OMB: Our Love Letter and Journal Life: Connecting by Writing

We've had to rework some of our content on the Omaha Moms Blog for the next few months, since we can't be encouraging certain things during this time...so here's a piece I wrote and it got posted today. 

Our Love Letter and Journal Life:  Connecting by Writing

Hiking: Botna Bend Park (8)

I am far behind on all my posts with all the adventuring we've been doing!  Last Monday the forcast was a bit dreary and I saw a place that could be a hit or miss hiking spot.  Originally I thought we'd go as a family, but I thought if it was a disappointing location, I didn't want Mason to be spending his then little free time doing the boring hikes that were a drive away.

I took the kids to Botna Bend Park in Iowa which is about a 50 minute drive from our house.  Quite a bit of the drive was through rolling farm land. We saw pigs, horses, and cows.  Woodrow even saw chickens!  Right as we got about 500 feet from the entrance, the bridge was closed and we had to take a short detour,which meant more farm land for these kiddos, plus driving through a small town.  The town was small and quaint and I wondered if any of them had even heard of COVID-19.

This place was pretty fun, and perfect for the kiddos.  I think it Mason wanted a nice place to camp with the kids this would be a nice spot.  It was mostly campground, with access (during the summer) to the West Nishnabotna river, where they do canoe trips.  The trails were all flat and short, but great for the kids to run and play at.  We walked on some trails to a campground area that was closed, but the kids had so much fun playing on the trees!

The trees reminded me of Winnie the Pooh's house.  Theo decided to climb a tree, but got pretty nervous once he was about 7 feet high.  We had to do some coaxing to get him down the tree.  There was also a tiny log cabin that the boys liked playing in.  Woodrow was not a fan of attempting to get down from the second floor, even though I assured him I wouldn't let him fall, and it was no higher than his old bunk bed.

The boys could have played on the knocked down trees for hours.  We walked some of the trails, and were able to see elk and bison that were in the park.  There was even a white bison, which Theo thought was very cool.  There were some people feeding the elk carrots, and they let the boys each have one to feed the Elk.  They thought that was pretty cool.  Before leaving we stopped for a short time to play at the playground in the park. 

Overall, the boys had a lot of fun.  I'd go back once everything was in bloom or to canoe, but I wouldn't make it a regular rotation on our hiking trails plan. 

Hiking: Schramm State Park (6)

For my birthday, I wanted to go hiking for sure.  The weather was just perfect!!!  It was a nice temperature and the sun was shining.  Max and I went to his gymnastics class in the morning and then headed to Schramm State Park which is about 30 minutes south of where we live.  There aren't a lot of trails, but there are some good looping trails that connect to make a decent hike.

Max was in a great mood.  He got to wear his boots, which is his new favorite, so he doesn't have to put his shoes on.  Ha!  The hike was a little muddy in a few places, but not terrible. Overall it was a really great, special day.  We got in 4 miles of hiking and I'm so thankful for the good weather. 

Foodies: Baked Ziti

 I made this recipe last week and it was so delicious.  I have it from the Pioneer Woman cookbook and it was listed as a freezer meal.  I thought that I would double the recipe and freeze half to have for future meals.  Woah...we're going to be eating ziti forever.  I could have just split the original recipe.  Enjoy!

Pioneer Woman Baked Ziti

Prep Time:

15 Minutes

Cook Time:

45 Minutes

Servings:

12 Servings

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 3 cloves Garlic, Minced
• 1 whole Large Onion, Diced
• 1 pound Italian Sausage
• 1 pound Ground Beef
• 1 can (28 Oz. Size) Whole Tomatoes, With Juice
• 2 cans (14.5 Ounce) Tomato Sauce Or Marinara Sauce
• 2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
• Salt And Pepper, to taste
• 16 ounces, weight Ziti Or Mostaciolli, Cooked Until Not Quite Al Dente
• 1 tub (15 Oz. Size) Whole Milk Ricotta Cheese
• 1-1/2 pound Mozzarella Cheese, Grated
• 1/2 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
• 1 whole Egg
• Fresh Minced Parsley

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and saute for several minutes, or until starting to soften. Add Italian sausage and ground beef and cook until browned. Drain off fat, leaving a bit behind for flavor and moisture.

Add tomatoes, tomato juice, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and red pepper flakes. Stir and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. After that time, remove 3 to 4 cups of the sauce to a different bowl to cool down.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a separate bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, 2 cups of the grated mozzarella, Parmesan, egg, and salt and pepper. Stir together just a couple of times (do not mix completely).

Drain the pasta and rinse under cool water to stop the cooking and cool it down. Pour it into the bowl with the cheese mixture and toss to slightly combine (there should still be large lumps.) Add the cooled meat sauce and toss to combine.

Add half the coated pasta to a large casserole dish or lasagna dish. Spoon half of the remaining sauce over the top, then top with half the remaining mozzarella cheese. Repeat with another layer of the coated pasta, the sauce, and the mozzarella.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until bubbling. Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

(Sprinkle chopped parsley over the pasta before serving!)

Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire!

I am so honored and excited that I am on the launch team for Jen Hatmaker's latest book.  It was so good.  I will be rereading.  You can preorder it now from your local bookstore.  Be prepared for more comments on this one!

Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You by Jen Hatmaker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Jen’s latest book is one which I will return to many times. Get your highlighters, journals, and hearts ready. I marked something important on almost every page of this book. There wasn’t one chapter that left me unmoved. Jen drops truth bombs left and right, she weaves in humorous personal stories, and includes research to drive her points home. I will be rereading this book again shortly. I think you could read this in one sitting or sit with each chapter for a day or two and let it sink in. This book is a good yes. Do it. Read the book.

Ellen's Year of Travel...or Not

I bit of wallowing. My mom was supposed to arrive Thursday.  Mason and I were supposed to leave this morning for Oberammergau, Germany.  He was going to be working, attending a class with NATO.  I'd planned an awesome itinerary for us.  Things included: Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, Neuschwanstein Castle, Zugspitze, the Partnach Gorge, visiting with a dear friend who's stationed at Rammstein, strolling through the town of Oberammergau seeing all the beautiful buildings and woodwork, a day in Munich, relaxing, reading, sleeping, spending time with Mason.

I planned the whole routine for my mom here.  Meals, the daily schedule, survival mode activities.  I know she was looking forward to coming, my Dad was going to join at the end of the week, and the kiddos were REALLY looking forward to the visit.

Then CORVID-19.  So, Germany got cancelled.  We reworked our plan and decided on driving to the Rocky Mountain National Park.  Then more cases started appearing in the US.  The military put a stop movement in place, and Mason can't travel outside 60-100 miles of our home.  That cancelled RMNP.

That was a week ago.  Now RMNP has closed.  Grocery store shelves are depleting quickly. States are requesting citizens to shelter in place.  Businesses are shutting down. Schools are closed for weeks.  Nothing is normal anymore.

I was supposed to be traveling to Dallas for an overnight in April to go to Jen Hatmaker's big book launch event and hear her speak.  Brene Brown speak. Mostly I was excited to be seeing my dear friend from Guam who invited me to meet her down there.  This year I had three ELLEN trips planned.  A pretty big and unique deal for me.  It looks like one is left for later in the Fall and only time can tell how it will pan out.

There are many good things to focus on right now.  I feel a peace that I am with my babies and am grateful we didn't travel and get stuck away from our kids and our home.  But.  There's also a sense of disappointment in the memories we'd liked to have made.  Instead we will make different memories and in the end this will all be fine.
  

Hiking: Preparation Canyon State Park (5)

Today February 16th we took advantage of the warm(er) weather and went hiking at Preparation Canyon State Park in Iowa, about 1.25 hours from our house.  I wanted to make sure that we took advantage of hiking on the long weekend, especially with the nice weather, but I also wanted to make sure that we weren't going to be over-saturated with the closer hikes.  The temperatures in winter are great for hiking, but I am missing the greenery of Spring/Summer.

I found a location in Iowa that was about an hour and twenty minutes North of our house to explore.  The park is part of the Loess Hills area which we've hiked in before.  It's a pretty area, even in the winter, and there were several options for trails within the park.  The boys actually attended Cub Scout camp not to far from the park last summer.   

When we arrived we discovered that one of the roads was gated off, which was frustrating since everywhere I looked before coming said that the park was totally open.  There was a designated parking spot and we were able to enter, we just had to hike a little extra.  The temperatures were tricky and they had more snow than we had on the ground in Omaha.  The boys took their Cub Scout Hiking sticks and we set off on adventure.  I was a little concerned about the layer of snow on the ground, but it worked out okay. 

The trails were a great mixture of highland and lowland, weaving up and down.  I would definitely consider this a moderate trail, and not "easy" like some of the reviews said.  The real fun we encountered was with the heavy amounts of MUD!  Whew!  Let's just say, almost all of us tumbled in the mud, and went home with muddy shoes, pants, and hands.  A fun adventure for little boys. 

Another highlight for the kids was finding a dead deer carcass.  They greatly enjoyed that!  Honestly, everyone was in pretty great spirits.  A few tears at the end of the day (we'd gone about 6 hiking miles-I always say hiking miles feel like more than regular miles).  We stopped at a scenic overlook before leaving the park and saw a few eagles soaring.  It was a really nice day and I will definitely go back.  This will be a beautiful spot in dry weather when it's all lush and green. 

Pandemics are Hard

Today feels a bit hard.  We've been taking this pandemic situation day-by-day.  And I've been okay.  Actually handling it better than I would have thought, and have remained pretty optimistic, which isn't always my go-to response.

This week was the scheduled Spring Break for my boys.  I had hikes planned for the nice days, and school/hangout days planned for the rainy days.  We made our hikes outdoors Monday and Tuesday.  Yesterday didn't end up being as rainy as originally foretasted, so we took a long walk around the neighborhood, and the kids had outside play time.  They also did some school work and were great.  Max was a little challenging at times, but it worked better once we took ourselves to the basement where he could feel more comfortable playing.

Up until today Mason has been working.  Today they are starting a different schedule and he'll be on rotating shifts, but he's home for the rest of the week.  He's bummed his routine of working out at the gym daily and work is off course (though he's gotten in his workouts at home the past two days, since the base gym is officially closed).  It's hard to make anything feel "normal" right now.  The kids are squirrely today with the rain.   There's going to be a lot of togetherness.  I really like our family time, but there's also the reality that many escapes we take for granted aren't available right now. 

Yesterdays reality check was that I believe the kids won't go back to school this year.  Which means they're all home until August, with many of our favorite outing spots closed likely through at least May.  While we do get out hiking or walking, changes are coming down everyday in that regard.

Today's reality check was that the weekdays and weekends now all blur together.  There isn't a differentiator when Mason's not working and all our normal activities are shut down.  No gymnastics, sports, swimming, scouts, school functions, book club, or bunco.

Since Mason was home this morning I ran to the grocery store alone.  This is my second time in the past week and each time the shelves are more and more empty, with no restocks in sight.  It's hard to not panic buy.  When I was at the store there were many elderly people shopping.  I stopped to help a gentleman find horseradish.  Another woman was wearing a mask and didn't want to open the freezer doors.  I wanted to give all of them my phone number and tell them to call me if they needed anything, an offer I've already made to my PWOC ladies.

There were also people solo shopping.  It was eerily quiet.  People stuck to their lists.  Small smiles here and there.    I listened to an audiobook.  It was calming.  I saw young airmen in uniform looking at shelves like they were not used to cooking or feeding themselves.  Their carts full of foods likely to rip a hole in their stomachs.  I wanted to invite them all over for a homecooked meal.  But. These times are different now.

The streets are quieter.  And as I shopped around the more and more I got in my own head with this entire situation.  We had nice moments, I know the weather wasn't helping.  We're going to need to have grace, faith, and a plan so that Mason and I each get some kid-free time during the day and continue self-care.   

Hiking: Hitchcock Nature Center (7)

On Friday the boys were off from school for a regularly scheduled teacher word day and the start of our spring break.  Max goes to gymnastics classes on Friday mornings, so we loaded up the car with our camelbacks and snacks and headed off to class.  He's adorable and this is a good activity for him to move his little body.  Since it was a beautiful day (mid-forties, partly sunny) I knew we were hiking!  I told the boys to prepare for a spring break of hiking when we can.   It was a great relief to spend the day out in nature, where we saw three people, and there was little stress, anxiety, or panic from talk of CLOVID-19.

We had to be back home by 4:00 for an appointment and then Pinewood Derby car weigh-in that evening, but I knew we'd have plenty of time to head to Hitchcock Nature Center in Iowa.  It's about a 40 minute drive from our house, but offers some nice views, quiet (during the week), and a variety of trail difficulties.  Since they have pretty nice trails, and run programming they are often pretty "crowded" on the weekends.  The trails aren't bad, but the parking lots can fill quickly.

I grabbed nuggets and fries for the kids to chomp on during the drive and grabbed a sandwich for myself for later in the hike.  It's nice to be at a stage where they older boys can carry their own camelbacks and snacks, and I can use my new birthday present camelback for me and Max.  I may be getting one for him soon...we'll see.  The biggest trouble we've been encountering on the trails lately is the mud.

We started off with a quick pit-stop at the Nature Center for a bathroom break and for the kids to play a few minutes with the toys.  Then we started our hike on the Boardwalk on Hawk Ridge.  This is a nice spot that's accessible for wheelchairs, and we'd walked part of it before but didn't go past the boardwalk.  This time we followed the Boardwalk to Hawk Ridge, and to the border of the park to see the ponds.  The boys had fun running along at their own paces, playing with some bottlecaps they'd collected from the parking area, and turning found hiking sticks into guns.

We backtracked to the Hohneke Trail and followed the Fox Run Ridge to a camping site where the boys picked up some goodies in the camp area that had been left behind.  This trail we followed all the way back to the nature center.  We talked about going down some more trails, but I decided we should call it quits while we were ahead.

The weather was so nice.  I brought our wintercoats, but we found that our sweatshirts and light fleeces were perfect.  There were several areas that had been control-burned recently and an area that had been done earlier was starting to sprout new grass.  The boys were all exclaiming, "wow, look at that green grass."  I guess we're ready for spring to stick around.

We hiked about 3 miles total and had lots of fun.  There was no rush, we could take our time.  The boys were exerting their imaginations to the fullest, which I just love!  And they all had a nice time.  On the way home we saw an eagle in a tree, that eventually took off but was flying with two other eagles around the cornfields next to the road.  Always a favorite to see around this area.

Theo and Max passed out on the drive home and got in a nice nap while I got some audiobook time.  It was a really nice time and I just enjoy being out with all three of my boys so much.  This marked hike 7/25 for 2020!   

COVID-19

These are strange times.  Generally, Mason and I are not ones to buy into mass hysteria.  We don't regularly watch the news, we form our opinions about politics, we don't seek out social media feuding about controversial topics.  When the Corona virus started hitting the news we paid a little attention, since we know people overseas that were affected by quarantines and such.  Then is started spreading to Europe. 

Mason had a work trip scheduled for later this month to Germany.  My mom was all lined up to come watch the boys for 9 days so I could go with Mason.  We were very excited to take our first trip to Europe together, and to a beautiful part of Germany, Oberammergau.  Long story short.  That got cancelled.  Financially it will cost us, as my portion of the trip isn't reimbursed, but more so the time we were looking forward to in an amazing spot was going to be precious.  We had fun adventures to go on and sights to see.  One of my friends who lives in Germany was even going to travel to see me. 

So. We do what we do, and I go into back-up plan mode.  What if we drove to the Rocky Mountain National Park and did some hiking.  My mom agreed to still come watch the boys, and Mason's leave was approved.  The weather in the Rockies is still quite wintery now, but we decided we'd do what we could. 

The boys started Spring break yesterday.  It is scheduled that they're out of school from March 13th-22nd.  So far they haven't cancelled school past that, although many states are cancelling for weeks at a time.  We aren't holding our breath.  the Governor has stated it there are 2 cases of community spread of the virus, then schools will get cancelled for 6-8 weeks...basically taking us until the end of the school year. 

All of these decisions made now are going to have long term effects for the whole year.  We don't know what that will look like yet.  No one does.  Yesterday we spent the day enjoying our first day of Spring Break.  Another post to come soon.

This morning we woke up to a few inches of snow and a DoD ban on travel.  No Rocky Mountains.  In the scheme of things, we're healthy, I have the ability to be home, work from home, and homeschool if necessary.  We aren't afraid of the virus.  On the nice days, we'll be outside and trying to enjoy our favorite nature places while we can.

Strange times.  

Foodies: BBQ Meatballs

This is one of the EASIEST Crockpot recipies ever...and everyone in the family ate it.

BBQ Meatballs
1 bottle BBQ Sauce
1 jar Grape Jelly
Frozen Meatballs

Put all of the ingredients in the crockpot and cook 3-4 hours on high.  Yum!  I made rice to go with these, but they could stand alone.  I also only had Italian flavored meatballs on hand, and they worked fine. 

OMB: Hiking Guide for a Kid-Friendly Spring Break Adventure in Omaha

This was one of my favorite pieces to write for the Omaha Moms Blog because it's all about hiking!  These are some of our favorite places that we've been too, but are about 30-90 minutes outside of Omaha. 

My Breakfast Brunch Guide was our top post for January, and I'm hoping that I take the March top post for March with this Hiking Guide!