A rainforest, gorilla valley, aquarium...

This last weekend Abigail and I made a trip to Nebraska! I took the day off work Friday and we headed to Hooper, where Lisa, a good friend from HS, recently bought a house with her husband. The house is beautiful and we had a great evening (we had dinner at a great, local, restaurant and then sat up talking all night!).

Saturday morning Abigail was too excited to sleep (she woke at 5am). She must have known that a my parents and a bunch of friends and I were going to take her to the Omaha zoo (if you haven't been lately, it's a must see!)!! Lisa, her niece (3 years) and mom came, along with Jennifer and Jenilee, two other friends from high school, and two kids that Jenilee was babysitting (15 months and 4 years). Did I mention my parents and grandma came also? We had a big group, but we had a blast! The amazing thing was that we left from three different cities and all ended up making it to the zoo within minutes (okay a half hour) of each other, and it was the college world series (for those of you who aren't familiar with the Omaha area, the zoo and Rosenblat stadium - where the world series is held - basically share parking lots). Abigail wasn't sure what to really think of anything and, unless it moved she didn't notice most things.

We started our day in the rain forest. I think the thing Abigail liked best about the rain forest was the waterfalls. Next we made our way over to the Zebras, then to the Giraffes. We then saw the sea lions, and there was a brand new baby! It was born at midnight, and to tell you the truth, I thought it was dead at first (see the picture below). Next we walked across the large bridge and saw the monkeys on the island and the coy. My dad asked me for a quarter to buy food to feed the fish, but the little girls with us took all of his food :( how sad (actually what a nice grandpa!). After the bridge we went to the new Gorilla Valley. It is so amazing! They have a lot of gorillas and most of them were moving around a lot. A gorilla walked right up to her (through glass, of course) and she just stared! It was pretty funny. After Gorilla Valley we walked through the cat house. Apparently they had just had lunch and it was nap time, so we made our way to the farm. Here we had lunch and the little girls rode the carousel. After lunch Jenilee and her kiddos left us to pick up the kids' big brother and my dad decided it was his nap time (as did Abigail ~ see below photo). There were only a few things that we hadn't yet seen, and we decided we couldn't do them all, but the Creatures of the Night and Aquarium were the last stops. The aquarium is really neat, and has a tunnel you walk through with sharks, rays and lots of fish that swim over, and all around, you. Over all we had an amazing day and all of us were exhausted!!

Here are a few pictures from our trip!

Abigail is excited about crossing this bridge!

Holding Jen's chin up! :)

Grandpa! We're up here!

Abigial and I both very excited about the waterfalls!

Looking over the ledge

The baby sea lion and it's mommy (see the blood?)

"Whoa! What's that?!"

Looking at the white Tiger

All tuckered out!

Sunday morning kisses from Aunt Allison!

Note: I have decided after looking at the pictures from this trip that I'm a much better photographer than model!