Around Christmas (of 2016), my parents told us that they wanted to take us on a trip. We love to do a good road trip to a place no one has been, but with all of us having to take off work, we decided to go somewhere with a relatively short drive – Omaha, Nebraska. I got a lot of turned heads when people asked but we were pretty pumped to check another state and family trip off our list!
My parents are generally our go-to dog sitters, so we got to board Chloe for the first time. Unfortunately, they don’t take dogs on Saturday mornings, so we had to drop her off on Friday evening. As we were leaving, Sarah snapped this photo of us. I love it so much.
This was Chloe in her “room” at the boarder. There were quite a few other dogs so I’m sure she kept busy the entire time we were gone. She even got a little cot. 
Saturday morning we were up bright and early to hit the road. Mom, Dad and Eric picked us up and then we hit the road in Mom’s Sonata and a rental Rogue. I got the backseat with these two.
Other than almost running out of gas, the trip was uneventful and only took us about 5 hours. Our first stop was to Patriarch Distillers. This was something Mom picked out for us to do, so we gave her lots of trouble when we show up to a random industrial park and there are zero cars in the parking lot. We thought it was going to be a total bust (sorry, Mom), but it ended up being one of our favorite parts of the entire trip. We got to learn all about the Vodka, Whiskey, and Bourbon distilling process as well as try each. They are committed to giving back to those who have served in the military, so it was especially awesome to hear about all of the organizations that they partner with.
Our AirBnb wasn’t ready on time, so we spent some time walking around Omaha in bookstores, coffeeshops and doing beer tastings.
The Bob Kerry Pedestrian bridge was on our must-see list, so we made sure to hit it on a sunny day. The bridge crosses over the Missouri river connecting Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska. It is about 6/10 of a mile in length, but by the time we walked to and from the parking lot it was close to 2 miles total. We walked from the Omaha side, so when we got to the Council Bluffs side we had a great view of the city.
Even though the quality of this picture isn’t great, I just have to include the only photo we all go in. I love this bunch.
On my Dad’s birthday, the boys golfed and the girls shopped. I’m so thankful that Kevin snapped this photo while they were out on the course.
Omaha is known for their steaks, so we would have been remiss if we didn’t test them out. We went to a recommended restaurant called the Dover. We all got the salad bar and our various types of steaks, all were fantastic.
Kevin and I went out for a coffee date on Tuesday. As usual, I enjoyed a chai latte and Kevin had a latte. The color of the mugs, table, and the background made for some great photos. Kevin is reading The Way of Kings (the biggest book ever) and I am reading the Magnolia Journal magazine.
Another highlight of the trip was the “beercade” or arcade with beer in Bensen, NE. We spent quite a while here and our favorites were Tetris, skee ball, pin ball, and Galactica. Of course there were a lot of friendly competitions going on. Kevin was the skee ball champ.
This is when family vacation starts to look like Family Vacation. I’m kidding, but the whole series of “live” photos is just something else.
Another family trip in the books and another state added to my list (I think I’m at 38/50). I’m so thankful that we still do fun things like this.