Katy, Claire, Zac and I took a little trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo here in Omaha today. You'd think, it being mid-May and all, that the weather would be very pleasant. You would be WRONG. :) Temps in Omaha were in the upper 40s to around 50 today, and combined with a nice northwesterly wind...you get the picture. Or, here's one:
The zoo has a nice little area for the kids to pet animals, and the goats were the most interested in being a part of this process. The chickens, while wandering about, seemed to have no interest in having children pet them.
There were also rabbits and guinea pigs and a baby goat around, but all behind gates. It might have been fun to see the pot-bellied pigs, too, but they were snoozing while we were there. The Henry Doorly Zoo is one of the top zoos in the U.S. (look it up!) and it has much to offer. Given the cold temps, we were happy to spend our first 30 minutes or so inside the Lied Jungle, which helped warm us up for the rest of the three hours we were there. Fortunately, many exhibits offer indoor viewing areas, such as those for the big cats, the gorillas, bears and even giraffes. Wow those things are tall when you get to be up close to them.
I think the favorite part of the zoo visit for all of us today was a newer exhibit called Lemur Island. In this short, suspended walk-through area, they have black and white ruffed lemurs, as well as red ones. They are allowed to roam free, which makes for some interesting interaction, such as the one that considered getting up into Zac's umbrella stroller.
Then, as we were watching a few of the lemurs playing in a tree, as you see here, something unexpected happened and none of us caught it on camera. A black and white lemur decided to jump back from the tree to the walkway railing and the jump was right at us! THAT was exciting!
Last night I had the opportunity to see Claire perform in her year-ending choir concert for school. I've included a few videos I tried to grab of her group here.
The quality isn't that great and for some reason my phone hesitated a few times, but you get the gist. It's hard to see, but Claire is right in the middle of all the people singing.
And you can't see it here, but she smiles whenever she sings, while most of the kids seem to think smiling while singing is the worst thing they could do. :)
It was a long day driving down to Independence after work and then driving home, but well worth it to get to spend that time with her and spend this weekend with her up here in Omaha.
Happy Easter everyone! I thought I'd do a little extra in this space today because I had some pics I wanted to share of Zac dyeing eggs for the first time and of getting his Easter basket this morning. I'm also sharing a video within this space. So, less text and more pics today. :) First up, we need to see how we dressed Zac to protect him from becoming blue, yellow or red himself.
Now that we had him ready, it was time to begin working on the eggs. Let's see what that process looked like:
So here is the end result from that process:
Not too bad for a first effort, we think. I think we probably were great at this 30 years ago...well, 21 for Katy. :) OK, so then this morning we had Zac's basket ready and we hid six plastic eggs around the house, filled with candy for him to search for as well. One egg we placed in his shoe, and surprisingly, that's the one he saw even before his Easter basket, walking right past it. :)
So there you have it. We're not super elaborate because, well, he's three. How much chocolate could one little guy need? :) What he's holding there is his first battery-powered toothbrush, Cars edition. Very excited! So Happy Easter everyone!
Today's picture is of Zac's birthday dinner this evening at Red Robin (yummmmm...to quote the jingle), which we were able to share with my mom and dad, who drove down from Custer, SD just for Zac's birthday. Woohoo! Red Robin was choice number three, which is perfect considering Zac is exactly that many years old today. The first two choices were closed due to bad weather here in Omaha. Closed! That's just crazy! Where do we live? Are we not hearty people? But I digress.
It was three years and one day ago today that I was shopping for parts for a networking job I was going to do to make some extra money. Three years and one day ago today that, while searching for those parts at an Ace Hardware store, Katy called to tell me the doctors had decided to deliver Zac the next day, February 1st, 2008, by emergency C-section due to Katy's preecclampsia. So Katy calls to share this news with me, which should not have been unexpected since she'd been in the hospital several days already, but I was in the middle of asking a clerk at the store where to find something. Distracted, I suppose, by that effort and by the situation we were in that week, my response to learning I was going to be a dad again was, "OK. Thanks for letting me know!"
Yes, that is what I said when finding out the delivery date of my son. Now that we've put that on the table, let me tell you a little bit about my son. Zac has a joy I constantly crave. I love it when he sits in my lap and cuddles while watching TV on Saturday morning or in the evenings perhaps before bed. I love playing cars with him on the living room floor and watching him be "all boy" as he rams things into one another. I love playing with his stuffed animals in his room while he lays on his bed, acting surprised every time I have the dinosaur come up over the edge and roar at him. I love that when I look at him, all I want to do is hold him, and hug him, and kiss him and tell him that I love him. I love the beautiful innocence in his eyes and the way he uses excellent manners when people say something nice, or provide him something to eat or drink, or do something for him. I love how he turns almost anything into a song, and how he can't go to sleep at night without asking Katy and me to sing to him, but especially Katy. I love how he wants to pray before he eats and how he calls macaroni and cheese, "mac cheese".
Zac is our miracle. The chances of Katy even getting pregnant were slim and we knew it, but chose to try anyway, realizing adoption might be our only chance eventually. Then, as Katy's health deteriorated, we had great doctors who knew what to do so Zac would best be prepared to enter this world early. Nine weeks is certainly early enough, and having to spend over five weeks in the NICU was hard, but his care was so great, the prayers he received so strong, and God's love so immense that he came through it all with flying colors. He's fully caught up to other kids his age in size and is showing the great intelligence we expect of him. My miracle son, Zac, is my favorite little boy in the whole world. I love him more than life, enough to know I'd give up my life for him if it was ever required. I love him unconditionally, just as God loves me and loves him. Thank you, Jesus, for this amazing gift, this amazing bundle of joy and energy and funny jokes and songs!
Well, we are finally getting our first big snow of the season, enough so that Interstate travel is not recommended and we couldn't make it to Lincoln today for work. Zac's daycare had already closed anyway, so here we are, watching a beautiful snowfall, though I have to say I literally hate snow and winter. I don't mind watching it fall, just so long as it doesn't accumulate. :)
Thanks to my snow blower deciding NOT to work again this year, I had to shovel our long driveway. As I finished that, Katy brought Zac out to enjoy the snow. Now, last year we brought him out and he was not crazy about it at all. But this year, he's already had some opportunity at daycare to play in the little bit we've had, and he was definitely into it this morning. He went right in, even helping me shovel for a bit! I've posted the pics in the album to the right, and also on Facebook, but here is a video to enjoy. A higher-quality version exists on the YouTube account. Just click the link to the right or go to YouTube and look for my channel, jewfrat1. :)
Well, I wish I'd caught this when he was really singing loudly, but at least I got a little something to share. :) Zac LOVES to sing. His latest TV show favorite is a show on Nick, I believe, called "Jack's Big Music Show". It's from a few years ago, but the entire show is based on music of all different styles. These puppets do it from a clubhouse they have, and the main character, Jack, has a dog named Mel who plays the drums. Zac often calls this the "Doggy Music Show". We DVR it every day for him now. :) Anyway, here's the little bit of singing and playing on his xylophone that I was able to catch.
Didn't get to this last night after all the festivities, but here are a few pics of Zac in his costume and getting to do his first real trick-or-treating. :)
Zac had a great time getting to walk around the neighborhood with his cousins and plenty of people in the homes thought his giraffe costume was just the cutest thing.
Now, of course, the big challenge is convincing him he doesn't have an endless supply of candy to eat every night. How well do you think that's working out so far?
It's not often during football season that the Huskers have a Saturday off. It's even rarer that you can get me out of the house regardless, given my love of all things college football. However, we had a real desire to take Zac to get his own pumpkin this year and we thought it'd be fun to visit the Bellevue Berry Farm, which is fairly close.
The pics I'm sharing today are from yesterday's visit. One cool thing for kids about this place is that they have all these areas set up with different themes. They also have some animals you can get up close and personal with, and Zac was able to pet a miniature horse and the pigs were very interested in trying to get close to him. :) In addition, he enjoyed the chickens, cows, an emu, full-sized horses and even the family dog.
After walking around a bit and enjoying the cool Fall day and the animals, we hopped on for a hayrack ride around the property. We all enjoyed this, but Zac especially, and toward the end they stop to let everyone pick a pumpkin if they are interested. We let Zac pick out two, one small and one big, and we even bought some of the honey harvested right on the property. Should be good, but for now Zac is much more concerned with his small pumpkin.
For example, he wanted to play with it last night, and during the course of that he presented it to Katy and said "Happy Birthcake". Yes, that's how he normally says "birthday". Then other times he was acting as though he was making something out of it and, when I asked what, he told me he was making garlic. Yes, garlic. He can't even eat garlic because, well, he doesn't wear it very well.
Anyway, such are the fun times of having a toddler in the house. Wouldn't trade it for the world!
The Henry Doorly Zoo is one of the top zoos in the U.S. (look it up!) and it has much to offer. Given the cold temps, we were happy to spend our first 30 minutes or so inside the Lied Jungle, which helped warm us up for the rest of the three hours we were there. Fortunately, many exhibits offer indoor viewing areas, such as those for the big cats, the gorillas, bears and even giraffes. Wow those things are tall when you get to be up close to them.
Then, as we were watching a few of the lemurs playing in a tree, as you see here, something unexpected happened and none of us caught it on camera. A black and white lemur decided to jump back from the tree to the walkway railing and the jump was right at us! THAT was exciting!
