Weekend in Omaha!

      The backyard cook out at Jason's was a lot of fun! We had hot dogs and cookies and wings... everything. We stayed until pretty late because we were having a fascinating conversation about history and multiple other things. I had a lot of fun!

     Sunday was the day that Chelsi and I both had off so we decided to go to Lincoln and check out the Hamann Rose Garden. It was so much fun and so beautiful, and I saw a (live) monarch butterfly for the first time! He only allowed us to take a few pictures before he fluttered away.

     There was so much life in the rose garden. Bees, butterflies... do you see the bee in the middle of the orange flower? He was huge! He was the size of my thumb, just rolling around in the pollen having a grand old time.

     After we breathed in all the wonderful scents that the roses were offering, we decided to go to the Mueller Planetarium. Since my Garmin would not pick up on the Planetarium, we decided to ask a couple at the rose garden if they could tell us how to get there. The lady gave us some confusing directions, and we set off to find it. We drove... and drove... and even stopped at Home Depot and asked again... and searched again... with no luck. So, the Mueller Planetarium will have to wait for another day. 
     Frustrated, we then headed to Omaha to find the Hot Shops. Garmin didn't find them, either, so we stopped at this beautiful Embassy Suites hotel and asked the receptionist if she could help us. She let us look it up on their computer and print out directions. We weren't too far away!

     Once we got to the Hot Shops, we were afraid they were about to close in 30 minutes and were worried we'd driven all that way just to rush. We tip toed in to find a lot of the place to be empty, but we heard classical music coming from around the corner. We peeked our head in to find a woman painting.
     We said hello, and she asked us where we were from. We talked for a little while and were fascinated by watching her paint. She told us that a lot of the artists had gone home for the evening, but we were more than welcome to walk around and go into any open doors we could find. So we did!

     It was a huge building with three stories of doors and hallways and art everywhere. We made our way down to the bottom floor and met a woman who was creating plates and various other things from glass. You can see some of her things in the upper right hand corner. I bought some things from her, and so did Chelsi... so I think she was happy to talk to us and show us how she does her art. We also got to watch a man hammering a piece of metal that he was going to make into a sculpture.

    Before we left the Hot Shops, we popped back in to talk to the woman who was painting the huge picture of a boy. We asked her if she could recommend a place for us to eat dinner, and she was eager to send us to a little Italian bistro downtown. She scribbled some directions on scrap paper and we hit the road. It took us a little bit of time to find the place, but once we did, we became extremely excited when we realized we had landed in Old Market Square!

We parked my car and were so excited to walk around and see what this place had to offer after all the good things we had heard. What a nice surprise! We went to the bistro that the artist had suggested only to see that it was nothing but wine and dinners like "beef tongue". We weren't interested, so we kept walking. We found a place called Vivace, and they had an appealing menu so we decided to eat there. My pasta was DELICIOUS!

     After our delicious meal, we searched the area for some shopping. Since it was late Sunday evening, our choices were limited. While walking, we encountered the typical strange male walking around looking quite sketchy... When we ran across him later on, he was following a woman in a group around who had a stroller asking repeatedly if he could see her baby. Ahhh!
     We decided to put our left-overs in my car before searching for more shops. Once I got to my car, I had a lovely little message under my windshield. We had payed for our receipt, and in our excitement and haste Chelsi had stuck it into her purse instead of putting it on my dash like the ticket said we should have. Thanks, Chelsi, for getting me my first parking ticket!

    

     I later gave the ticket and receipt to Sue, one of the head rangers here and she said she'd take care of it for me. I was so relieved! The ticket was $60! After some laughing about the ticket and some much needed shopping we decided to get ice cream at Maggie Moos. We both got s'mores, and it was soooo good. Is Nebraska capable of making food that tastes bad?

     We got home super late and headed to bed because we had to be up bright and early at 7 am for a full day of orientation.


     Monday... the day started slowly and went slowly the entire time. Not much at all happened except we re-learned things because the Iowa Conservation Crew and several other groups of summer volunteers had come to stay. Jesse teased me for nodding off during one of the lectures and he thought it was funny. My name was messed up twice... Blake called me "Katlin" and Sue called me something with a K that made no sense at all. I laughed because I am wearing a name tag at all times! I love the people here. We've only been here a week and we can joke around like we're family. Jesse is the best boss I could ever ask for because he makes fun of me and I make fun of him! Like today for instance, he was telling a group "When you take the prickly lettuce, you want to grab it by the RUTS". I shook my head... walked up to him... "Jesse, what is the part of the plant underground that holds the plant in place?" He didn't know what I was doing, so he goes, "The ruts?" Me: "ROOTS? The roots?" Jesse: "Is that how you say it?!"
     I love teasing Jesse. Making Tina laugh makes my day because her laugh is contagious and she's fun to joke around with.
     Later in the day, Chelsi and I went to pick some weeds in the Native Plant Display. After we cleared the plots, I tried to catch some butterflies. I caught two of them! One wasn't very happy... and once I let him go we never saw him again. I took some pictures but they came out blurry.
     For dinner tonight I made my famous barbecue chicken pizza! Chelsi helped shred the chicken and it came out VERY DELICIOUS! They were happy and it made me happy that they enjoyed my dinner.

     Tonight all three of us are exhausted, so we declared it a "chill night" and we are watching The Watchmen. Tomorrow's going to be a boring day. Chelsi and I are going to be doing invasive plant removal all day long on the prairie. The good thing you ask? The Iowa Conservation Corps are here and the team is 10 males. 10 attractive males. Allison is so jealous...