Ahhh...Maui!

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??

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...

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!