"Fall Back" (Part 2)

For MEA weekend this year we took a road trip to Omaha, NE.  We had heard the zoo there was really good.  It was amazing!!  We had a great time there.  

The rope bridge through the jungle was pretty cool.  Luckily the waterfall just made the bridge slippery, it didn't get us wet.

Erin loves peacocks.  We found a mama peacock and her babies just wandering.

You can't go to Omaha without stopping at Winter Quarters and trying out the handcart.

This was our very successful old fashioned photo.  I have a child that when told to look serious and not smile, breaks out into spontaneous giggling.  Bet you can't figure out who.

I have it on good authority that ninjas were found at Winter Quarters too.

The next day of our trip we drove to Des Moines.  We went to a corn maze there.  I have to admit, when we drove in and saw the thousands of little tykes toys littering the big yard we were a bit skeptical.  It looked like a junk yard. 

Turns out it was tons of fun.  We all had sheets of paper that had different shaped punches.  We had to find the punches in the corn maze.

We broke up into teams.  Erin had brought a friend along.

Dale and I make a great team.

Guess who won?  

After the corn maze we went to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.  I was a bit worried for a while.  The little guy sitting next to Grant started throwing up everywhere.  Grant is about as sensitive as I am to this.  We did persevere and the family left so we were able to enjoy the evening.

Elephant snow cones are the best.

We helped a good friend with his Eagle project.  Grant's pretty proud of his tree.

Dale took the 3 oldest to NY.  They had a great time.

Elaine was on a red eye flight from Utah and she met them there.  They got to navigate the subway system.  Luckily the idea of hardened New Yorkers wasn't quite correct.  They had several people kindly offer their help when they noticed the lost looking midwesterners.

Dinner at Times Square.

While Dale and the kids played in NY, Chris came to visit.  We had a blast shopping at antique stores.  Mostly it was just laughing at the junk.  It only took two store to hit clutter overload.

I love Grants uniqueness.  He doesn't seem the least bit affected by doing things his own way.  He loves orange and will wear it in some way when playing basketball.  He is the only 7th grader on the 8th grade varsity team for St. Stephens.

Jared decided that all his books needed to be alphabetized.  This photo made me laugh today, yesterday I was restocking books at the school library and realized that this would be me if I were the librarian too.  I like order.

Grant likes to look studious when he studies.

The day before Thanksgiving prep.  It was a fun day and the kids willingly stepped in to help.  I didn't even ask.

Thanksgiving was a hoot.  We had some good friends over and to break up the monotony we had a game tournament.  We had a turkey shoot.

We had a dance off. 

I think the dancing was popular.

We also had fabulous prizes.  Who wouldn't want a victorian dressed cat.  Chris and I  found this treasure at Goodwill and I had a lady following me hoping I would put this and several other treasures down.  Funny thing is my sister found its twin for their games in Utah.  Freeky!!

I did find myself thinking of all the things I am grateful for this year.  Above all is my wonderful family.  I am also thankful for good friends to spend the day with who had as much fun with our quirkiness as we did.