Lincoln trip summer 2015

The kids and I just returned from our annual summer trip to Nebraska.  We had a great time!  Here are the highlights:

Kenny Chesney knows how to make Nebraskans cheer.

• My sister and I attended the Kenny Chesney concert.  It was refreshing to have a night out with my sister,  it was interesting to see the impressive Pinnacle Bank Arena from the inside for the first time (my little hometown is all grown up!), and Chesney is a born entertainer who put on a great show.  Two thoughts on the concert:
• Kenny's 2 main themes are 1) Celebrating small town institutions: home, church, traditional values, high school football; and 2) Party on the beach.  At first, these two themes seem contradictory.  But a wise friend pointed out to me that many of us (myself included) like to think that we have elements of both of these things in our personality.  So maybe this partially explains Chesney's wild popularity.  
• I am starting to experience glimpses of being "too old" for a certain kind of concert experience.  Like noticing, judgmentally, that everyone around you is drunk (although it made for some excellent people watching); thinking about strategies the artist is using to try to engage the crowd (see picture above) rather than just relaxing and enjoying the theatrics; and not being willing to stand for the entire 2 hour set (on the flip side, it's enjoyable to get to the point where you don't mind being the stick-in-the-mud who sits when everyone else is standing, and you can enjoy the music rather than thinking about how your legs ache).  
• We hit up all our favorite Nebraska kid hot spots: Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo, Lincoln Zoo, and Lincoln Children's Museum.  Our kids are at a great age to visit zoos and children's museums.  They are old enough to understand their surroundings, but young enough to be filled with wonder.  So, for example, when Zoey sees a monkey flying towards her, her jaw literally drops.  When Josh sees a life-sized train, he gets that it's a train and he fully imagines that he's driving it over real train tracks.  Very cool.   
• Unfortunately, we did not continue the streak of no-kid-sickness-while-on-vacation (both kids had small rounds of sickness), but my mom (who is a nurse practitioner and a very caring woman) is a huge help with this.  
• My best friend from high school, who now lives in Des Moines, visited Lincoln during the weekend we were in town.  We had a nice afternoon catching up and a fun night out exploring the Railyard and Haymarket area.  It's great to hang out with old friends because it's equal parts reminiscing about old memories and catching up on all the new stuff happening in your life.  And it's nice for me to spend time with someone who knows me primarily as someone other than a mom, because it helps me remember and feel the other parts of my identity.
• One of my very favorite things about visiting Nebraska is just being part of the regular, day-to-day stuff that we would do all the time if we lived here - such as attending niece Jayla's soccer game (and watching brother Eric be a soccer dad), hanging out at my sister's house with her 3 kids (including meeting her youngest, Charlie!  The happiest baby you will ever meet), being around for a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Fickenscher, and attending regular family dinners.
• This is not a highlight per se, but I want to drop it in because it's cool - we only saw my youngest brother Mitchell briefly, because the day after we arrived, he departed for a 2 week tour across the eastern United States doing a series of concerts with his friends from college.  #freespirit
• My parents just moved into a beautiful new house.  It was a little emotional to visit a brand new house rather than the house where we grew up.  I don't want to over-sentimentalize this, because I only actually lived in their previous house for 4 of the 20 years they resided there.  But there's a small sadness in not returning to Pheasant Run, home of so many memories.  I'm very happy for my parents - I think their new home and location will be terrific for them, and they thoughtfully included expansive guest accomodations that will be great for us - but I wanted to give one last shout-out to Pheasant Run.  
• No trip to Lincoln is complete without hitting up some of my favorite Nebraska restaurants.  This summer's trip included food from Valentino's, Lazlo's, and Amigo's.  (Which means Runza and La Paz will be at the top of the list for our winter trip.)  I also had my first experience eating Vietnamese food.  My mom and I shared an order of pho (which, I learned, is pronounced "fuh"), spring rolls, and some delicious Vietnamese fried rice.  Nebraska might seem like an unusual place for a first exposure to ethnic food of any kind, but Lincoln has a thriving Vietnamese community

Thanks for a great visit, Nebraska!  I look forward to seeing you again around Christmas!