Our Epic Road Trip Part One: Omaha

When people ask about our summer road trip, I frankly don't know where to start.  Where did we go?  What did we do?  Perhaps the best answer is "yes."  It feels like we did a bit of everything, everywhere.

While our journey fortunately ran smoothly, it did not have an auspicious start.  Our water heater cracked, so Jason spent the entire day before we left replacing it.  Let's just hope that job doesn't need repeating for at least ten years.

Our first destination: Omaha.  The trip went something like this: drive, drive, eat at Wendy's, drive, watch The Greatest Showman, drive, drive some more, then finally arrive at the cute blue house with the smiley face flag.  Time to relax.  Papa Kay always finds the best games to play.

Of course, if you ask my kids, Settlers is the very best.

We made it to Omaha just in time for the College World Series.

Looking at those clouds, you'd think the Stormchasers were playing.

As you probably guessed, this game (and many others) got rained out.  Ah, well.  It's all part of the experience.

Back at home, Annika decided that her hand made the best painting canvas.

Naturally we spent plenty of time on the zipline as well.  I think this blurry picture captures the essence of the experience better than anything in focus.

Annika hitches a ride way on the way up.  Go Eli!

TTT and the zipline.  Yup, this little girl has her grandpa hopelessly wrapped around her little finger.

Jason enjoyed getting to watch one of his former Young Men open his mission call.  Cooper's headed to Austria.  Woo hoo!

Fred Washington also dropped by to say hi.

So for some reason, NomiAnn is absent from all of these pictures.  Sorry about that!  Maybe she was feeling camera shy?  Just know that NomiAnn was there having fun along with the rest of us.  Admittedly, she was pretty busy, having just returned from a WWI trip to Europe with her IB kids.  She had all sorts of things to take care of before leaving again to spend the rest of the summer in New York and Seattle.  She got home late in the evening on June 15th, left again early on the 20th, and hasn't been home since.  Talk about a full summer!  Brooklyn and Talia spent a fun morning at Central helping NomiAnn prepare some mailings.  Meanwhile, Papa Kay, Eli, Annika, and I all headed to the Children's Adventure Trails at the Omaha zoo.

Adventure seems the right descriptor.

While we certainly could have explored more, we left around noon to grab lunch at King Kong and catch another College World Series game.  So much fun, so little time!  The good news is that we got another chance to experience it all when we came through Omaha on our way back.

Next stop: New York!