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!




o

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.

What's New?

Well, the month of February, like most others I guess, was filled with some excitement. Brandon and I visited Nebraska for my first time. Overall, it was a great trip. We even saw snow. I think Lincoln is going to be a great place for us to raise our family. We were able to visit a number of schools and narrow it down to two public schools. With that info we were then able to do lots of driving around neighborhoods so that we would be familiar for the house search. All in all, a very successful trip which was capped off these last few days with our finding our house!!! We found the one and our offer was accepted so things are really falling in to place quickly. I hope I'm not jinxing anything, but here's a shot of the house....

MC and Nate have pretty much been up to the usual. They're very excited about the new house and sad they didn't get to see snow themselves. They were especially sad when snow came to GA when they weren't visiting last weekend! But they're finding plenty to be excited about. I think I can very easily sum up Nate's use of his time in two words...STAR WARS. The boy is obsessed and has the uncanny ability to turn anything and everything in to Star Wars. Here is a clip of his impersonation of a battle droid...

MC has been busy at school and is really quite the little reader lately. She's blowing through small chapter books. She's gone through the complete Junie B. Jones series and is working on a series about different fairies. We've also been reading 'The Tale of Despereaux' together. I love to see her take to reading so much since I was such a bookworm myself. She has also started spring soccer so we'll have some nice shots from her games soon.

Hope everyone is going great. We would love to hear from you so be sure to send us an email. Hugs and kisses to all!

Fun with the Fishies

We had a great chance to go to the aquarium with the Lockhart fam this weekend. Brandon, Britton and Payton missed out, but though we missed them, the rest of us had a fabulous time. We went to the aquarium back in 2005 shortly after it opened, so this was our second visit. It was great to see how the experience has changed for the kids as they've gotten older. Nate was only 1 1/2 at the time of our last visit and MC was 3. The first visit was pretty much a state of wonder and awe at the beauty and the reality of fish and whales. This visit the kids were still in awe, but also interested in learning a little about the water life. Here are a few of the things that stuck...

• Otters live with their families all their lives. And they love to play.
• Rays and sharks have bodies of cartilage (no bones) but rays have gills underneath while sharks have gills on their sides.
• The Pork fish actually oinks when you pull it out of the water.
• The whale shark can grow as big as a school bus.
• Beluga whales are white so that they can hide amongst the ice. And Beluga means white in Russian. (I was so proud of MC as she came up with this question on her own and asked one of the volunteers to get the answer.)

MC even named several of the animals. One otter was dubbed Bob, the beluga whale, Beluga, and one of the pink fish, Lucille. Nate was anxious to see the penguins, unfortunately they were on 'vacation.' That didn't go over too well. However, it wasn't too long before he was distracted with all the sharks. I got several pictures...check 'em out.

Chillin'. She's getting tall isn't she!?!

What a fish face!

The jelly fish were very cool, neon-like in their tank.

Oh to be a star fish, just hanging out.