Mini-Vacation to Nebraska

We took a long weekend and headed to Nebraska for a mini-vacation. Hubby's cousin graduated from high school so we took it as an opportunity to get away and also attend her graduation party.

{A beautiful ombre sky on our drive.}

It was great to get away and just spend time together as a family. We spent the night in Sioux City and did a little shopping the next morning before heading out to the graduation party.

Little Miss Sunshine was super excited when she spotted this carousel at the mall. So of course I had to take her for a ride while daddy shopped at Scheels. She loved it.

She doesn't like having her picture taken and will turn her head away if she notices me taking a picture...

After the graduation party, we headed to Omaha. Fun fact--I was born near Omaha, Nebraska. We didn't have a lot of time to do any exploring, but it looks like it could be an interesting place to visit and spend some time in the downtown area. 

The next morning, we headed to the Omaha Zoo. Hubby and I visited the zoo shortly after we were married and that has been almost 10 years ago! It's a really nice zoo and rated one of the top zoos in the world. Little Miss Sunshine was so excited about going to the zoo.

The mom of the year award goes to me--I packed everything we would need for this trip and then left most of the essentials at the hotel. Way to go, huh? 

So we ended up having to spend $10 for sunscreen at the zoo and to buy Little Miss Sunshine a hat too! It was a really sunny day and I didn't want her getting burned! I felt so unprepared! As you can see, she didn't like the hat and wouldn't keep it on--so more money wasted.

We got to see the two baby elephants at the zoo--they were so cute!

I didn't get a lot of pictures, which is fine because we've all seen zoo animals before.

It was super busy the day that we went. I heard one person say, "I haven't been in a line this long since Black Friday at Walmart". Hahaha. Yep, pretty much explains it!

One of my favorite parts of the zoo is the butterfly exhibit. You walk into a greenhouse type environment and there are all different kinds of butterflies flying around. There are these beautiful bluish purple butterflies that live in South America. It's so pretty in there!

We made it through most of the zoo, but not all of it. There's only so much that a two year old can handle before she's ready for a nap! We did a lot of walking, but would you believe that I didn't even get credit for it on my fitbit? Ugh--I hate that it doesn't track when I'm pushing a stroller and I forgot to put it in my pocket!

I guess the trip to the zoo really tired me out too because we went back to the hotel and I took a four hour nap. Whaaaattt? I felt great when I woke up though.

We stopped at Jethro's BBQ in West Des Moines on our way home. I've always wanted to give it a try but we're usually in the Des Moines area on the weekend and the wait is too long. It was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if Little Miss Sunshine wasn't being so naughty! So is the life of a parent...

So that was our trip! Nothing too exciting, but it was so nice to get away.

A Trip to the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines & Mini-Vacation

Every year around my birthday time we go to Des Moines to go shopping. I miss having local access to a lot of my favorite stores and the good selection that you can find in a bigger city. Oh, and there’s a Cheesecake factory. Enough said.

Little Miss Sunshine loves animals. Most of the books we have are about animals and she loves to see all of the farm animals at grampy and grammy’s farm. I knew she would absolutely love going to the zoo—so we made plans to do that!

This was my first visit to the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines but hubby had been there on field trips are a child. It’s the perfect size zoo—it took us about 2 hours to walk through which was the perfect amount of time for a one year old. Although we didn’t go through the indoor Discovery Center. She was getting tired and cranky towards the end.

We took a train ride through the zoo, which cost less than $5 for all three of us. Overall, everything was very reasonably priced. Admission was $12 each and Little Miss Sunshine was free (as are children 2 years old and younger).

Aren’t Little Miss Sunshine’s sunglasses adorable? She actually kept them on most of the time!

She really did love the zoo! She would get so excited to see the different animals. She thought anything furry was a cat and would meow, of course.

How brave this child is never ceases to amaze me. She isn’t afraid of much of anything—although she didn’t want to touch this llama.

There was a nice playground located in the Kids’ Kingdom. Little Miss Sunshine was a little too young to use the equipment, but we did find this cow to take a quick picture with!

It was so fun to see her look at the animals with wonder. It’s like being able to relive childhood through the eyes of my child.

We really needed to go on a vacation and just spend a little time together as a family with no interruptions or real responsibilities. We really enjoyed it!

By far, Little Miss Sunshine loved the carousel the most. She cried and cried when the ride was over and we had to get off!

Such a beautiful carousel!

I had some record breaking steps earned on my Fitbit over the weekend! On this particular day (Friday), I earned 13,396 steps—which was a personal record at the time, but I blew that out of the water on Saturday with 17,043 steps! Whoohoo!

I earned the Urban Boot badge on Fitbit. It has been a long time since I’ve earned a badge—so that made me happy!

On Saturday, we started our day out with a walk at Gray’s Lake Park—a beautiful spot for a walk!

The rest of the trip was filled with shopping (mostly just walking around malls), swimming at the hotel pool, Starbucks, and good eats…maybe too many of those!

I can’t wait to take our next mini vacation!

 

What’s your favorite vacation spot for a quick getaway?