We decided not to drive back to Illinois for Thanksgiving. There were several factors, not the least of which is our dog Sam. Being new to city life, I didn't even think about boarding him, so when I called the Monday before thanksgiving, all the kennels were full.

That would have meant that we would had to have taken him with us, which isn't really a bad thing, other then it meant we couldn't have brought much stuff back with us. It also meant that we would have had to change our plans. We were planning on staying with Holly's aunt Joyce for a day or two, which would have obviously been difficult with Sam.

So, we decided to stay here and take advantage of some of the local stuff.

Wednesday night, a mall near our house had a lighting ceremony that we went to. It had Santa, Rudulph, Frosty, and other characters walking around. We also got a fair amount of snow on Wednesday, so everything was really pretty!!

On Thanksgiving day, Holly made a great dinner and we headed downtown to see the lights downtown Omaha. It was so pretty! We walked around the old market which has some really nice shops and found a big slide.

On Friday, we went to the Omaha Children's Museum which was a lot of fun. It's not the biggest one we've been to, but they have a huge ball area which the kids loved.

After that, we went to McDonalds for lunch and then headed out to the Strategic Air and Space Museum. They have lots of airplanes (some of which, this was one of only a couple left). They also had a flight simulator that Broderick and I flew... well, Broderick flew it. Whenever I took the controls, it would going into a spin.. Not me, something was wrong! This is one of those simulators you ride in, so if the plane is spinning, so are you!

Saturday, we didn't do much... checked out a local bookstore and went to go get Library cards. Turns out that we aren't in the library district either, so we have to pay an annual fee of $25.

Today, we checked out the local Vineyard Church to see what it's like. We're on the church hunt! Unfortunately, it really didn't jive with us. The service lasted 1 1/2 hours. I appreciate the fact that this is just a small portion of the week for church, but 1 1/2 hours is just too long to sit there. The sermon was OK, but long. :(

After church, we went to The Pizza Machine which is like Chuckie Cheese on steroids. We were there for a few hours and the kids loved it. When we got home, I took Sam on a nice walk and then hung up some of our Christmas lights before it got dark.

Holly found something where the kids can take skiing lessons. Something like $200 gives them a season pass, 6 weeks of lessons (once a week) and rental. Compare that with the normal kids season ticket price of $200 and it's a no brainer! Lessons and rentals for free basically!