Tiny, Shiny, and...Vivi

You know what else was awesome about Fontanelle Forest?  The basement. 

If you actually come inside and go downstairs, there is a dinosaur encounter set up in the entire basement, complete with fossil dig.  Now, I'm sure you are all a bit tired of seeing my child excavate bits of ground rubber, and are inwardly sighing.

But have you seen something so hilarious as this?

 A little pteranodon, digging for fossils (ironic, no?).

Fontanelle Forest houses a number of costumes in the basement, among them the cast of Dinosaur Train, a show very popular in both our house and Parker's.  Vivi and Parker quite monopolized the costumes and were hilarious.  The hugeness of the heads and their tiny bodies was too funny as they raced around the entire area.

Here Buddy models the "Buddy" head with a most charming smile.

Hint: Vivi has tossed around the idea of a dinosaur as Halloween, which I am VERY EXCITED about.

 However.  Don't hold your breath.  We all know how the much talked about "Mermaid Birthday Party" turned out.  Sigh.  Stay tuned, bat-fans...or dino fans.

A Day with P-Rex

As we have seen before, Vivi is fortunate enough to have some friends who are just as obsessed with dinosaurs as she is.  This leads to amazing dino adventures, and we recently had an awesome one with Parker "P-Rex" Aerni.

This adventure required a drive all the way to Omaha.  They remained undaunted.

 Note: Parker calls these his special "dinosaur-finding glasses."  I, on the other hand, think they both look vaguely like Elton John, at different life stages.  Awesome.

At any rate, we had to drive to Fontanelle Forest, which is awesome.  A mile long boardwalk through a beautiful forest.  Every year, they have a theme, and you "search" for the theme as you wander along the path.  Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what the theme is for 2012?

Vivi got out of the car, saw this statue/bench, and immediately shrieked, "IT'S A DINOSAUR!" and went to climb up on it.  Having been there before, Parker, is a seasoned veteran, and patiently explained, "No, Vivi.  The dinosaurs are in the forest.  This is a buffalo."

 She seems shocked, Parker, smug.  We moved on.

Lucky for Vivi, there were dinosaurs EVERYWHERE in the forest.  I have to admit, it was pretty impressive.

 Here, a Parasauralofus.  The difference between this and good old Sauralofus?  No idea.  They look the same.  I was glad she did not ask because ?????  But the sign clearly said...

It became a game between Parker and Vivi to see who could spot the dinos first.

Unfortunately, Vivi kept pointing to random things like large sticks, claiming they were dinosaurs.  Competitive, that one.

They soon started to work together to find the dinos.

And they stopped in the middle of the boardwalk to do Vivi's famous "Dinosaur Dance."

Parker has got some seriously sweet moves.

And at the end?  T-Rex.

Vivi was convinced that the T-Rex had been sleeping, and that she and Parker had very bravely woken him up.

This place is seriously a hidden gem of Omaha.  I cannot wait to go back.

Zoo. Omaha Style.

Grandma and Grandpa Otto came to visit last month!  To celebrate, we decided to take Vivi to the Omaha Zoo for the first time.  We were on the road by 8:30.  This is how Vivi and I felt about getting up and flying around on a Saturday:

 (I'm pretty sure Grandpa doesn't mind getting up.  I think he was just playing along.)

Of course, our child found the only dinosaur related thing in the ENTIRE ZOO within 5 minutes of entering the place.  It took quite a bit of time to convince her to move away from the fossil dig.  Never mind that there was an entire zoo (9 acres!) full of never-seen before animals waiting.  We found fossils, people!

Finally, we convinced her to move on by promising to see bears.

 For some reason, none of us really look like we are certain that we really want to see them.  Perhaps you had to be there to feel the excitement.  It was tangible, I promise.

The zoo involves a lot of walking, and for a mom with a bum ankle, a grandma about to have knee replacement surgery, and a three year old, it was a challenge.  So, we decided to ride Skyfari, a sky tram that floats you from one end of the zoo to the other, blisfully able to stare down at the animals below you.

It was bloody terrifying.  I was unprepared for this.  You dangle, helpless, above all KINDS of things.  Water.  Cement.  Leopards that would doubtlessly devour you if the Skyfari chain broke.  Who in the name of Mike thought this was a good idea?  I sat white-knuckled the entire (very long) ride.

Vivi, of course, loved it.

I tried to get a family photo on Skyfari, hoping to distract myself from my terror.

Of course, no.  Just...no.

The highlight for Vivi was the aquarium.  She was strangely intent on seeing a sea turtle.  It really was awesome to see her amazement.

"Mommy!  Sharks are swimming on top of our heads!"

She was fascinated.  And there were sharks AND sea turtles.

I loved it.  I can't wait to go back.  And to ride the train.

Yee-Haw!

This is why we shop at Hy-Vee.

Well, I mean, it's not the ONLY reason.  But it is a big part of it.

At the Williamsburg  Hy-Vee, if you ask for a coin when you check out,they will give you a token so you can ride the horse.  (I have yet to see if they will give ME one, if Vivi is not present.  I'll let you know what I find out.)

She gets so excited when we go there, because she knows what will happen if she's very good.

To be honest, I think the other shoppers get a kick out of hearing her yell, "GO, MAXIMUS!" as they are entering or exiting the store.  

I know I do.

Chop, chop!

We had a big moment last month...Vivi's first professional hair cut.  I had chopped a tiny bit once when she was 20 months old (and it looked like she had a little tail-shudder), but she hasn't had a chop since.  However, her hair was getting to the point of a fright wig when she woke up in the mornings, so we decided something must be done.

Luckily for us, my hair dresser, the lovely Regina Palmer, is also one of my good friends.  Vivi knows her very well, so I was not as worried about her freaking out about a weird situation with a stranger.

Vivi seemed less reassured.

(requisite child mohawk shot)

However, she eventually calmed down and seemed to be enjoying the experience.

So big sitting in the salon chair!

And comfortable enough to ham it up for the camera.

She was trying to be really good and hold still like Regina asked, but she kept making weird faces, as she knew we were taking her picture.

And when we tried to get a "nice picture" of the finished product?

We got some classic Vivi (and note the turtle in her hand--who DOESN'T take their turtle to their hair appointments with them these days?).

And here she is, consenting to take a nice picture to commemorate the occasion!

Thank you, Regina!  It looks amazing!

Darth Ottos

Vivi got something awesome for her birthday.

She finds your lack of cupcakes disturbing.

This will never stop being funny to me.

She also likes to make us wear it.

I feel like he needs a cup of coffee.  And a long black cape, of course.

Darth Mommy is scarier.

She will chase you.  Get your face.

The force is strong with this family.

BOOM!

So.  Like I said last time.  The 4th of July happened.  It was nice.  Magical, even.  And this year, Vivi was allowed to stay up until the fireworks were over!  We started off the night quite tamely, with smoke bombs (my favorite) and snappers.  Despite my awesome "gorillas in the mist" reprisal with the smoke bombs, Vivi wasn't that into them.  She was, however, VERY into stomping on snappers.

What?  You don't class it up for the 4th of July in YOUR derby hat?  

Todd and Michelle are two of Vivi's most favorite people, and since Michelle arrived wearing a hat, Vivi wanted one as well.  She then proceeded to attach herself to them like a very charming barnacle.

I'm not sure what she was "helping" Michelle with here, but she kept saying, "Yep!  That's fair!"

She then moved on to helping Russ with the parachutes, which thrilled her and Noah to no end, and gave me heart failures as she has NO FEAR OF THINGS THAT EXPLODE.

As it got dark, she took some time out to chat with her godfather on the porch swing...

Probably discussing how the election will affect her daycare buddies and their families.

But, once it got dark, it was awesome to watch her amazement.  For being slightly ghetto-fabulous, our neighborhood puts on one heck of a 4th of July show, and this year was no exception.

Vivi was pretty impressed, let me tell you.

She was also thrilled to be awake when it was "really, really nighttime out!"

We ended our evening with what is bound to never, ever become a tradition in our house.  Vivi loves Rapunzel, and we love the floating lantern scene.  It's really cool, and we saw many floating lanterns cruising through the sky last year, looking all serene and beautiful.  The 4th is right before Vivi's birthday, and we were very adamant about setting lanterns loose for her, ala Rapunzel.  Aren't we nice parents?

Michelle, in her lawerly wisdom, warned us against them as dangerous.  We may or may not have teased her. A lot.  Hadn't she seen Tangled?  The scene where thousands of lanterns go to join the king and queen's lantern?  It was beautiful.  Serene.  We were doing it.  She was a worrier.

Yeah.  What they DON'T show in Tangled is the swarms of panicked peasants UNDER the lanterns, shouting and praying to God and the Baby Jesus that the lanterns do not set fire to their thatched huts and barns.  Also, they are bloody hard to light, and take forever to get ready.  Aunt Kate and Russ struggled with this one for quite some time before we deemed it "ready to go."

It was not, in fact, ready to go.  It teetered along maniacally while we all danced around the lawn yelling things like "GO HIGHER!"  "CRAP!" and "FLOAT, DAMN YOU, FLOAT!"  before it finally bobbled its way above the trees (and the roofline) and floated off.  Once up, it did look really cool, and we (foolishly) decided that it had been a user error and we should try another one.

Here is the floating lantern of death, seconds after its release, threatening to set fire to our wooden retaining wall because instead of going up, it went down.

Yes, that's real fire.  A lot of it.  Which is why we didn't pick it up.  Which is why it eventually filled with air and floated off before we could grab it, and almost lit my neighbor Andy's roof on fire (missed by 6 inches, max), while we all hollered in panic and Michelle murmured "You're welcome," sagely in the background.  At which point we decided we were done with the lanterns.  Forever.

Sorry, Vivi Jo.  We will find a better, less flammable birthday tradition.  Rapunzel does not prevent forest fires.