Many of you know that my husband is in his last year of residency (no, we aren't done. We still have a year of fellowship after resodency). We have been married for 10 years. During that time, we both graduated from college in Utah (GO UTES), he went to medical school in Omaha, internship in Spokane, BACK to Omaha for Residency, and soon we will be off to Scottsdale for fellowship. That is an awful lot of cross country moves in 10 years, but we are happy to go on new adventures. AND one of my favorite things about moving is discovering all the new things unique to the places we live. And as we have actually lived 7 of our 10 years married here in Omaha so far, we have had lots of time to discover great hidden gems around our city.As with all cities, the holiday season brings lots of fun activities. and I am a SUCKER for a free family event! (I am also a fan of inexpensive ones!!) Visit Omaha has a great list of activities you can do over the holiday season and in fact has a site it launches just for the Holidays. This site covers events for families, kids, adults, well...for everyone! Free as well as costly and all kinds of options for fun! I was sent a few of the free and inexpensive upcoming activities to share with you (These are just ones coming up this week--near Thanksgiving. There are more I will share in an upcoming post!):

Holiday Lights Festival – The festival lights up Omaha’s downtown and has been an Omaha tradition for over 10 years. The Festival kicks off with a special lighting ceremony on Thanksgiving evening, November 24th at 6 pm. For more information on the Holiday Lights Festival, visit www.holidaylightsfestival.org.

***Cost Information: This event is free.

After the Thanksgiving lighting ceremony, you can go to the Nebraska Wind Symphony Concert at the Holland Center. This free concert – part of the Holiday Lights Festival - features more than 85 local musicians. The concert takes place on November 24th at 7 pm. To learn more, visit www.nebraskawindsymphony.com .

***Cost Information: This event is free.

***Cost Information: This event is free with membership and free to non-members on Sundays. For non-members, admission is $6 for adults, $3 for children between the ages of 3-12, and free to children under 3.

The Tree Lighting Ceremony kicks off Christmas at Union Station (at the Durham Museum). This event takes place on November 25th from 4-7 pm. A highlight of this year’s celebration will be a performance by jazz singer Camille Metoyer Moten, who will perform along with a Christmas carol sing along, cookie decorating, holiday crafts for kids and visits with Santa Claus. To learn more, visit: http://durhammuseum.org/about/whats-new/details.aspx?ID=230 .

***Cost Information: This event is free with museum membership. For non-members, admission is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $5 for children between the ages of 3 and 12. Children under 3 are free.

Please go check out the Visit Omaha holiday site to see the other fun upcoming events. Oh, and go check out The Visit Omaha Facebook page where you can enter a contest called the “Happier Holiday’s Giftaway.” The winner gets a two night “stay and play” at Midtown Crossing!!! That is awesome!! If I don't win it, one of you should!

The City of LaVista also has some fun FREE summer activities. Here are a couple FUN ones coming up:

TONIGHT, July 22, 2011 as part of their Summer Concert Series and their Outdoor Movie Series, the La Vista Public Library at 9110 Giles Rd will have a concert by Charm School Drop Outs in concert at 7 pm followed by a viewing of the movie Morning Glory beginning at dusk.

August 7, 2011 from 1-4 there is a FREE Splash Back activity at the LaVista pool. It is sponsored by Papillion Sanitation and there will be a DJ, games, prizes and FREE food (while supplies last! That sounds SOOO awesome! I think I will arrange a way to make it to that one!

Sumtur Amphitheater, located at 11691 S. 108th, in Papillion has some great FREE activities this summer! Free family movies and concerts!

You can see the full schedule at the Sumtur Amphitheater website here, but of note for families is TONIGHT's event:

As part of their Starlight Movie Series (which is FREE) "Despicable Me" will be shown tonight, July 22. Gates open at 7:30 pm. Preshow entertainment at 7:45 pm. Movie at twilight. SWEET!!

Also, you may want to put on the calendar that August 12th they are showing Toy Story 3!

You may have noticed less posting...I am in Utah visiting(and BOY was it an adventure getting here-I will post that story later. Spoiler alert: Burger King, tornados and hail were involved).

I wanted to put up a real quick post to let you Utahns know that today is FREE fishing day here in Utah! That means that you can fish in Utah today without a license! So, go out and have a great fishing adventure today then come back and tell me how it went!!

Does anyone remember last year when I wrote about how much fun I had at Free Comic Book day last year with my kids?! If not you can read all about the fun here. Go ahead...go read it...there, did you read how fun it was? If you did, you are probably wishing you could have been there. Well, GREAT news! You can go to FREE COMIC BOOK day this year-tomorrow in fact!

Here is the 411 on Free Comic Book Day...The first Saturday in May of each year (tomorrow!), comic book stores across North America (and evidently all around the world) give away comic books for FREE to anyone that comes into their store. That is THIS SATURDAY May 7!! Wowsa!

There is a website, Freecomicbookday.com all about it. Go check that out and see where there are participating stores near you. (There is a store locator on the left side of the sites main page where you can find local shops. Their participation and rules can evidently vary from store to store though so beware of that.)

And FYI locals...There are 6 shops in the Omaha area participating!

It should be pretty awesome, so you may want to go check it out! I will be there with all 5 kiddos!

Locals-This is AWESOME!! Lauritzen Gardens is FREE tomorrow (Friday May 6) from 9am-5pm?! Maybe I will see some of you there! (I so wish it was not Kindergarten round up so I could spend the whole day there...)

Here is a fun free family activity you could check out on Saturday (2/12/11). The latest installment in the Pinkalicious series, Silverlicious, will be celebrated at Borders stores on Saturday, February 12, 2011, at 2 pm.

You will need to call your local store to make sure they are participating and to verify what time they are holding their event (often my local store does it a different time than the other stores around the country). GO here to find contact info for your local store.

Thanks Mama Cheaps!

I just wanted to give you all an update on the totally awesome KSL Book Festival.  It was so much fun, for the whole family, and we got so many free things.  We got to meet Brandon Mull, author of Fablehaven, he even signed my son's copy of Fablehaven and took a picture with him.  The kids got to make several crafts and got a ton of free books, stickers, coloring books, crayons, and bookmarks!  They met Curious George, Ronald McDonald, and several other literary characters.  They also each got a Cat in the Hat hat.  We got free ice cream, cheese and crackers, and drinks.  It was a lot of fun and definately a GREAT free family activity!!  Here's a couple pictures of SOME of the free stuff we got (yes, this is only a portion of what we got for FREE):


Here's a picture of the Brandon Mull's autograph in my son's Fablehaven book-cool:


It was a great event and I'm so glad we were able to go. . . they were also having University of Utah's Fan Fest that day at the Stadium-we weren't able to make it to that, but all the teams from the U of U were their greeting fans and giving away prizes-it was also a FREE event!! 

This Saturday, August 28, 2010 is the KSL Book Festival at the University of Utah.  This is a FREE event and a great way to encourage your children to read!  There will be author readings, author signings, music, cooking demos, children's activites, and more.  Prizes will be awarded to all children who participated in the Read Today program.  Here's a link with more information on the event: KSL Book Festival
Hope to see you there!
Andrea