Our Staycation in Nebraska-Old Market, Wineries and a 7 yr. old's BD

We had a marvelous 7 day vacation at home last week! Our brother (DH's brother John) and sister-in-law (Karen) from Ocala, Fl visited us. Little known, there is a lot to do around Omaha, Nebraska. We may have touched on half of what we wanted to do. In the eastern most part of Omaha is the Old Market area. It was built up more than 100 yrs. ago, every thing business and industrial was in this area. Fortunately for us, it has never fallen in to disrepair and has been converted in to shops and restaurants. The first photo is in an antique store there. I love the frosty windows with the vines growing across them. There are vines on so many buildings down there. All of the Streets are still the original brick.

These two guys were priceless! They looked almost like twins. Wish I had gotten my camera out sooner, they even had matching earings and both were eating ice cream cones. We were sitting at an outdoor eating area of a microbrewery....a place called the Upstream. You can not go wrong eating there. A large Farmer's Market is across the street from the Upstream, every Saturday. It was so festive and affordable and had a lot of ethnic vendors with so many special things. I will go back again.

One day we went to Nebraska City to visit the winery at Arbor Day Farms. Karen and I bought a glass of wine (happy hour, $2.50 a glass, have you EVER heard of Happy Hour at a winery?) John is very silly, that's him emptying his glass with his back to us! I'm on the left.

This may surprise some but, my favorite thing in Nebraska City is not wine. Don't judge me! It's a Whispering Bench on the Grounds of Arbor Lodge.

I'm pretty dorky and have the simplest of pleasures so, I don't expect people to appreciate all that I appreciate. But, they were VERY impressed with this. It's on the verge of being spooky, with 60 ft. of this curved bench and a quiet whisper, if your eyes are closed...you would swear your partner is sitting right next to you! Crazy, even during the busy days of falltime, we don't have competition to sit and whisper to each other here. This is a picture of John and Karen trying out the Whispering Bench for the first time.

Here is John standing by the statue of Grover Cleveland in front of the Whispering Bench. John is really funny. I'm rabid about history and Historical Markers. It wasn't too long when he'd see one he'd say, "Hey Cindy, there's your hysterical marker!".

There is a new Pedestrian Bridge in Omaha. It links Omaha, NE and Council Bluffs, Iowa over the Missouri River. There are many nature things around the base of it on the Nebraska side. We bring all of our houseguests there. My husband Jim is walking on the left, John on the right. John and Karen are also the relatives that we go on cruises with. Can't wait for our cruise in November.


Last but not least, it was our little designer Alex's 7 th birthday on July 5th. Here she is with her silly dad (my brother in law) and my mother. She's itching to come back to my house and organize and decorate a bit with me! I'm so glad that we have another generation in our family who loves to junk and paint and decorate. Life is good!