Denver Trip Part 1: Omaha Zoo

OK, so its a month late, but here's the story of the first part of our adventure!

We were both dreading the tiresome and excessively non-existent scenery of Nebraska, so I came up with a brilliant plan to break up the near 12 hours of monotony before the site of the mountains breaks the boredom. I decided we would break it up into three neat little sections.

Step One: Four hours to Omaha.
We left on Sunday morning pretty early. Bosley got dropped of at his girlfriend's house before the sun was up. Erik volunteered to drive so I grabbed a pillow and tried to steal as much more sleep as I could manage. I love zoos, so I was very excited when we arrived. I had been to this particular one once in high school on a class trip, and it was great.

Here are some of my favorite photos:

I can't currently find my camera so more amazing photos are to come!

Erik got me to face my fear of heights and got me on a sky-lift tour of the park. It goes all the way across the zoo. I mainly got on out of exhaustion because we had been exploring for nearly three hours and it was hot and I was tired of walking. I white knuckled the single safety bar the entire time, but I think it was worth it. Shortly after, Erik and I just looked at each other and we both knew we had reached our limit. We had both hit our daily quota for screaming kids and large crowds. We nearly ran back to the car and devoured a sandwich before heading out on the road once again.

Part Two: Four hours to Gothenburg, NE
We pulled into the cutest little campground right around dinner time. If you ever have the misfortune of driving across Nebraska, I highly recommend spending the night here! The Lafayette Campground was extremely well maintained with very clean bathrooms and hot showers. A rarity among camp facilities. This place even comes complete with a beautiful lake and the cutest little old lady that lives on site and runs the show. She even gave us free firewood! Right before it got dark I saw what I thought were two deer in the meadow right next to us. It took me a second to realize it was two of the biggest turkeys I have ever seen! Bosley would have lost his mind!

Pup-centric Day of Adventure

Erik and I leave for Colorado tomorrow and we aren't taking Bosley so we decided to have lots of puppy adventures today. 

We went on a nature walk...

  We got frozen yogurt!

We ran through PetCo! 

Checked out the pigs feet and said hi to the kitties

Then went home to nap, but WAIT...

Is that a treat?!?

It smells like a treat!

 

ITS A TREAT!!!

After a nap and bird watching...

we played football!

For dinner Bosley got an extra special treat...

He is going to sleep well tonight!

Bossman gets to spend the week with his girlfriend, Rosie, and gets to torture her kitty sister, Chula. This is the longest we have both ever been away from him, and we are going to miss him terribly. 

I won't be able to post for the next week as I'll be pretending to be a mountain woman. Hopefully the next time I post I have tons of amazing photos of our adventures.

This is how we party...

This is what we do at work...

Dalyz decided her property taxes were too high so the students built her a new one.

Complete with a little dog house for Rosie

Bob's Your Uncle

Just had dinner at a place we haven't been to in years. We thought we would keep the trend of doing something different going. It was a perfect evening on the patio with my baby!

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Gun-day

Like a pro

Dee M., Assassin - She's a really good shot!

Erik and I spent Sunday with our friends Dee and Alvin. Erik and Alvin met 19 years ago by fate. Erik was on the school bus and began choking on a piece of candy. Alvin was running late for work and happened to pass. Erik was without oxygen for over 10 minutes, but Alvin never gave up. It is an amazingly powerful story and they have been in each others lives since.

We started our day with something both Erik and I grew up doing, but haven't done in awhile. We accompanied them to church. It was a non-denominational service which was very different from the Catholic services I grew up with. The core message was exactly the same, but it was nice to see it delivered in a different way. 

After church and some amazing grilled chicken, we set up the targets and got out the handguns. I grew up in a hunting household so I've shot rifles and shotguns, but never handguns. I was nervous I was going to be one of those girls you see on YouTube that punches themselves in the face because of the kick-back. They started me off on the smallest caliber, and with a bit of coaching I did pretty good. Even with the larger guns I had a tight-ish shot cluster. Erik was impressed and Alvin, who used to be in law enforcement, said I did better than some cops he's seen!

We had a blast and this Sunday will go down in the record books!

Wordless Wednesday

BABY!

Kathie's baby has finally arrived! I tell you what, at only 24 hours old he's already pretty handsome. This little boy is going to be a ladies man! But seriously, he is unbelievably precious and has two of the greatest people looking out for him.

Congrats Sam and Kathie!

Wedding Weekend

photo courtesy of Amanda West via Facebook

So the wedding was so much fun! Abby was gorgeous and Brent looked pretty handsome too! I was blown away by her dress! It was amazing tiered layers of lace and she looked stunning! The bridesmaids dresses were pretty perfect too - they were blue floral patterned and strapless.

Both the ceremony and reception were in such beautiful venues. I was constantly looking around going 'wow'. And the food was awesome - I ate way too much! They did such a nice job of making everything enjoyable for us. It was great to get together with everyone and it was truly special to see how much Abby and Brent love eachother!

My new dress!

It got a little warm - thank goodness there was a piece of loose ribbon in the centerpiece!

I am one lucky girl! On Sunday, I got to nurse my hangover on Dane and Jenny's boat! I've never been boating before and I had a blast! I'm not a swimmer and I'm a super pansy, so I was hesitant to hop in the water without being able to touch the bottom. With the assistance of a floaty, I finally jumped in, and it was so worth it! A fish did jump on my back which caused a small panic episode, but don't worry, I eventually pulled it back together. 

Erik left on Sunday to drive for a RAGBRAI team. RAGBRAI is a huge week long bike ride across the state of Iowa where you start with your back wheel in the Missouri River and dip your front tire in the Mississippi at the end. It has become so big, that Lance Armstrong has even made a point of riding for the last several years. Both Bosley and I miss Erik terribly right now!

Cuddling with daddy after the wedding

Wordless Wednesday

Mommy came home for lunch to see me since Daddy is gone at RAGBRAI

Semi-lazy Saturdays

Last Saturday was the slowest it's been in awhile. For the last month or so, every time Saturday rolled around it felt like we were trying to fit the whole week into that 24 hours. But not this day. I had a baby shower to go to on the evening but I was determined to do as little as possible before hand. So I set about doing my new found love - crafting. More specifically, card making. 

I needed a card for the parents to be and I had two friends that celebrated their birthdays easier that week. I casually and all relaxed-like went and got good old construction paper. Am I the only one that really enjoys the sound and feeling of the first cut into a fresh piece of construction paper?

The mommy-to-be can be a bit of an insomniac so as the shower gift a couple of us got together and got a bunch of stuff to help the baby sleep - an ambient noise machine, lavender baby soaps and lotion, etc. To keep the theme I made a little moon out of paper punches. I had seen people use layers of buttons to make animals on pinterest so I figured I could get a similar effect with the punches.

Pinterest also provided me with a tutorial for a lovely origami dress. This took a couple of tries. This was for Kathie's birthday - whose due date was yesterday!!!! It could literally be any moment now!

This little lollie for Chauncy, is just a series of circles. Turns out the Asprin lid was a perfect template.Who needs a fancy paper punch or Cricut?

While mommy was relaxing/crafting, the little fluffy one was hard at work trying to nap and protect his red squeaky bone or his mini teddy at the same time.

This Saturday we have Abby and Brent's wedding. Finally! Hers was the bridal shower I went to awhile back. I'm super excited to celebrate with them - so excited I got a new dress! What?! I know! Awesome, right?

I have been insanely bad about taking pictures of my adventures this summer and even worse about actually posting the ones I have taken, but I just got an iPhone with a super awesome camera so I have no excuses now. I WILL be posting lots of super awesome photos of the beautiful bride and groom...and my new dress of course.

Panda-monium!!!!

Life has been a little crazy lately so I apologize for falling off the face of the earth! I promise to have a real new post soon but in the meantime, here is a really cute photo of pandas!