behr trax: A visit from Auntie Laurie

It's a rainy, cool Sunday afternoon. David's sister, Laura, has been visiting for the weekend. We've had a fun-filled last few days. Now, Max is taking a nap and since David and Laura went out to grab some soup for our lunch, I'm enjoying some quiet time at home. As our weekend visit is wrapping up, I thought I'd sit down and share some of our activities together.
On Friday, we took Laura to the Henry Doorly Zoo. As I've mentioned before, this zoo has some really great attractions. We spent several hours exploring the new aquarium and the jungle exhibits. The jungle is huge and features several jungle regions, such as Asia, Africa and South America. It's like walking the jungle forest. There is a little trail you can take on the lower level to get up close and personal with several types of animals. The upper level has a walk-way along the outside putting you right underneath the canopy of the rainforest. You actually get rained on! Hippos, tapir, monkeys, birds, fish, turtles, porcupine, snakes, toads, and even bats. I had to skip the bat section and walk all the way back around to the entrance the wrong way because I have a terrible fear of bats. Ugh, gross! Here are a few pictures from our day at the zoo:

David and the penquins

Max loved watching the fish swim overhead

Aunt Laurie on the rope bridge

Cute monkeys

those nasty bats

Max laughing at Aunt Laurie

Here's a sloth hanging in the tree

We visited Amato's for brunch yesterday, which is a little diner that was highlighted on the show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives with Guy Fieri. The ricotta blueberry pancakes were amazing! The Food Network and the Travel Channel are our go-to resources when we move to a new city. You have to check out the local secrets, right?! Also featured from Omaha is Jones Bros Cupcakes on Cupcake Wars. We visited the shop on Saturday as well and talked to Bill, the owner, for about 30 minutes. Pretty cool that I flipped to the show on Food Network today and watched his team win the cupcake war! So obviously they have great cupcakes AND you can log onto Facebook on Fridays, get the secret, and if you're one of the first 92 people in the door with said secret, you get a free cupcake. Uhhh, dangerous much? I digress.

Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes and Italian breakfast sausage

Max saying,"Whatsamadda fa you?" in his best Italian accent

Strawberry & Cream Cupcake of the Day

My boys at Jones Bros

Yummmm, cupcakes!

After our brunch, we ventured downtown to Old Market. It's a very hip tourist attraction and very busy on weekends. Cobblestone streets, lofts, restaurants, shops. We fell upon a Pub Crawl in progress. So, as the Crawlers got more rowdy, we headed back towards home. Not really an environment conducive to shopping with a baby. Max was a real trooper though, so we decided to treat Laura to a belated birthday dinner at Mahogany's Steak House. Wow! Yummy! You can't go to Omaha without enjoying a steak, right?