Our first family rodeo - YEEHAW!

We were so lucky to have the chance to go the the River City Roundup Rodeo.  We had so much fun watching all of the action!  We all dressed in our best cowboy/cowgirl gear too!  So much fun watching the bulls!  Skyler liked the bull riding the best.  Lily liked the the bull lassoing the best.  I liked the bull riding and the bronc riding!  Chuck liked the bull riding the best.  We were a little disappointed because there were a lot of disqualifications and we weren't sure what all of that was about, but the action was awesome!

Camping Again

We went camping again a few weeks ago and had so much fun.  There was no one there again and we had all 300 + acres of nature all to ourselves.  We did a lot of hiking and some chilling too.  We also did some animal catching.  We caught a toad that Lily decided was her best friend in the world.  She carried him with her for some time on one of our hikes, but when we finally told her it was time to let him go, she was not too happy, as you can see from the pictures.  We got some incredible views of the destruction caused by the tornado of 2008, the same one that hit at the Little Sioux Boy Scout camp.  They have spent the last 2 years cleaning the park up from the destruction and it makes me wish we had seen it before the tornado because I cannot even fathom what it used to look like.  

Lily recovered from the toad loss after she caught a monarch.  She was upset when we had to let him go too, but recovered even quicker when she found her friend "cricket" who for some reason didn't want to leave her and just stayed right by her for over 2 hours!  The last night we were there a thunderstorm struck.  We survived it fine, but I was a little creeped out by it.  The kids slept through the whole thing.  By the time we needed to get up and go it was still raining and the water was just starting to creep through the bottom of the tent, so even if we hadn't planned on leaving at that time, we probably would have.  

We later found out that Chuck got into some poison ivy and he is still trying to get rid of it!  I loved this campsite better than our other one, we had the perfect toilet all set up!, but I am pretty sure we will never camp at campsite number 7 again, as it has scarred Chuck forever and I guess we will either go back to friendly number 2 again, or try out number 6 next time!

Lovey Dovey

There really isn't much I can say here, except that I love it! We took a walk last week after a rain storm down by the creek and these 2 were like this most of the way. They were deep in conversation and it was just adorable. Why can't they be like this all of the time?

Monarch Tagging

We went to the Hitchcock Nature Center last week and had the pleasure of participating in their monarch tagging event. We love doing this each year.  We took our butterfly net and went searching for monarchs.  We were so surprised at how many different kinds of butterflies we saw this year, some kinds I haven't ever seen before.  We had a blast chasing those darn monarchs!  It was a successful adventure, as both Skyler and Lily both caught a monarch, tagged it, and released it.  Now we have 8 more tags to put on monarchs that we catch on our own.  We plan on going camping this weekend, so hopefully we will be successful monarch hunting then!

Our camping trip

We decided at the last minute to go on a camping trip to celebrate the three day weekend.  We have had our eyes on a great camping location for a while now, but it was closed due to tornado damage and cleanup.  Well, we were so excited to find out it was open now.  There are only 8 camp sites, they cannot be reserved, and they are hike in only.  We left right after school and were the first ones there!  We so thought we would not get a site since it was a holiday weekend and the forecast was so nice, but we did.  We have decided that our little camping site is a secret little gem out there and not many people know about it.  We plan to keep it that way.  We got there and did some hiking to decide which camp site to take, hiked back to our car, hiked back to the site with most of our gear.  We left the kids at the site to look for kindling while we went back for one more load.  We got back to the site, Chuck and the kids got the fire going and then set up the tent while I got the food ready.  After a bit, I cooked the burgers on the grill and then we ate!  After that we went on another hike in the semi-darkness.  Lily scared and we decided to go back.  We sat around the fire and I read some stories and then we had s'mores!  It was at this time that we started to hear the coyotes.  I felt a little freaked out about it, but kept my cool!  We cleaned up and headed to the tent for bedtime.  We were all pretty tired!

In the morning, we got up, started the fire and decided the best thing to eat for an appetizer to breakfast was s'mores and hot cocoa!  We then went on another hike and would have loved to go further, the kids were having a blast, but we had to be at the nature center for Monarch tagging, so we headed back.  We decided to skip breakfast.  We all got changed, cleaned up the camp site, packed up and hiked out.  It was everyone's favorite camping trip and we can't wait to do it again soon.

Omaha Nighthawks Practice

I took the kids to watch the Omaha Nighthawks practice. Unfortunately, it was the hottest day of the week, but we still had fun. Skyler got to see some very cool plays and players and asked a lot of good football minded questions. I got to see Ahman Green and Jeff Garcia up close and personal! It was very exciting! I have loved football for as long as I can remember and have been a fan of both the Packers and the 49ers for many years. Seeing two famous players from those teams within 10 feet of me was wonderful and we plan to go to a few games of theirs too!

Lily's first day of school

Lily was so excited for school to start. She had her open house a week before school started and everyday after that she would ask so excitedly, "Is this a school day?" I would tell her no and she would be soooo sad. When the day finally came, it was the only day she didn't ask if it was a school day. When she finished breakfast and walked past the couch, she saw her special first day of school outfit and then she finally asked if it was a school day. When I told her yes, she ran to Skyler's room and said, "Skyler, today is my first day of school, it is finally a school day for me! " She was just too cute about it. The hard part was keeping her occupied until school started!

South Dakota Part 1

The first stop of our summer trip to South Dakota was The Corn Palace. It really was a very neat thing to see! We were caught acting corny!

From there we went to the Badlands National Park. I have been there before, but the beauty of it still amazes me. The kids loved it and were off running and trying to climb huge hills, it was scary! They also collected some very nice rocks from here!

And then, no trip to South Dakota is complete without a stop at Wall Drug! I just love this tourist trap. They have a great place for the kids to play in the back and they loved it!

From there we went on to Custer, more on that in another post!

Air Show 2010

I have been going to the air show or watching the air show for longer than I remember. I have always enjoyed it, but this year, I was not too excited to go to it. But, we did. Luckily, we met up with some friends and hung out with them all day! It so helped pass the time. The kids and the guys wandered around and checked out some aircraft while we stayed with the chairs and enjoyed the scenery :)

It was hot, but there was a nice breeze and we were in shade most of the time. The kids had a blast, so in that case it was so worth it. We got caught in some nasty traffic and lines last year, so we left a little bit before the show was over, got right on a shuttle and there was no traffic, so we were back at the school in no time. Perfect!! We have already decided that next year, we will watch it from the comfort of our house!

Lily's Preschool Open House

On Sunday we all got to go to Lily's preschool open house. She is going to a different preschool this year and she is just sooo excited about it. She loved everything about the open house and was so sad when it was time to leave. She was even sadder when she found out she had to wait another whole week (how long is a week mom? 7 days Lily. Oh man, that's like waiting forever!) She asks every day if she gets to go to preschool and I tell her, nope, you have to wait ___ more days. By Sunday, she is going to be a basket case!

I am pretty excited about this new school too. They come to get her out of the car and bring her to the car at the end of the day, can I just say sweet! They also go on a field trip every month and do so many other

cool things. On top of all of that, it is so much cheaper than the preschool she went to last year! Score!

The fun thing is that this is the preschool that I went to when I was 3 and 4, and the building is still standing after all of these years! Man, that is a miracle!

Here's looking forward to a wonder year of learning for Lily!

Skyler's first day of school

Skyler was so looking forward to a new school year. I was surprised that he was still excited after he found out that he did not get the teacher he was really hoping for, that his best friends were not in his class, and that he would not get to ride the bus to school; but alas, he was still excited to go on this first day, and everyday since!

Here is is right before school with his sister and then right after school, see he still looked happy at the end of the day! I am happy we are off to a great start for the new school year and I hope he enjoys second grade this year!

Summer 2010

Well, again I have been lax on blogging. It isn't that I don't think about it. I really do. I have lots of blogs written in my head, but they just don't seem to make it out of my head and into my blog. So, here I go again, trying to get going at it again.

We all had a very busy summer, starting the very day that school got out. Skyler was whisked away on a train in the middle of the night to go to Colorado with his grandparents. He was there for about 5 days and he had a ball. I write about all of his adventures there in a separate post.

When he came back from that we all left for a family vacation in South Dakota. We had a lot of fun, but we did way too much stuff and were exhausted when we came back. Again, this will be a separate post.

After that, we were home for a bit and then Skyler was off to Wichita to spend the week with his aunt. Actually I think he was really just done there to hang with his friend all week, but you never know.

The next week my sister came up here to hang out. She kept us busy!

So, in between all of that crazy stuff, we tried to pack in some fun summer stuff!

• Skyler played coached pitched baseball for the first time and he loved it! He really made progress in his basic baseball skills and is very excited to continue with baseball next summer.

• We went to Railroad Days and instead of going to the Lauritzen Gardens, we went to the Durham Western Heritage Museum. They had the Boyscouts of America commemorative locomotive there, but also all kinds of other fun stuff! I love the old "Omaha" display, which is where Chuck, Lily, and I are posing in this picture. Wish I could have that house! Skyler and Lily got to pose as old time peeps here too, aren't they handsome!

• We also went to the cheap $2 kid movies at Twin Creek almost every week. We all love this. The ticket prices are great, the movies are just for kiddos, and they get popcorn and water included in the price of the ticket!
• We went skating every week and Skyler made huge progress in the area of skating. He advanced from regular skates to inlines and is ready for inline hockey this fall. He is sooooo excited about that.
• We went bowling once a week too. Kidsbowlfree is a great program that allowed the kids to bowl 2 free games daily. We only went once a week because the bowling alley was not really that close, but they loved it and had fun.
• We got this great Go Play! Adventure book. It 25 locations in it where you can go and investigate and each place has a specific symbol that you can make a rubbing of in your book. There are also a few extra pages where you can create your own adventure and we did one at Boystown. We visited the Hall of fame musuem, the chapel, and Father Flanagan's house, which is where the picture of the kids sitting at school desk was taken. We made a rubbing of one the Boystown bricks in our book.
• We visited the splash park, Papio Bay, and Mahoney State Park's water park.
• We also went to the final Friday night Blast at the Blatt for the Omaha Royals. We had so much fun, it was Star Wars night and we got to see Darth Vader and all of his friends! The fireworks were awesome, set to Star Wars music. The picture of Skyler and I was taken at the game.

Well, that is about it for now. Some future posts will include more pictures from our summer fun, posts about our vacation to South Dakota, and first day of school pictures1