St George

My next week off my mom, sister, daughter and I took a trip to St George to see Little Mermaid.  We drove down on Thursday and the play was Friday night.  Friday day mom and my sister wanted to go for a hike in snow canyon.  Melissa just wanted to play in the pool.  I talked mom and sister into to smaller kid friendly hikes enstead of longer one that they would have enjoyed more.  My favorite part of the trip was when Melissa was talking to her dad on the phone and said:

"I don't want to go hiking, THEY want to go hiking.  I hate hiking.  Hiking is boring."

See what a terrible time she had. 

She thought playing in the sand dunes was AWESOME

 

After snow canyon we did play in the pool.  The play was really neat.  Melissa was exhausted after playing all day,  but she still enjoyed it.  

 

After the play I got to met up with the Bushtits in a met in the middle quick birding trip.  Due to a series of serendipitous events, we ended up with a hotel room and a rental car.  Hopefully it doesn't go to our heads for future trips, or I might start thinking we are getting old.  The birding was fun but the company was better. 

 

This is because we had just seen a really really really rare bird and it was a lifer for all three of us!!

Okay really it's just because we are silly and were having fun. 

 Also on this birding trip we decided that we had to go see Big Year together.  It was totally awesome to watch it with other fellow birders.  I highly recommend it,  One side note (actually make that two), first the girls that makes the bird sounds is lame, and second no we are not that obsessive, and yes some people are. 

A Few Pictures From Omaha

 

Nebraska

Over Mia’s second birthday we decided to take a trip back to Nebraska. I loved Nebraska. Let me try and explain why.

When we starting looking at Law school both Kent and I wanted to go out of state. We would have stayed if we had the opportunity but I think we both wanted the law school, the adventure, and the culture of living outside of Utah. Right before moving to Nebraska was a CRAZY time. Within in days we packed up, moved, finalized our oldest adoption, blessed her, sealed her, quit my job which was crazy and stressful all on its own, found a place to live, and had a going away party. Through all of this, I never really had the time or the chance to sit down and process, emotionally, what moving meant.

I can still picture the exact spot on the road. We had been on the road for 2.5 day and were just entering the city of Omaha. Suddenly it hit me. We were not just going to Omaha we were IN Omaha. For the first time in my life I was moving away. I was going to be living in a city where I didn’t know ANYONE. And it was scary. I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know the one that you get right before you get up to speak in public, or at the top of a roller coaster when you are just a little bit scared. My stomach was at my knees and full of butterflies. But then the next day we woke up and got to work: moving, unpacking, settling in, living life, making friends, and exploring. And a funny thing happened, like on the roller coaster I had fun, I enjoyed the ride.

I remember the first few months of being there I was a stay at home mom who didn’t really know anyone yet, with one baby to look after, and my husband was in school. So off Missa and I went. We explored and found places to visit and to see.

I met some amazing people there, who we will be friends with for the rest of our lives. I fell in love with the hills and trees of Omaha, and with the wide open spaces and the prairies of the Midwest. But mostly I fell in love with the people. But one of the things I miss the most about Nebraska was my life there, the simplicity of it and the chance to be a stay at home mom. There were good days and bad days of course.

Of course we will always have a deep connection to Omaha because that is where Mia’s birth family is from and live. They were a major motivation for our trip. So we rented a minivan and off we went 2000 miles round trip.

The girls did really well for being the car that long. The minivan helped (I’m choosing to leave out the drama of renting said minivan). We didn’t make any firm plans but ended up with dinner invites every night we were there, and even had to turn one down. I was hard to balance our time as we knew it would be. We had so many people we wanted to see, and things we wanted to do, and wanted some time to be together as a family. But all in all it was a good time.

Kent went back to the law school, I went back to Fontenelle Forest, we played in the pool, we ALL went to the ZOO (oh how I miss the zoo) and to the big slides. We spent the day of Mia’s birthday with her family. Oh it was so good to see them and we wish we had had more time with them. We were able to have to time with the Journeys and many, many others friends. And all too quickly it was time to come home.

Pictures Hopefully to Come.