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Reunited

Time for another installment of the Husker reunion. The Kellers trekked down the Omaha this time and we spent an awesome morning at the zoo and a hot afternoon in the backyard pool. Good fun with some of my best girls.

It's weird, somehow the number of Husker friends stays the same, but the number of Husker children seems to go up...

Around Oma & Papa's house lately...

Kate's Favs

Kate's favorite things #327: parades.

Kate loves a good parade. Well, actually, it doesn't even have to be a good parade, any old parade will do. Our first parade for the summer season was the 4th of July parade in the Field Club neighborhood. Since we went last year, we have sort of turned it into a Hoybook family tradition.

 Balloons and popsicles. Ah, perhaps we have found the reason for her parade love...

Parade #2 was the Annual Chicken Show parade in Wayne. It was rainy, but that didn't stop our lil' chick from raking in an enormous bag of candy. She would, however, like to request, "no more sirens" next year please.

Getting out of town

One thing I always forget about Omaha is how close it is to everywhere else. Six hours to Minneapolis. Seven hours to Chicago. Eight hours to Denver. And only three to Kansas City. Last weekend, we packed up the Jeep and headed to KC for a little weekend getaway.

As is the Hoybook way, we packed a lot in our 32 hour visit. We played at Kaleidoscope at the Hallmark HQ, learned all about science at the Maker's Faire at Union Station, drank great coffee at Quay Roasters, looked out over the city from the WWI Memorial and played with the fish at the Aquarium.

Fun, so very much fun.

An upgrade

So, last summer we got lucky. Kate was only two and was pretty content with the state of things in our backyard. The "state of things" being absolutely nothing to play with. We were good about always walking her to the park to play in the sand or heading to a splash park to get in some water play. However, this summer, we have already discovered that homegirl needs some fun stuff in her own yard too. In other words, Mom and Dad needed to step up a bit and make a few home/yard/fun improvements. Good thing we delivered.

Please welcome, the sandbox.

Sand in the City!

Next event on our very busy summer schedule? Sand in the City.

It really is just as it sounds--a bunch of sand in a parking lot in downtown Omaha. Teams get together to compete in a sand-sculpture contest, but the biggest attraction for our little someone was surprisingly, not the giant bounce house, but the giant pile of sand. (Of-course, the free activity is the best activity. Why do we buy them toys again?) Team Horton joined us for the evening and the girls had a great time.

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