go ahead, tell em jack

and tell them he did.  at the front of the room. to his entire 1st grade class!

and yes, at church, it IS painful!

bragging rights

omaha's zoo has legitimate bragging rights.  voted #1 in the world (yes, world- you did not read that wrong)- the henry doorly zoo is quite incredible!  after a tiny sebbatical from zoo membership, we recently renewed and were so happy to return.

when accompanied by exclusive zoo friends, it is even more magical! (yes, we have a favorite set of friends for the zoo- don't you?)

panic on NYE

"home for New Years?  what are we going to do?  do we have any traditions?  what does everyone else do?  is there a party circuit we aren't privy to because we're so often gone?  maybe we should do something???  but we're rookies at NYE?  and we don't want to stay up with overly tired kids until midnight?  should we throw the kind of party we want? do we dare???"

...  yes, we dared and we had only 2 days to plan a party!  but that wasn't the scary part.  the panic set in as positive RSVPs kept coming until our guest list totalled 14 adults and 26 kids!  

"seriously, what were we thinking?  clearly, we weren't thinking!  why were we so careless? no one will even enjoy the party because it'll be a chaotic nightmare." 

we spent inordinate amounts of time planning structure to remedy our rookie status oversight and it paid off.  the party was fantastic! (minus, of course, the 2 days of preparation panic)  and we celebrated just as we wanted- with our kids and our friends!  everyone was happy, relaxed, and free of injury to ring in 2015!

signs of life

the FLU has visited our house and though the kids (and aunt jordy) are thus far immune, the parents are most certainly not!  this picture is the only evidence we have of life in the past 4 days.  otherwise staying in, sleeping long hours, watching mindless TV and even skipping his last two days of work before a new job- this is the one time dave and i ventured out alive.  as always, lake Z was good to us.  resuscitating life momentarily, we slid all around the iced over lake.

luckily, this terrible sickness didn't settle in until after the bachelor season kickoff- a dirty secret tradition that becky and i might have been devastated to miss!