kids did surprisingly well - we had bought a "surprise" new video for the trip and lots of other little things to keep them busy on the ride. My mom had sent a bag of goodies for each of the kids, too - it was great! If anyone started to whine, we would just throw back a new book or a coloring book or something. It worked well.

Since our stuff won't arrive until Sunday, we planned to stay in a hotel on Friday night. On the drive here, Ellie must have asked a million times (or maybe more) about the pool at the hotel. When would we go swimming - before or after dinner - for a long time or a little time. Would she be able to stand in the pool or would it be too deep -- one track mind ellie! When we finally pulled up to our hotel, we learned that the pool was closed for some kind of maintenance. Ellie was absolutely crushed - one of those times when you really feel what your kids are feeling. She was totally deflated. So, we quickly diverted her attention by telling her that we had a surprise waiting for her at our new house. She perked up and exclaimed, "I hope it's a puppy!" Uh, disappointment number two in 5 minutes. not a puppy. We had bought the kids little scooters (as a "moving" present and also, we knew they would have anything else to do here for a couple of days...). So, we drove to our new house and they were very excited to see the scooters and also to run around the empty house. After all, we had all been in the car ALL day, so it was a welcome release for every one!

Today (Saturday), we spent most of the day running errands and (shocker) riding scooters. We ordered the sofa for the basement, went and picked up Frank's car, which was still at the airport. I even ventured out on my own to go to Costco and the grocery store. The Costco is new here -- I had to explain to a few people how it works, "...you go on one side and your cart goes on the other side." But, I will say one good thing about Omaha so far -- running errands at 2:00 on a saturday afternoon - not so crowded. Something, I would have tried to avoid at all costs in Schaumburg! We ordered a pizza in and did a "slumber party" thing with the kids -- popcorn and a movie. It was fun.

It's a weird town and a weird house that still "smells" like another family, and I need to ask for directions to go to Costco, but somehow it still feels like "home" since we're all together in one place. Hopefully, it will feel even more like home tomorrow when our furniture arrives!
More soon. yee-haw.

New World Van Lines have arrived!

2008-06-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

I write this post from the comfort (?) of my deck, mostly because I don't know where else to be... the kids are off at Nana's house for a sleepover and the house is basically all packed up and being loaded onto the truck. There is nowhere for me to sit inside, no TV's to turn on and no snacks in the pantry (it really is true what they say, "if you don't have it in the house, you can't eat it...") They are on to something with that -- for the last two days, I have eaten meals only and you know what? I am still alive! :)
I am really glad that we have movers and packers to do all of this - there are three of them and it is going really fast! The whole house only took them 2 days (not even) to pack up - it literally would have taken me months to do what they have done so far. I guess it helps that they have all of the right supplies - they don't have to scrounge around for boxes and stuff, but still - looking at all of the boxes (ellie calls the living room "boxland" and the family room "box-e-donia"), I wonder how long it will take to get them all unpacked - ok, knowing us, not that long, but there are a TON of them. They also said that our house was going fast because it is so "organized" -- HA! I would hate to see a disorganized house, that's for sure...
The kids are reacting really well to all of this chaos - I thought they would be freaked out that their rooms were being disassembled and all of their toys boxed up, but so far, they seem completely entertained. Nathan is obsessed with the "big truck" that pulls up every morning and ellie likes to monitor progress (especially in her room). The movers also have a small dog that hangs out in the truck all day (weird) and that also provides endless entertainment for the kids. (And it also adds to the begging for a pet that has recently started)
Meanwhile, Frank spent his first night in the oma-house last night. No furniture, but he claims that it was still better than apartment living. He had an air mattress, so that's good. He spent his evening finishing the shelf paper in the kitchen and bathrooms (yes!), filling holes in the wall and starting to tape to get ready to paint. He's a productivity maniac! Knowing him, it will all be done before we get there -- which I guess is not long from now... I guess it's time (time to hook up the TiVo and get some more snacks!)
I don't know if I'll be back on again before we arrive in the wild west. The next few days are fairly loaded!

Closed on the Oma-house...

2008-06-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

I flew out to Omaha last week on thursday for the big closing of the oma-house. Here's the play by play. I anded (only slightly delayed) around 2:45 pm. Frank met me at the airport and we headed straight to the Nebraska Furniture Mart and dropped some serious coin. First, we bought a washer/dryer (the previous owners of our house took theirs with them...). Don't ask me now what we bought - I honestly don't remember (it was like 4 days ago!) :) After we left the "appliances" warehouse, we headed over to the "home furnishings" warehouse and we picked up a twin bed for Nathan - he is about due for one and we figured, if nothing else, it would serve as extra sleeping space for all of the visitors that we are expecting :) (did you all get that hint???) We started to look at sleeper sofas for the basement, but we decided that we didn't have the mental energy left for another "major" furniture purchase.

We went to our new house at 6:00 pm on Thursday night for the final walkthrough. It was all well, except for a couple of things -- there were major stains on the basement carpeting that were obviously and purposefully hidden under furniture when we went through previously - and we're not talking normal wear and tear type of stains -- we're talking like hi-lighter markers explosions, wine stains, and maybe even a murder or two - it was unbelievable - and sort of impressive that they could cover it all up with their furniture... Anyhoo, we (our realtor) complained and we got the sellers to cough up some cash for carpet (not the whole amount, but anything is better than nothing, we figured...)

After the walkthrough, we went to dinner at "the club" - la-dee-da! It is nice - I am anxious to take the kids to the pool there. Dinner was good -- extremely quiet - there were only like 3 tables "full" that night. After dinner, we went to Target to pick up the "move-in" necessities - TP, water, pop, shelf paper, etc.

Friday morning, we finished packing Frank up at his apartment -- he could not WAIT to get out of the Biltmore! Can't blame him, I guess. We stopped for a quick bite at Panera and then it was off to the closing - fastest closing we have ever been a part of! 30 minutes at the most. In Nebraska, they don't really use real estate lawyers - I am convinced that they are the ones that really slow down the whole process! I could not believe how smoothly it all went.

After the closing, we went to Home Depot (paint, mostly! Lilac for Ellie, "Madras Blue" for Nathan, and "classic taupe" for who knows what, but we are truly "taupe" people!) Then, we went to "carpetland" to order up some new carpet for the basement. We figured it might be smart to try to get in installed before we have furniture arrive. When all was said and done, we finally got to our house around 11:00 am. Frank enjoyed to spaciousness of the 3 car garage by pulling in the car sideways (it was hilarious, but I don't know if we need to be "those" people in the neighborhood!). The washer and dryer were delivered around 11:15. Then, Frank went back to the apartment to turn in his keys and get the rest of his stuff. I stayed at the house and cleaned out the fridge (like for 3 hours! Why is it that other people's dirt is so much more disgusting than your own?) When Frank got back with lunch (around 2:00) -- Arby's, of course -- we started with the shelf paper in the kitchen. I think it will be nice to be able to just put stuff awa when it arrives. Even with the two of us working on it, it's such a slow job! We worked on that until it was time to leave for the airport, around 4:30... whew!

We crammed a lot into those two days -- it was a weird time. I was split between being really excited and really depressed. I have a feeling that is was the next few months will be like.
This week, me and the kids are here with the movers, and Frank is in Omaha, trying to do a few more things before we all get there... more soon!

One more thing on last week's tornadoes

2008-06-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Frank was reading the Omaha newspaper this morning and found this article. If you look at the map that shows the paths of the tornadoes, it's a surprise that our house wasn't hit -- if you can find the intersection of 180th and F Street, our house is just a little bit east and a little bit south of that -- yep, right in the shaded area - the path of the tornado! Yikes! (Good thing that there's a basement!)

http://omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10355041

We are hooked up!

2008-06-10T18:46:00.001-07:00

I think that we are all hooked up on the OMaha end of things as far as utilities (went for the "unlimited long distance" phone plan...we'll be calling!). Perhaps the weirdest thing about how they do things "out west" is their garbage pick-up. Here, everyone on our street uses Waste Management and we all put out our trash on Monday nights and on Tuesday morning, the truck moves systematically down the street and takes all of the trash. I was having the hardest time finding the phone number for the trash pick-up service in Omaha. Frank asked someone at work about it and here's the scoop -- there are 4 or 5 garbage pick-up companies and you just choose whoever you want. So, everyone on our street might have a different pick-up day because we all might use different companies. That is just so bizarre to me -- it doesn't seem to faze anyone out there, of course. So, we chose Abe's Trash pick-up (they all have real "local" names like that, too.) We'll see how it pans out...

I'm gearing up for my trip on Thursday to go to the closing - we are going to try to cram a lot in - another trip to the furniture mart, dinner at the "club," walkthrough, closing, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. It should be fun to see the place again and get a good solid list going of all of the things that need to get done in the near future after we get there.

A full report to follow - :)

The Deal is (finally and officially) Done!

2008-06-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

Well, we thought we would never see the day... our buyers have officially and finally signed off on whatever paper they needed to sign off on to make this deal done! Of course, this last step did not occur without worry... it took them 5 days from the day of the walkthrough to sign the frickin' (is that really a word?) paper. The relocation company was like, "if we don't get that paper from them by tomorrow, you won't be able to get all of your $$ on the closing date." Ugh! After all of this hassle... but anyhow, it's done. It is not our problem anymore. I guess we have technically sold the house over to the relocation company and on the closing date, the house will be sold from the relo company to the buyers. And we do not have to go to the closing, so we will never have to see these freak-oid buyers - thank goodness!

In other (happier) closing news -- I am flying out to Omaha this week on Thursday to go to the final walkthrough and closing (Friday morning) of our new house. The kids are excited to have "one last" sleepover at Grandma's before we move and I think that it will be good for Frank and I to go out there together and start to "re-build" some kind of a cohesive life (too dramatic?) You know what I mean. Let's start building something back up, instead of tearing it down here. I mean, I spent a few hours last week cancelling all of our utilities here - it will be nice to set them up somewhere new. Instead of trying to eat everything in our pantry, it will be nice to go to the store to buy new stuff and bring it in.

Frank will be heading back to Omaha bright and early tomorrow morning - earlier than he had planned - because he learned today that the plant was damaged by a tornado that went through Eastern Nebraska. (My first thought..."Is the plant still there? Do we still have a job there? Do we still have to move? Of course, we are still going...) :) Poor Frank - sometimes it stinks to be the one in charge... Anyways, here's a snapshot of the "missing wall" of the warehouse there:

So, in addition to mall shootings, there are also tornadoes? Now, what list was it that ranked Omaha as the number 3 city to live in? Just kidding, I'm sure it will be just fine!

Last Day of School

2008-06-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Well, the last day of school has come and gone... it was actually not as sad as I thought it might be. Probably all of the familiar "last day of school" feelings of euphoria took over the "oh my gosh, I'm not coming back her next year" feelings. There were a few more goodbyes than there usually are and lots more hugs (I generally don't hug many people at work...) As I was pulling out of the parking lot for the last time this year, I mostly just felt a huge sense of relief. I can't believe that this LONG school year is finally over - I don't ever have to get up and get the kids ready by myself again. I don't have to get up at 5:00 am for a while (OK, the kids occasionally get up at 5:00 -- but it's different than when the alarm goes off and you have to jump right in the shower...)

The last day of daycare was also today - definitely more sad for me than for the kids. I sent them each with treats to celebrate their last day... (smarties for Nathan's class -- the kid loves smarites even more than he loves arby's!) They are both ready for the "home days" of summer so they were excited about all of the "last day attention," but I'm not sure if they really completely get it yet. They both seemed a little weirded out by all of the "fanfare" as we left school today -- every teacher was hugging them and hugging me -- kind of like, "what's the big deal?" they were thinking. Ellie's pre-K teachers convinced her to send a picture and write a letter once we get to Omaha and they promised to write back. Ellie seemed interested in this idea -- "pen-pals" -- cute!

We also left daycare with each of the kids' portfolios - the daycare center really does a nice job of "documenting" their days there. There are pictures of them doing different things, art projects, observations, teacher write-ups. Like any scrapbook, it's really fun to look back and remember each age. The only thing that strikes me as odd is the whole "educational spin" they have to put on everything... "Ellie is practicing her early math skills and her creativity skills and her self-help skills and her social skills as she creates a picture using a square shaped stamp." And then there's a picture of a 15 month old Ellie with a blank stare and paint all over her face. It's cute, but does everything have to be part of "curriculum?"

Well, as I do every summer, I think I'm going to have to develop some kind of "stay at home" plan so that I can maintain my sanity, but for the next day or two, we plan to just be lazy summer stay at home-ers!

More soon -

Getting even closer...

2008-06-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Seems like the sentiment hasn't changed much from a couple of weeks ago... and I guess the inevitable is happening - the move to Omaha is getting even closer still!

We had the Oma-hoedown here last night - seems hard to believe that it will be the last time that we will squeeze all of our family members in here at the same time... It's sort of ironic - the Omaha house would comfortably fit everyone and there will probably never be a time when they will all be there at once! :) I really have been doing well, I think, not getting too "weepy," but there are some big milestones coming - the last day of school tomorrow. Maybe when I actually drag out all of the boxes of stuff that I've been packing up in my classroom, it will seem a little bit more real. I'm terrible at good-byes - it will be tough to say all the farewells, tomorrow. But, knowing me, I will just conitnue the "denial" attitude that's gotten me this far... just moving to Omaha, no big deal, right?

The buyers of our house (the house officially has a "SOLD" sign on it...) came through today to check out all of the repair work that we had done - this sounds like another obnoxious request by them, but actually, it was our idea. See, once they sign off on the repairs, we get our money from the relo company and the whole thing is out of our hands... they came through and were apparently satisfied with everything, so that's good - they just have to sign that last form (of course, they want their lawyer to look it over first!) and the deal is done. Our realtor was here with them as well. She said (and I guess this makes me feel better) that the wife is actually very nice and "normal" and is so excited about moving into our house because she loves it so much. Just as we suspected - she was the one keeping this whole deal together! Meanwhile, the husband is interrogating the realtor about how we were going to be moving, becasue "[I] want to make sure that none of the walls are damaged." Oh, give it a rest! And they have a 4 year old daughter that "can't wait" to take over the pink room. Ellie's room. Sad. (OK, that one's not their fault - that's just sentimentality taking over!) Anyhow, I secretly hope they have another child soon and find out that the house gets real small real fast!

Well, one more day of school -- lots of moving logistics to start planning -
many more posts coming, I just don't know how often I can get them up! :)
Thanks for reading!

Getting closer...

2008-05-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

Getting closer to what, I'm not sure. I guess we are getting closer to the end of the school year. Only two weeks left. Even though Frank leaves on the early (6 am) flight tomorrow and doesn't come home until Friday afternoon (I call these the "all 10" weeks, referring to the fact that I will do all 10 of the drop offs and pick ups this week) -- somehow it doesn't seem too overwhelming this week - maybe because there are not many left. Maybe because I have little to nothing to do at work these days - frees up my nights a little bit. Maybe because I am so tired of thinking about moving to Omaha - that it might be better to just go and do it.

We have the movers set to come on Monday, June16th to start the "pack and load" -- it will take them four days - they will drive our stuff to Omaha on Friday the 20th, but they won't deliver it to us at our Oma-house until Monday, June 23rd. Frank and I intend to make a list of all of the stuff that we won't want packed for that week -- it's crazy how much work it seems like we'll have to do even though the movers are technically doing "everything" -- we'll see.

In other (fun Omaha) news - we are gearing up for the Oma-hoedown! We are anticipating this to be our most "theme-driven" party yet! Costumes are not required, but Ellie WILL be wearing her new hot pink cowboy (cowgirl) boots -- we are looking forward to it - Maybe when we get to Omaha, we can throw a "chicago" party for you when you come to visit... :)

Here's to another week - only 2 left (of school, that is...)

Moving Logistics

2008-05-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

Well, the deal with our buyers is still not "done" - we have invested quite a bit of time in home repairs and home repair research. This part of the process is taking entirely longer than it needs to take... I am not sure what the deal is, but I'll be glad when it's over.

We had New World Van Lines come out last week to do their "inventory" of our house and estimate how long it will take to pack it all up and ship it out. The man that came totally reminded me of my grandpa dykstra - he was like the first interaction I've had with this whole move that was actually pleasant. He spent most of the time (while he worked, of course) talking (a mile a minute!) about his kids and bragging about his grandkids and talking to ellie and nathan. He said that it would take them 3 or 4 days to "pack and load" and then of course, a day of "travel." He didn't say how long it would take to unload and unpack, but it's looking like a good week for the whole job. ugh! Now, we have to think logisitcs -- we close on our house in Omaha on June 13th, so maybe the following week would be good - give us some time to clean the house and get it ready to just out stuff away when it arrives.

Otherwise, time is marching on -- so much to do and NEVER enough time. Work is starting to wind down for the school year, which is the only thing keeping me sane at this point. ONly four weeks left and every week is different, but at least for this week, I have a "glass is half full" mentality - after all, we have done 7 months of this, what's one more?

OK, I think our buyers are being unreasonable!

2008-04-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

I think I hit some sort of a wall with this whole "moving to Omaha" thing. It has been nice to have the house off the market and not being shown every other minute, but it just seems like we can't put an end to the deal.

Just to re-cap, the relocation company did their own home inspection on our house in EGV and found three things that we would have to fix, even if it came to taking the buy-out offer: the front step, the sagging deck and some suspicious mold in the basement (yikes!). Our buyers had their own inspection done and wanted a whole list of things fixed (but they made no mention of the whole mold thing, so that's a big relief!) Maybe their inspector decided that it really wasn't a "bad mold" thing or maybe even not a mold thing at all. But, they did want us to fix the deck, the front porch, and lots of other little things. We pretty much agreed to all but two or three of their requests -- one thing they wanted us to do was have the heating and AC "certified" to be in good working condition. For some reason, this seems ridiculous to me. They have purchased a home warranty and we have all of our receipts for cleaning and maintenance on the systems -- we told them they work fine (I know, why should they believe us) and we also said that they are more than welcome anytime to come and have it looked at by whoever they want - we're just not doing it... I mean, come on! I think their realtor is even getting annoyed with them. (Not as much as us, but...)

Not much else to report on the Omaha front - looks like we're still going...
Here's to another long week!

Inspection on 1776

2008-04-22T18:49:00.000-07:00

Not much to report, lately. Our buyers had the inspection done on this place a week ago yesterday. they finally came back today with a list of stuff for us to fix. (funny thing is, a lot of the things on their list are the same things that we asked to have fixed when we bought this place 3 years ago.) The list was actually not as ridiculous as it could have been coming from these people. I'm not saying that we'll fix everything on the list, but I don't think we should lose the deal because they're unreasonable...

Frank has been home this week (he flies out tomorrow morning) -- I feel like I've been on vacation! Sleeping in until 5:15 and only having to get one kid dressed in the morning and one kid ready for bed at night, not doing the drop-offs or pick-ups - what a nice break! It's times like these that I look forward to being in Omaha -- well, OK, not really being in Omaha, but at least all being in the same town!

More news later, I'm sure...

Deal or No Deal

2008-04-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

Melissa has relinquished the computer so that I could add my first "post" to this blog thing. She says it's what all the cool kids are doing.

This week has seen its ups and downs. It seems that forces are conspiring against us to make sure this move is as annoying as possible. This week our buyers decided they no longer liked the closing date and wanted $1,000 to see the deal through on the original date. A rational person would have recognized that this was not significant and found a way to work it out. I told our realtor that the buyers could go to hell. I think the lack of sleep might be getting to me because I added a few other choice words as well. Fortunately, that's where an agent comes in handy. She cleaned it up and told the "buyers" that the date could not be moved up or bought. Theoretically, the signed papers are on their way over tonight. We'll see if this ever gets done.

In the meantime, the relocation company has discovered a problem with the title. Something about unpaid taxes from the previous owner. You would think that type of thing would have been settled before we moved in.

Lastly, our new house is infected with radon, whatever that is. One website describes our house's radon level as being the equivalent risk of dying in a fall. Well Nathan survived flopping down the stairs, so we'll roll the dice! Actually, the owners agreed to remediation and it seems like a relatively inexpensive fix. Don't worry, you can visit us without wearing radioactive masks.

Omaha is not all bad though! If you are missing any of your favorite restaurant chains from years past there is an abundance of Arby's and Little Caesar's as well as a Sizzler or two. Come visit us and relive your past.

SOLD!

2008-04-09T19:20:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it -- we sold (out) -- We ended up striking a deal with the "come back to see the house for the third time with the list of improvements" people. We were in the middle of a stand-off with them (over a lousy $5,000) when Frank gets a call from our realtor - there was another offer... I was all "great - let's pit them against each other and we'll get into some kind of big bidding war and drive the price way up." Uh, no such luck. The second offer that came in was a cooky single guy engineer that had calculated (by some formula of his own) what our house was worth (very close to the buy-out, incidentally) -- and he wanted to close on May 13th, which would obviously not work. I mean, I could use some help around here, but I don't want another roommate at this point. :) We didn't tell him about the other offer - we just said, "no, you have to close on OUR date and you have to pay at least X and we need your answer by tomorrow morning." He countered with - "OK, I'll agree to your date, but I won't raise my price." Offer rejected, and we were right back to where we started - only one offer (not the best, not the worst) on the table.

So, enough is enough - we settled at a price lower than we thought we would (isn't that always the way?) It's the ol' "the market will tell you what your home is worth" -- we had three offers and they all stopped going up at the same number - I guess that's it - done! Our realtor said that we could probably hold out for another buyer and we might get $5000 more dollars. Uh, not worth it - we are so done with it all - I can't believe it's been only a month! Let me know when I can stop making the beds and let the hampers fill up and abandon the "No Towel Left Behind" Law in the bathroom and kitchen. I mean, we don't ever really live like slobs, but the super neat-ness is starting to wear on me.

Frank went to the home inspection on our house in Omaha - like any house, there was a list of things that were "wrong" with the house, but (I haven't seen the list yet) Frank says that none of them are "deal-breakers" so that's good. Frank took about 40 more pictures of the inside of the house. It's amazing how much I DON'T remember about it - I could have sworn that the family room had hardwood - nope, carpet. Lots of stuff like that. I will be anxious to see it again in person :)

It's getting late and I better "gear up" for the morning and another day -
More later -

Can we just sell this dump already??

2008-04-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

The high of last week's Omaha home purchase is but a distant memory... we had another failed offer on our house last week (on Thursday). We decided that we have become a bit more "motivated" to sell since the last offer and we played the negotiations totally differently this time - making our "big moves" first. Long story short, these buyers are using zillow.com to gauge how much they are willing to offer -- I don't know about you all, but I haven't found zillow to be the most accurate website around - We also found out the buy-out amount this weekend -- can you say low, low, low, low, . . . hmmm.... it's like we're playing Deal or No Deal here. We know the banker's offer - do we wait for another case to be presented, or do we take the sure offer that we have now (which is not far above the buy-out). Where's Howie Mandel when you need him?

I guess these last buyers are not gone forever, but they came through for a third time today to see what they wanted to counter offer and the word we got was that they were going to have to think "long and hard" about whether or not they thought our house was worth any more than their last offer... their original logic was, "you paid X for it 3 years ago and now you're listing it for X?" They had no idea that we had put on an addition... they reconsidered their offer then, but they wanted a list of all of the improvements that we had made to the house. Frank sent it over to them - that's why they wanted to come over today - so they could compare the list that Frank sent to the actual house - weird!

So, I guess we wait for them and everyone else who has been looking at this place! I'm ready to be done with all of this...

More when I have something positive to say. :)

One more picture from the trip...

2008-04-03T06:27:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of the "Education Station" (the pre-school building of the Imagination Station) -- we were able to squeeze in a quick tour before we drove to the airport on Tuesday morning. It is pretty cute in there. Ellie is excited, but she is really a mini-us...she is already worried about what she is going to bring when it's our turn to do snacks... :) Can we worry about that one in September, Ellie?

Omaha - Spring Break Trip

2008-04-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

So much to report -- here are the highlights by category... :)

TRAVELING: Well, I was feeling a little bit guilty about having Frank fly home from Omaha on Friday night, only to turn around and fly back with all of us on Saturday morning - then home with us today, only to turn around and fly back to omaha tomorrow morning. But, let me tell you - it was a struggle with BOTH of us -- I don't think I could have physically done it by myself! Between the stroller and the car seats and all the bags... it would have been impossible for me, I think. The kids were both troopers, though - Ellie wheeled her princess suitcase through the whole airport (and we took off from the "C" concourse)! She was practically running at times to keep up - but she was so excited, she didn't seem to mind. She loved the "walking sidewalks" but she insisted on standing still on them - after all, what was the magic in being on a moving walkway, if you had to move, too? Once on the plane, both kids did great. Nathan had gone to two-year old heaven - apple juice, goldfish crackers and Elmo playing on the DVD player -- and take off and landing did not faze him in the least. Ellie was interested in looking out the window and putting her tray table up and down and putting her seat back and up. It is a short flight, but no problems either way. And once we got to Omaha, one of the first people we see in the terminal has on a cowboy hat, so Ellie starts shrieking, "Is that a REAL cowboy, mom? He has a hat and a whole cowboy suit! COOL!" I didn't know how to respond, really, so I just said, "yes, it's a real cowboy...don't point..."

FOOD: OK, so not much to report here - we did the typical vacation, lots of fast food thing. Ellie and Nathan were glad to see that there was McDonalds and Panera and Subway in Omaha. I was also able to introduce them to one of my favorites... Arby's. I know we have them in Chicago, but we really don't have any near our house. In Omaha, it's like Starbucks is here -- one on just about every corner. Nathan loves roast beef, apparently -- he just about out-ate me on the Arby's sandwiches -- a kid after my own heart! We also ventured to an Omaha attraction for dinner on Monday night -- the Amazing Pizza Machine. The kids liked it, and it was OK for a Monday night because it was empty. basically, it's a glorified Show-biz Pizza or a chuck-e-cheese. It was a big buffet (food not bad, actually) and then lots of kid gaming -- arcade, little kiddie rides, play-land stuff, and for bigger kids - bumper cars, bowling, go carts, mini-golf - the whole nine yards. Vegas for kids - they loved it and it was fine for us... we were glad to do something fun for them after dragging them house hunting for the third day in a row...

HOUSE HUNTING: Frank had done a LOT of good pre-work here - he and the realtor had gone to see 20-30 houses in the last 2 weeks. And Frank had narrowed to field to the top 5. On Saturday, we went to see them all (yes, after traveling and after no naps for anyone...it went alright, actually). We deliberated on Saturday night, went back to the internet and found 4 more to see the next day (new ones that none of us had seen before). We deliberated on Sunday night and decided to visit our top three again one more time on Monday (all of which were from Frank's original picks, by the way...) Here they are:

This one is in "The Grove" (everybody refers to where they live by the name of the subdivision...and it's ALL subdivisions in Omaha). This is the house we wanted to love so much -- it is by far the "prettiest" house that we saw -- it was the most like "new construction" that we saw. It was decorated most like us of the three and it was definitely the "oooooh... ahhhhh" house that we saw. The cons -- a small kitchen, a small master bedroom and a small finished basement space with no bathroom (funny to talk about this house being small -- since it is nearly twice the size of what we have now, but it's all relative, I guess, once you get to Omaha. Also, it's in a neighborhood that I can only liken to Plainfield -- plenty of people live there, but it just seems like it's at the edge of the world somehow. Seems like a newer subdivision than it is (built in '01) because there are still lots of houses being built and lots of empty lots. We probably won't buy this one, no matter how badly we wanted it to work. (And this, coincidentally, was Ellie's favorite, because there was a pink bedroom... by the end of the weekend, she had a better handle on the fact that we could paint any of the bedrooms pink in any of the houses...) Anyways, on to choice #2:

This one is in "Dickinson's Landing" (next time you see Ellie, you have to ask her to say the name of the subdivision... it's hilarious!) As Frank puts it, this house has been "lived in and loved" -- it was built in 1998 (antique by Omaha standards...). This house had a good floorplan, a nice kitchen - granite countertops and all that jazz, a big walk-out basement (never knew how much we would want a walk-out basement until we saw some...), one of the biggest master bedrooms / bathrooms / closets I've ever seen (like, borderline weird, but...). It was just a great house in a good neighborhood -- our only hesitation was that we had sort of set our sights on a subdivision called "Cinnamon Creek..." On to option #3 --

This one is in "Cinnamon Creek" -- a neighborhood that we decided that we liked (just from driving around) and it was a good house -- maybe not as great of a house as Dickinson's Landing, but would be more than adequate for us -- second floor laundry, a huge kitchen (but with laminate countertops...oooh....). The basement had lots of storage space, but it wasn't a walkout. It was the biggest house we looked at overall (and the most expensive), and it was brick and vinyl (vinyl is very rare in Omaha). Our question to answer now, is: Do we want a great house in a good neighborhood or a good enough house in a great neighborhood? And is Cinnamon Creek really a better neighborhood than D.L. or is that just something that Frank and I have cooked up in our minds? The realtor assured us that both neighborhoods were fine, so back to the deliberations again... we'll keep you posted on this one for sure!

THE FUN STUFF: And of course, house-hunting was no fun for the kids, especially by day three. So, we had to filter in just enough stuff for them to enjoy, too. When we arrived at Frank's apartment, the living room had two air mattresses for them to sleep on - one with an Ariel blanket and one with a Thomas blanket -- they thought that was cool. That Frank, he was so excited that we were all coming -- he had the place stocked with popcorn, apple juice, goldfish crackers -- all the favorites! Ellie and Nathan both go a big kick out of the "slumber party" set-up. It was cute. We stayed at a hotel on Sunday night, just to have a pool - something fun to make it seem more like a "vacation" -- it was a typical holiday-inn express indoor pool - nothing special, really, but very fun for them! On Monday morning, we woke up to POURING rain - thunderstorms, really. This was the day we had planned to go to the "famous" omaha zoo -- we were second guessing our plan. We took our time getting started, we went by Frank's office to meet and greet people there (he wanted to show off the kids, I think!). After we left there (still in the pouring rain), we were maybe thinking about switching it up to do the children's museum instead. As our luck would have it, the Children's Museum was not open on Mondays, so... off to the zoo we went. When we got to the zoo, the rain magically stopped and we literally had the place to ourselves! (Like, I think there were 7 other cars in the parking lot). We only stayed for a couple of hours at the most - we saw the big things - their aquarium, their "desert dome" and the rainforest / jungle. It was a very nice zoo -- even worth traveling from Chicago to visit... :)

NATHAN: This kid is clumsy, but luckily fairly indestructable to this point. His weekend included a fall in the zoo parking lot to the tune of a fat lip and a bloody nose (and something in his mouth was bleeding, too... he seems fine now), countless head injuries on the glass tables in Frank's apartment and (to no fault of his own) a croup attack on Monday night that kept us all up longer than we wanted to be. Step one when we get to Omaha - find that kid a pediatirician and the closest E.R. !

It was a great weekend - I can say that I am more excited about the whole thing, now that I've seen some houses, toured the Imagination Station and can just generally more imagine our day to day lives there -- I'll think of more later, I'm sure - but those are the highlights!

First offer... the highs and the lows...

2008-03-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves as the first offer was made on our house. Let me set the scene - it was Monday, March 17th -- 5:25 pm. The kids and I were settling down to our pizza bagel dinner (a staple with Frank out of town) and green milk (it was all I could come up with at the last minute for a little st. patty's day "fun"), when our realtor called and asked if a couple could come through for a second look . . . they would be there in about 20 minutes. Well, we had been home from school for a couple of hours and we had managed to ransack most of the rooms in the house - we had already played in (i.e. trashed) the basement, both of the kids bedrooms, the family room, and of course, the kitchen had been pizza bageled. Nathan is usually quite a disaster when anything with a red sauce is involved. Oh, and I should mention that I was already well into my "comfy clothes." I was proud of myself - I told the realtor we could not be out in 20 minutes - we would need more like 30-40 minutes. She agreed and the kids and I ate, cleaned up and packed up in the car with plenty of books to keep us occupied. (It was raining and getting dark - the usual going to the park wasn't going to work this time.) I thought we could drive to a gas station (far away), fill up, and return home to an empty house. By the time we had been driving around for about 10 minutes, the realtor called and said that since I "couldn't be ready on time" the people had stopped for dinner and they wouldn't even get to our house until around 6:45 pm -- ugh! I had to resort to one of my least favorite places - the library - I figured they're open late, gets us out of the rain, out of the car and the kids love running around in there. Ellie wasn't sure that we could go in because I was in my "jammies" -- so we had a little talk about the difference between jammies and comfy clothes - (It wasn't my best look, but hey...)

Long story, but in the end, they liked our house enough to make an offer (a low one!) We countered back and forth a couple of times and we were still $20,000 apart. Neither party was motivated enough to buy or sell. I guess we figure we have enough time at this point to be a little bit choose-y. The appraisers are still coming in to work up the buy-out offer. Maybe after we have that number, we will have a better idea about how low we can go on the sale price. the buy-out offer might be so low that we'll be begging the Fockers (that's what Frank calls them - the husband was a "male nurse") for their low-ball offer. We might not be done with them yet.
There conitunes to be "interest" -- we showed the house every day this week and 5 more times yesterday, so maybe someone else will want it, too.

Frank is going out to look at more houses this week in Omaha - trying to narrow it down for us to make a decision when we go out for spring break - ahhh, break! Seems so far away, still...
Probably won't update until we get back from our Omaha-gone-wild vacation -- (Tuesday, 4/1), but it should be a good one - complete with a play by play and plenty of pictures!

First Week on the Market

2008-03-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

We have "survived" the first week of the house being on the market. There has been a lot of "acitivity" and "interest" but no offers yet. We have had about 12 or 13 "showings" and an open house that drew in 26 additional buyers. Apparently there was one open house-er that was not currently working with an agent, but was "very interested." (Maybe it was the fact that the house "smells like garbage" is what she liked the best...) :) We asked Sandy not to work as a dual agent, so she referred her to another agent and she thinks that we should be expecting an offer from her after she gets her financing in order. We are hopeful, but we're trying not to get too excited until we actually see an offer (and see what it is...)

We asked our realtor if any of our nosy neighbors came through the open house. She said that the only neighbor (that fessed up to being a neighbor, anyways) that came through was Rosemary. Rosemary and Tom are the older couple that live next door to us. They are really not the busy-body types. Apparently one of Rosemary's friends is looking to buy in our subdivision. How cute! I hope SHE buys it - then she can live right next door to Rosemary and they can have coffee together every day (I've got it all worked out!) -- Hey, but only if she pays a good price - no deals, even for friends of Rosemary! :)

All of the action on the house is certainly a good thing, but we are hoping that weekends in the future will be a little less "active." Between all of the hours that we had to be out of the house and the hours of grading that I brought home, it was not a very restful weekend, but productive, nonetheless. And I think amidst it all, Ellie still had a great birthday weekend (thanks to all of you - thank you for coming out to help her celebrate!)

Frank is going house hunting in Omaha tomorrow night - really, just looking at some of the houses that we've been admiring online. We'll see what they look like in person... a full report to follow!

Have a great week!

The Leave of Absence...

2008-03-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

Just read the minutes from the school board meeting -- they approved my leave for next year! (Although they classified it as "family / maternity" leave -- family, OK -- maternity, not so much... :)
(Frank's not here so I thought I would share the news with you all...)
What a relief (any reason to come back to Chicago and family is a good one - even if it's WORK!) :)

The house must be on the market - a few cars driving back and forth in front of our house really slowly -- I should probably get out of the front windows in my sweats - they'll think it's some kind of slummy, run down joint...

More later this week (when the house is sold) - just kidding!

On the Market

2008-03-10T16:48:00.001-07:00

Well, we have listed the house and it's officially "on the market." Spread the word - if anyone's looking for a cozy little place in EGV - there's one more for sale! The listing process is fairly painless, but a little crazy nonetheless. It's on the market "exclusively to Baird and Warner agents" for 24 hours, it will be in the MLS tomorrow night (Tuesday) and then there's the "brokers' tour" in Elk Grove on Thursday. Who can figure it out -- I guess it's technically on the market, but you won't find it on realtor.com until later in the week.

If anything, I will become more saavy with my cell phone. I promptly gave the realtor my cell number as the "best way" to get a hold of me. Then, after she left - I had Frank give me a refresher course on how to check my messages on the cell phone. Funny thing, as he was showing me how to check the voicemail (I really knew... it was more of a refresher course...) :) there was already a message waiting for me... from Frank - from January 31st! Timely.

And my new cell phone prowess was put to the test today - day #1. Our realtor was supposed to meet the photographer here this afternoon. As I was leaving school, I took out my cell phone (of course, school policy prohibits cell phones in the building). :) Sure enough, there was a message from the realtor (Sandy is her name -- I'll just call her that from now on - I'm sure she'll be blog worthy many times in the coming weeks / months...). Apparently she was having trouble with the set of keys that we gave her -- she couldn't get in the house to take the damn pictures. I'm still not sure if we gave her "bad" keys or if she just couldn't get them to work. In either case, she didn't get in and even my immediate cell phone message-checking could not salvage the situation. Oh well - we'll be "that house" on realtor.com with no picutres, at least for now. She said she was coming back on Friday (Frank is working from home that day, so maybe he can let her in... maybe). :)

The worst part of the whole thing is that I am likely going to give myself an ulcer from the constant straightening -- chasing the kids around picking up the play-doh so we can get out the puzzles. Getting out the swiffer after every meal (no, I didn't used to do that). Making the kids' beds everymorning (no, I didnt' used to do that either). Standing by with a clorox wipe so that when they brush their teeth and the little glob of toothpaste lands only sort of in the sink, I can wipe it up quick before it crusts over. I need to chill out a little bit, but I can't. I can just imagine the feedback - "the house is alright, but the diaper genie was ripe -- deal-breaker!"

I'll keep you posted. There should be asign in the yard before Ellie's birthday... (and an Open house on her birthday - lucky girl...)

Realtor #3

2008-03-02T17:10:00.000-08:00

As you might remember, we "interviewed" 2 real estate agents that could potentially list (and hopefully sell) our house. The two numbers that they came up with were vastly different, so we were advised by the relo company to interview a third realtor. We were pretty nervous that the thrid realtor might agree with the "low" number from realtor #2, but we invited her over anyways - better to know the truth in advance than to be delusional and list our house at what we might WANT it to be worth... So, realtor #3 came in, took the same pictures, gave us the same talk about her marketing plan and everything her real estate company could offer that no one else's could. We listened, anxious for her to get to the bottom line -- the price tag! We were happy to hear that she agreed (more or less) with realtor #1, and we may not lose tens of thousands of dollars on this house after all. I mean, I know it's not sold yet, but at least the comparisons looked reasonable and more in the same ballpark as the first agent. In other (sort of unrelated) house news - the house across the street from us went on the market this week -- and it's a bank owned / forclosure situation going on -- apparently the place is a mess, but it is definitely "priced to sell" -- I am glad that the price tag on that house does not really influence the price tag on ours.
Now we just have to choose an agent - we hope to be listed by next weekend (something for me to blog about!)

Let's see, what else. We are tentatively planning to take the whole family out to O-ma-ma the first weekend of my spring break (like leaving on Saturday, the 29th and coming home on Tuesday, April 1st). Frank is going to try to preview some homes between now and then and hopefully we can make a final decision while we are there. We figure being there 3 days or so will give us enough time to hit the zoo or something with the kids and also to have some productive realtor time. We are only debating whether we should drive (ugh!) or fly (also an Ugh!) -- I mean, I'm sure the trip is painless either way - please do not be deterred from visiting! :)

Imagination Station update - Frank dropped off the check last week, so Ellie and Nathan are officially on the waiting list / registered for the fall - they (mostly ellie) are very excited about the "new school."

That's all for this week - hopefully the post next weekend will have a picture of the house with a sign in the yard (and a "SOLD" on top... ok, wishful thinking...)

More later -

More Realtors, More Preschools, ...

2008-02-24T07:58:00.000-08:00

This week's news revolves mostly around realtor progress (or lack of) and preschool progress.
First, the realtors -- we had two realtors come in to do "reports" for the relocation company. They were both very different - and they came up with two totally different numbers for what they thought we could sell our house for. Of course, we would like to think that the "high" number is more accurate (but maybe that's because the "low" number was 10% LESS than what we paid for the house three years ago...before we did the addition.) I know that we bought in '05 -- when the prices were so inflated, but it's still depressing to think that the last three years in this house could set us back so many thousands of dollars... Both realtors were asked by the relo company to "re-do" their reports. The "high" realtor lowered her list price slightly (but kept the "sell" preice the same) and the "low" realtor has yet to turn in her new report. We don't like her - she is just not interested in our little house. I am trying not to get too stressed out about this whole realtor thing - the numbers that will really matter are the ones from the appraisals - those are the ones that determine the buyout offer from the relo company.

Now to the Omaha realtor -- Frank met with him last week. The good news is that the Omaha housing market IS just as bad as it is here (so whoever we buy from will be losing money on their house, too!). The realtor asked Frank what we "needed" in our house out there and Frank proceeded to list off a bunch of things that we absolutely could never afford here -- at least 4 bedrooms, 3 car garage, hardwood floors, updated kitchen, full finished basement,... Even in our price range, the realtor didn't even flinch - seems like most of those things are fairly standard in Omaha -- it might be kind of fun to house shop on the Nebraska end. Although there seem to be a lot of houses with a second kitchen in the basement, which I think is weird - but who knows - maybe there would be occasions when I needed to make two dinners at once, or maybe I would feel like cooking something, but wouldn't want to walk ALL the way upstairs. :)

On to preschools - Yes, the Imagination Station is still the front runner. Frank went to a couple more "upscale" daycare type settings this week -- Primrose school and Goddard School. He said that the buildings were impressive - brand new, "wow" when you drive up kind of buildings. But, Frank said that the "teachers" looked like they were about 18 (OK, maybe we're just getting old -- they could have been much older than that) and overall, not nearly as "homey." They also didn't have a specific preschool program - and one of them "didn't recommend" 2-3 half days per week for someone Ellie's age, because by the time the kids are 4, they really have a curriculum and it might be confusing for her to be doing the letter "W" on Monday and when she comes back on Wednesday, they would on a different letter... really? Somehow, that doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal. Frank thought they were pretty full of themselves. He has already filled out the application for the Imagination Station and he's going to drop it off this week!

One of our next missions is to plan a trip for the whole family to head out there, probably over spring break. It might be a good time to buy a house by the first week in April, and it might be kind of fun to get the kids a sneak peek at the new stomping grounds.

Of course, more next week... :)

The Moving Process Begins...

2008-02-17T16:46:00.000-08:00

We have officially gotten the ball rolling on the physical move to Omaha (and we thought it was a lot of work to move from the townhouse to this one - HA!) We met with two different realtors this weekend that could potentially help us sell this house. As everyone knows, it is not the greatest market to try to sell a house, but so it goes - we sort of don't have a choice, so we'll make the best of it. The two realtors that we met with were pretty different - we think we know who we are going to go with, but who knows if it's going to be the right decision (any realtor we have ever chosen in the past has proven to be basically worthless, so we don't have a lot of confidence in our choosing abilities).

Another thing that our realtor meetings produced was a lot of "to do"s -- they each had a list of gripes about our house. Frank spent some time and money at Home Depot this weekend. He put a new faucet on the kitchen sink (the old one looked "tired and beat up"), he put some new hardware on the closet doors in the basement, he shoveled the deck (yes, that was a realtor suggestion), and he bleached and scrubbed the grout in the upstairs bathroom (that one actually did need to be done and it looks WAY better.... so the realtor had at least one good idea). The items that we have not done yet is to dust the water heater and the furnace (is she serious? but, I'll probably get to that one... tomorrow...) and to replace the counter top on the island with a "nice piece of granite" becuase our ugly green counter top has a chip in it. As she put it, "how much could that cost... $1000?" Our answer, " yep, probably about $1000... and we're not doing that!" Slowly, but surely, we'll get this place ready to sell - I just hope that someone wants to buy it...

Frank also has an appointment to meet with a realtor on the Omaha end this week. I hope that the market is as grim there as it is here - we might be able to get a deal on the new home purchase, anyways. That could be kind of fun...

In other "moving to omaha" news, I have been scoping out preschools for the kids. I don't plan to work full time, at least not when we first get there, and I know that they both have gotten so much out of the "preschool / daycare" setting here, that I would hate for them not to have that in Omaha. I did a lot of internet research and found that there are a lot of daycare centers similar to where they go here, where we could opt for a reduced schedule -- surprisingly, the rates for daycare there is less than, but not that much less than what it costs here... without a salary from me, it was looking like the three of us would have to play "pretend preschool" at home :) But, as I kept searching, I found a couple of places that offered specific preschool programs - like 2-3 mornings a week for 3 hours a day. My favorite one is called the Imagination Station (and it's not just the name that I love!) Like lots of things in Omaha, the building is new (less than 10 years old) and it's so darn cute! I sent Frank over to check it out and he concurred - it really is pretty cute, he says. And the best part is that the rates are ridiculous - ridiculously low! It is in a good location for where we think we might live, too. So far, it's the definite front runner...
(imaginationstationomaha.com)

That's all for today - but I think the posts will be coming more often now - things are going to start really hopping!

January Trip to Omaha

2008-01-23T18:04:00.000-08:00

I flew to Omaha last weekend to attend the Ryerson holiday party. It was a quick trip, but fun. It's nice that Frank knows his way around a little bit more.

I got to visit the infamous Biltmore, Frank's temporary apartment. Although Frank does not speak highly of his current accomodations, it is better than a hotel and I thought it was actually kind of nice. (A perfect spring break destination for the whole family?)

We also made time to visit the much talked about "Nebraska Furniture Mart" - I thought it might be one of those "it's big for Omaha, but..." -- But, seriously it was overwhelmingly enormous. It was a whole complex of warehouses, each marked with its contents like "flooring" or "electronics" or "home furnishings" -- we went through just a couple of departments, but we decided if our house in Omaha requires any new furniture, we will be making a return trip to the Mart.

I landed around 11:30 am on Saturday and we drove directly to one of the local Chili's for lunch. (Yes, there is more than one Chili's...) After lunch, we went by the plant. It reminded me a lot of the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin, and I got the full tour of the warehouse and the offices. I can see why Frank is so excited about his new job! He really is a "man of steel" in Omaha!

We spent a couple of hours driving around various potential neighborhoods - I have been doing a lot of internet house hunting and Frank has been taking my findings and driving to the specific neighborhoods. We actually drove to about 5 neighborhoods - lots more work to do there!

Of course, we attended the Holiday party at the Upstream Brewing Co. - good food and good company! We stayed out late for us... as one of Frank's co-workers put it, "one of the only bad things about Omaha is that all of the bars close at one a.m...." Yeah, gee, how are we ever going to cope with that? :)

We found a Panera for breakfast on Sunday and then headed to the airport. I don't think that it will take long to get used to the fact that we were still in the parking garage only 35 minutes before our flight took off... and we still had plenty of time! It's a far cry from O'Hare (in mostly good ways...)

Thanks for reading this hodge-podge post! I had a little trouble getting the pictures and words where I wanted them...I'll keep practicing -- the journey is only beginning...

Trying this out...

2008-01-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

Thought it would be a good idea to get a blog going (all the cool kids are doin' it these days)!
Of course, everyone will want to track our every move as we get closer to June and as we set up shop in Omaha... Here goes nothing...