Georgia on My Mind

We're back from our visit to Georgia. For being there only a week, we sure had a lot of fun. We were able to spend time with both sides of the family and see dear friends. It was a fantastic trip...see for yourself...

We enjoyed time on the lake, icees, Charlie Joseph's and best of all, fun hanging with all the family at Nana and Pa's (we sure did miss James and his folks though)...

Nate's not much on speed in the tube. We were already going as slow as the boat can and as you can tell, he's signaling Pa to slow down. :)

MariCagle, on the other hand, got more daring.

We made a side trip to see Quinn, Payton, Uncle Britton and Aunt Kim where the kids' imaginations ran wild. The girls enjoyed playing fairies (this is the part where Nate especially missed Hudson)...

and we visited a very cool children's museum where they had a kid-sized 'neighborhood' set up with grocery store, restaurant, bank, post office, doctor's office, dentist, you name it, they had it. It was very cool as is Aunt Kim for taking us!

Nate really enjoyed the ATM, and the fact that it gave you play money didn't keep him from going back again and again.

I think MariCagle enjoyed the beauty shop the best. She enjoyed being the customer as well as the beautician.

At Grammy and PopPop's we got to see most of the Tyre clan and had a fun spend-the-night play date with Aunt Marguerite's great granddaughter, Mychael. They also enjoyed relaxing in the hot tub and an early birthday celebration for MC.

So as you can see, our week was as packed with fun and family as this post is with pictures! Thanks everyone for hanging out with us and making our trip very special. We had such a great time!! And we want to be sure and send our prayers and well wishes to Uncle Newman as he's enjoying his last days of R&R before heading back to Iraq! We are so glad we got to spend time with you and we'll be looking forward to your more permanent return! Hugs and kisses to everyone.

On A Jet Plane....

MariCagle and Nate rode on their first airplane this week. We made our first flight to Georgia arriving safely in Atlanta to visit family for a week. They did a great job getting through security and navigating through busy Hartsfield. They were adorable in their backpacks pulling their luggage along traipsing through the airport. Quite the jetsetters.

I think Nate's favorite part was the coke and pretzels. MariCagle wondered where the Care Bears were as it was her understanding that they lived on top of the clouds. I did my best to explain that they probably lived on clouds even higher than the ones we were flying through. Sweet innocence!!

Overall, it was easy traveling, but knock on wood as we make our return flight next week. :) We're looking forward to seeing nearly all of our family and friends, especially Uncle Newman who's home from Iraq!

Always the hams especially when bored with all the waiting.

Lincoln Children's Zoo

MariCagle and Nate have enjoyed another week of morning classes at the zoo. Today we had a picnic lunch and then stayed a little longer so they could show me around. They have learned a great deal about the animals at the zoo including their names and fun facts about each of them. Nate has had the most to say about the macaws, 'Whitey' the all white peacock, tarantulas and the red pandas. MariCagle has shared a lot about the twin baby tree kangaroos, the bats, a cockroach which she allowed to climb on her shirt, and much more. I think the funnest part for me was having them show me around and teach me what they had learned. Here are some pictures of our fun. Hugs as always!!

The prettiest butterfly and most handsome frog prince I've ever seen!

I was trying to get the stegosaurus - can you pick out MC and Nate at the dinosaur dig? It's a huge sandbox with bones buried in it for the kids to find.

Exploring on the 'spider web.' Nate likes to pretend he is a tarantula.

I think the butterfly house was the coolest to me. MariCagle coaxed a couple different butterflies on to her finger. Nate had trouble getting his to leave the flower.

I had heard all about the bald eagle's nest and the two bald eagles they have living at the zoo. This nest is just for the kids to climb in. MariCagle and Nate both explained to me that the two bald eagles couldn't fly anymore because they were hurt so they can't live in the wild anymore.

It was a great afternoon. I think we're enjoy our season passes to the zoo this year. Take care everyone!!

Checking out the parks...

This week is a little slower here. No camp or anything, just hanging out. So today we decided to check out the park. It's pretty close to the house and in addition to a small lake, ball fields and trails, they have a pretty cool playground. So we took a picnic and enjoyed the much milder and less humid Nebraska summer afternoon. You can tell by the pasted on grins that the kids are growing weary of taking pictures. I guess I'm going to have to get more creative. Have a great rest of the week! Hugs and kisses from Nebraska!




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Short Moving Story

I share this story that dates back to our move for your enjoyment but also for my own benefit of getting it down in writing so I won't forget. :) As before mentioned, Brandon and I arrived at the house a couple of days before MariCagle and Nate to get a jump on improvement projects. Brandon began laying the flooring in the basement, and I got to cleaning the place up. The kids arrived in the midst of still more improvement projects, but they easily kept busy in the big empty playground, I mean house. :) One morning Nate and I were the first ones up and we took a minute to sit together in the empty den and chat. I asked him what his favorite part about his new house was expecting him to talk about the stairs or his bedroom. But he said he loved the leaf fan (a large fan in the den with blades that mimicked large leaves) and the dining room 'because the light made it feel like a ball room.' I was taken aback for two reasons. One, as I said before, it wasn't the answer I was expecting. And two, both of those light fixtures were on the short list for replacement! Nate memorialized both fixtures and hung his art on the fireplace, and needless to say, he was very saddened to see the fan disappear in the night and the chandelier later that day. He has since gotten over it, but I must say I felt at least a little guilty, not guilty enough to keep the fixtures, but a little guilty nonetheless. And now that a couple of weeks have passed, there is no longer mention of either favorite and he seems to be enjoying other aspects of the new home. Below is his rendering of his two favorite things...

"Zoo Classes"

This week MariCagle and Nate have been enjoying a day camp at the Lincoln Children's Zoo. MariCagle is enjoying 'Critter Construction' investigating birds' nests and other animal homes. And Nate is learning about 'Animals of the Rainbow' about which he's making a book that I'm anxious to read come Friday seeing as how it has gotten much hype around here. :) So far Nate has shared with us that if an animal is red it means it's poisonous. And MariCagle brought home a wonderful bird's nest of her own she made out of clay. Based on their accounts, the zoo sounds pretty cool with bald eagles, monkeys, a seal show, birds, spiders and so forth. We've gotten annual passes so they're going to have to show it all to me sometime since I'm stuck this week just dropping them off. And since I'm just dropping off and picking up, my only pictures are outside the zoo. There is a beautiful garden area filled with gorgeous flowers at the entrance so we took some pictures there this morning just for the blog. They were anxious to get into class so they're not the best pics, but great exhibits of that special brother-sister bond. :) Enjoy...

Busy, Busy, but WE MADE IT!

Hi everyone. Here is our first post from the Midwest! Can you believe it!?!? Moving halfway across the country (literally and figuratively) has put my blogging on a serious hiatus, but I promise (cross my heart promise) to be half as consistent with my blogging as my sister-in-law (which if you read her blog - that's saying a great deal). But I do realize that it will be a great way for you to keep up with our daily happenings now that we are so far away. Hopefully it will shorten the distance a little.

We are enjoying Nebraska so far. The last of the boxes are unpacked and I only have a few more things to rearrange for the second or third time before I get it just right. :) I am quickly remembering how overwhelming it is having a house and wanting to do so much to decorate and fix-it-up just the way you like it! But it's a good overwhelming, I guess. The kids are beside themselves at having neighbors, particularly the little ones their age. They have impromptu playdates everyday, and they are loving every minute of it. The adult neighbors are fabulous too. We seem to have a real 'old-fashioned' neighborhood. We've met everyone, and I mean everyone on our street as well as several of the neighbors on streets around us. And they are all genuinely friendly and helpful. We feel very blessed.

I don't have loads of pictures but here are a few of our journey and arrival to Nebraska.

The moving truck...Our things filled up only 1/3 of the truck. They stacked it to the ceiling! And let me tell you...movers is the way to go!!! We'll never go back to doing it ourselves!!!

When I took this picture Albert and Brandon were beneath it, but I think the reflective quality of the sign messed up the shot such that all you could see beneath it was pitch black and Albert's eyes. (It couldn't have been the photographer at all.) The three of us got into town at 10pm Wednesday night. The movers arrived one week later.

Grammy and PopPop arrived with the kids two days behind us. Nate and MariCagle didn't mind the air mattresses at all. And they did pretty well with little to no toys for 5 days. They were so excited, especially when they met their neighborhood playmates. A big thank you to Grammy and PopPop for enduring the long drive with the kids and helping us so much with getting the house ready. We continue to owe them big time!

MariCagle got right to work helping to decorate our backyard which is in much need of some attention. She named the tree the 'naked(pronounced 'nek-ed'" tree' because it has no leaves, or in other words, the tree is dead. :) But she is attached to it and chose to place her planters next to it. She can see the tree out her bedroom window and has since hung a birdfeeder on it's 'naked' limbs. It's going to be hard when we eventually have to cut it down.

The following are shots from a neighborhood 4th of July bicycle parade. There must have been about 50 kids that participated. MariCagle and Nate were too shy to introduce themselves to any of the kids, but have since befriended several girls from our cul-de-sac to play with each day.

A big thank you to Aunt Terri who not only helped decorate bikes and acted as parade photographer, but was a HUGE help in the unpacking process.

This is just half of the parade.

They took a big group shot after the conclusion of the parade - this was the silly shot. Hope everyone is having a fun summer. Ours has been eventful to say the least. :) Love you all!! Hugs and kisses from the newest Cornhuskers.