Getaway

We have never been to the Omaha zoo, apparently its the best. We decided to go last weekend. I agree, best zoo ever!

We started our 3 hour trek on Friday afternoon. It was a pretty smooth ride to the La Quinta. We checked in and then went out to a pizza place in downtown Omaha.

Its a cool little city, almost kind of vintage-y? 

It was getting late, but we promised the girls that they could go swimming before bed, so we quickly got changed and went to the pool. Luckily there was only one guy in the pool area, who was in the hot tub, when Avery fully upchucked in the pool. I guess the rule stating you should wait an hour to swim after eating is a good one. 

Now to the zoo. The next morning we had breakfast and headed out there. It looked like an amusement park. 

The first place we went was a cave made for nocturnal animals. I felt like I was in a swamp somewhere in Alabama. It was really cool.

Then we went in the famous desert dome. It was really hot and crowded. Kind of like Phoenix, where we are moving, guess we better get used to it!

Then we went and saw the monkeys and gorillas

No joke, this gorilla was giving me and Brooklyn the stare down for a good 5 minutes. I looked down to pick Brooklyn up to move to the next exhibit, and when I looked up, the gorilla was right up at the glass, one foot away from us, pounding his chest, and then he kicked the glass and ran off. He was not happy with us. I may have peed in my pants a little, it freaked me out!

I told Avery that if she lived at the zoo, she would definitely live in the monkey cages.

At this point we felt it was time for a photo break

The one picture that the girls are both looking happy, Travis isn't, come on Trav!

Then we went to go and see the "cats" and this happened

Going...

Going...

Gone!

They slept for a good 45 minutes, so Trav and I went on a date and had a nice and quiet lunch.

Then we headed to the aquarium, which was amazing!

That is a shark

That is an upside down jelly fish

Then we went to the rain forrest, which was our favorite!

I decided what makes a cool zoo. To actually see animals in their environment, versus just the cages.

And having a jungle bridge.

Omaha monkey

Kansas City monkeys

And then inevitably this happened

And at that point, we decided we had enough zoo for one day!

Go to the Omaha zoo.

Kim and Jesse

Remember our awesome friends the Washburns? They came back to visit from South Dakota! And Avery and Jane picked up right where they left off! They played for two days straight. If anyone knows the Washburns, they would know that they would never go on a lazy trip. They came to race in the Ft. Leavenworth triathlon. I thought, what the hey, I should do it with them. So we did! The only thing was that this triathlon turned into a duathlon because of the frigid temperatures. They canceled the swim, so that we wouldn't freeze to death (thankfully) and turned it into a run bike run. This was to my advantage because I had been in the pool one time to train and running is more my thing. 

This was after the first run, I had to shed a layer because I was so hot... it was 40 degrees.

This was the bike part

Travis told me that I always look so painful coming in from the bike portion of the event. Maybe I need to work on my biking a little?

And here is the finish

From the past, I have learned that the run at the end of a TRI is the hardest! I planned ahead and packed my ipod. Unprofessional, yes, but did it help, totally! Thank you Justin Timberlake and Mumford and Sons for taking my mind off the pain.

And Thanks to the best fans in the world

Trav took work off so he could be there, and he watched their Wendy and our Brooklyn.

I took first in the old 30 to 34 age group 

And Kim and Jesse took second in their groups

And Brooklyn is just cute

It was fun, I miss my running/biking buddy

Besides the race, us girls went out on the town with Kim. Our way hip friend, Angela, invited us to go to a couple antique furniture stores downtown.

They were awesome!

Then we went to a crepe restaurant. I'm not a fan of crepes because they remind me of eating skin, but anything dolloped with nutella is accepted in my mouth, and they had amazing hot chocolate!

It was such a great night!

I love the Washburns. It was like the good old times! 

Last day

She did it, she made it through her first year of real preschool

She learned how to make crafts and eat lots of sugar with the best of them! Avery loved all the teenager teachers and had a blast! (she went to the student development preschool where they have high school students be the teacher.)

Hopefully Globe Arizona has a preschool, she still has one more year till Kindergarten!

kitties

The stray cat we see roaming around the town homes is kind of a skank. She got pregnant again which is kind of fun for us!

One day I came outside and thought I saw a mouse squirming around the flower bed, when I looked closer, I noticed it was a freshly birthed kitten. I had no idea where the mother cat was, but I quickly ran and got Chris Johnson master/doctor/dentist/vet (inside joke), and we scooped it up. Michelle, our other neighbor took it upon herself to buy kitty formula and take care of it for a couple of days until we found a home for it.

A couple of weeks later, we realized the Mama cat lived under my porch (there was a tiny hole) and the baby kittens started coming out.

My kids were in Heaven!

Brooklyn had a hard time sharing this cat

Cats kind of suck and are weird, but whoever doesn't like a baby kitten is a the devil.

 

ps: Don't you think Brooklyn is the epitome of a little girl. Curls, flirty looks, princess dress, sucker in the mouth holding a kitty, I think so.

outfit of the day

This is Avery's most favorite hobby. All of these outfits are strictly from the mind of Avery.

Some are silly and mismatched, but some of the outfits she came up with totally work, and I would have never thought of them. Move over Vera, this girl has a future!

A hair post

Same girl in all three pictures

This is what happens when we are home sick from church.

Decision of a lifetime

We have made the big decision, the decision to move to Globe Arizona. Phew! I'm glad its over. It was kind of stressful. I still don't know what to expect, but just knowing that we are doing it makes me feel a lot better inside.

The town is going to be so different from anything I have ever experienced. It is tiny, in the mountains/desert and the housing is well, scarce?

For some reason I just felt fine with living there. I think Travis could live anywhere in the world and be happy, he is easy, but I'm a little more high maintenance. I wasn't too sure in the beginning, but I just had a good feeling that everything would be OK.

Its a great financial opportunity to move to Globe. It will really help us get out of medical school debt, but that's not 100% the reason I was OK with going there. I just felt that maybe our family needs this experience. We don't know how long we will be there, we hope to stay for at least 6 years, but who knows, we may just love this little ole town?

I was running today, and I was overcome with a lot of thoughts and emotions. I was just thinking about all of the things I want to do with my life and my family. I was thinking about the kind of home I want to have. For some reason I have felt that I have had to go through a lot of experiences to grow. I know that marrying Travis and moving far away was something I needed to have to help us grow strong in our relationship. I also know that moving out of Utah was good for me. I always hated that person who said that Utah is a bubble. I don't think its a bubble, I love Utah and it really is like no place on earth, but it was so good for me to learn about different cultures and ways of life. I just feel like Globe Arizona is another place to challenge and teach me how to be.

The last couple of weeks I have been a little emotional thinking about leaving Kansas City. I have learned to love this place. I'm obsessed with the actual downtown. The Farmer's market, the restaurants, the shops, I didn't go there nearly enough. I don't even want to talk about all of the people we are going to miss. They have been our family for so many years. This is going to rip my heart to pieces. Also, we have been going and seeing lots of houses due to the parade of homes here, and jeez, there are so many amazing places to live. Sometimes I forget that there is life outside the Riverside town homes. Believe me, I hate the weather in Kansas City, but the lush rolling green hills and Midwest lifestyle could seriously keep me here. I now understand why people leave their big city lifestyles and move to the Midwest to raise their children.

All in all, I still don't know where our family will be in ten years. For some reason, I get doubtful we will live in Arizona forever, don't kill me Tice, but I just haven't felt it lately. But maybe? Its just too hard to say. I don't know if we will ever move back to Utah, there are so many pros and cons about Utah. Utah is like an ex boyfriend to me. Its comfortable, tempting and easy, but in the end is it the best place for our family?

I have no idea what I'm writing about right now, I just know that my run today was very therapeutic. For some reason I just wanted to write this all down. It will be really neat to read this in 20 years and see where we are. Come what may!

Kansas city

Globe, Arizona