Okay, back again to finish this log. My (Adam's) comments will be in normal type and Laurie's will be in Italics.
Laurie, my mother and I hitch a plane ride from Houston to Omaha on Sept 11th. Yes, my mother was languishing over the fact that we were flying on 9/11. There was an Arab looking guy that got on the plane to Omaha with us and I thought that my mother was going to ask him to not get on our plane with us. We made it all the way to Omaha without anyone trying to hijack our plane.
On our descent into Nebraska the pilot skimmed the top of the cloud cover for about 5 to 10 minutes. It was a lot of fun to see the clouds billow over the wings and to look straight out the window on a neverending sea of clouds. We then descended below the clouds and Omaha was 100% overcast.
We got off the plane, got our 8 peices of luggage (filled to the brim with baby gear), rented a car and then hit the road.
The city of Omaha is separated from the city of Coucil Bluffs by the Missouri River. I just assumed that the river separated Nebraska and Iowa as well. But that's wrong. It seems the river has moved over the course of the years and the state border is actually drawn up where the river used to be.
Once you cross the Missouri River, you enter a mini-Las Vegas. There are tons of casinos all over the Iowa side of the Iowa/Nebraska border. It just amazed me. There must be 4 or 5 large casinos here.
We found our hotel with ease and checked in. We then called Laurie's folk, Pete and Judy, to see where they were since they were driving in from Oregon to meet us there. They were eating BBQ. We were hungry so we found a Chili's-like establishment named "Ruby Tuesday's". They had some nice mini-burgers on the menu coupled with a salad bar. Laurie and I both got that item. It seems mini-burgers (like White Castle's) are very popular here -- they show up on tons of menus.
We met up with Pete & Judy, chatted a bit, and went to bed. I think before we parted company Pete made my mother a Gin martini with olives. My mom promptly drank it and extolled just how great it was. My mother had told me for years that she hated gin -- go figure.
The next day all of us except Pete got up and ate the complimentary breakfast offered by the hotel. At about 10:30 we met Lindsay, her mother Patty, and her son, Conner. They went off with Laurie and Judy to go shopping at the local mall. I'll let Laurie tell this story, however.
Hi, it's Laurie. I guess I'm supposed to talk about what we did today. Lindsay offered to take my mom and I to the mall and help us get baby stuff and some presents for her family. It was nice to see them again - they had flown down to Houston to meet us earlier. On the way to the mall, we drove by the hospital where the baby will be born so we can find it on Thursday.
Lindsay was really mobile for being 9 months pregnant. I couldn't believe how long she lasted. We bought formula, diapers, etc. and had fun playing with Conner. They also gave us a quick tour through town and drove us past where they live and a neat park with a lake and ducks. Council Bluffs is pretty small, with quite a few hills and lots of trees. Here's Adam again...
My mother and I travelled to the Omaha Old Market, which is a commercial area in the heart of downtown Omaha. It is loaded with tons of antique stores, used book stores and other whatnots.
My mom got in a big discussion with a woman that runs an East Europe import store about some famous Russian/Soviet writter named Something Gorky. This lady got all excited when she discovered my mother had read tons of his books. Anyway, her excitement was something to behold -- I guess she doesn't get many people familiar with Russian Communist writers here in the American heartland.
When my mother and I reconoited with Laurie and Judy, they were knee deep in gift wrapping. Judy is an amazing wrapper. Just incredible. We should have taken pictures of all the presents that were wrapped.
We got gifts for all of Lindsay's immediate family. Small stuff, but well thought stuff. It was nice. They wrapped my Nintendo64 that I had decommissioned in Houston and was going to give to Lindsay so she could play the "new" Super Mario Brothers (only a 5 year old game.)
We met back up with Lindsay and all her family later that night for dinner. Laurie and I took them to an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet. The buffet had a wandering clown that would make balloon animals for all the kids. Lindsay's boyfriend's daughter and Lindsay's brother's son both got balloon swords and proceeded to beat on each other with them. They eventually had to be separated.
After they were separated, they promptly started beating on me.
I have a bad habit of making small children cry. I guess sometimes I play too rough. Well, once I became the center of the balloon beatings, I was worried that the little girl was going to eventually start crying about something or the other.
Sure enought there was one time where I grabbed the balloon sword and pulled at it with her on the other end. Kinda like a tug-of-war. Anyway, that little girl was not going to let me have that balloon, and pulled and pulled on her end. The balloon started to stretch unnaturally thin and she was about 8 feet from me with about another 2 feet until she hit a wall. I saw this ending badly, but I couldn't let go of the balloon, lest she fall backwards into the wall. And I couldn't reach her since the balloon was too long. And I couldn't pull her towards me because the balloon would give before she would. Anyway I just sat there frozen holding to this balloon as the little girl pulled the balloon until it popped. She banged her little head against the wall, fell, and sat there stunned. I looked around to see if anyone was gonna beat me senseless. Well, that little girl popped right up, grabbed another balloon, and began beating me up with it all over again like nothing had happened. I was in the clear!
The night ended with all of our bellys full, and drinking martini's in Pete and Judy's room until 11:30pm.
1 comment:
Keep 'em coming.
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