Omaha

We were impressed by yet another midwest city this weekend when we took Christopher just a bit north of here to Omaha, Nebraska. Our main purpose was to go to the Omaha Zoo, which we kept hearing good things about from people here, but we discovered much more over the two days we were there. On Friday and Saturday night, we went out to dinner in a beautiful neighborhood of the city called The Old Market. The food was good both nights and it was a very nice area to walk around, full of cafes and art galleries. Chris was especially excited to see the balloon maker on Saturday who made him a penguin balloon. And speaking of penguins, this was CJ's favorite animal in the entire zoo! We spent much of Saturday wandering around the animal exhibits seeing giraffes, zebras, butterflies, tigers, polar bears, monkeys, a baby gorilla (so cute!), and many more. But overall, Chris loved the penguins. In fact, any animal exhibit that had water fascinated our little man. First he would tell the animal to swim if it wasn't already, and then he would say "Chris swim, Chris swim." I'm pretty sure if we had a wetsuit and some swimmies, we could have left him with the penguins all day long! Here is some video of him watching his favorite birds.

We also got to ride a very cool zoo train that took us past the antelope, cheetahs, rhinos, and elephants. After that, Chris and Olivia were set on riding the carousel and they got seats right next to each other! That day was very fun and the next day, we all went to the botanical gardens which were absolutely beautiful! Of course the highlight was the train garden which was this elaborate set up of model trains. Chris could have stayed there all day. Roses, smozes! Give the boy trains and he's happy! He did look for bees among the flowers, one of his favorite activities. And he ran through the corn maze in the children's garden with absolute excitement! Brian and I had to stand on opposite ends because he would go through the maze so fast, we couldn't even keep up with him. We had a lovely time this weekend and will definitely make it back to Omaha soon (especially since Chris keeps saying "Omaha" every time we get in the car, even if we're just going to the grocery store!). Pictures will follow soon.