One of the weekly items I used to do that I am bringing back is my Friday feature called Weekend Warriors: Daycations. It is where I share a bunch of info on one of my favorite places to visit in a day or weekend. 

I also told you I would be trying to connect my Weekend Warrior feature with my Where's Wes (Wednesday) feature. So, Wes was at Lake Zorinsky in West Omaha, Nebraska in the picture here.  

So today I am reposting my very most often viewed blog post EVER! The original Weekend Warriors: Lake Zorinsky post can be seen here, or just keep reading because I am posting it below as well! Enjoy!

As a reminder, I intend for this series of posts to give suggestions of good day trips you can make from various locations. Today is a great place to spend a day in Omaha. Some of the other places near Omaha I have covered in the past are:

• The Henry Doorly Zoo here
• Adventureland in Iowa here
• Eugene T Mahoney State Park here
• Shenandoah, Iowa here

Today, I want to talk about a favorite place for our family to visit any day of the week: Zorinsky Lake.  Check out the pictures I took of the sunset over the beautiful lake (this is from up on the trail):

Zorinsky Lake is located at 156th and F streets in West Omaha.

There is a HUGE lake with just over 7 miles of walking trails around it, a couple playgrounds, lots of picnic shelters, and a swimming area with water slides.

We LOVE to walk around the lake as a family and could easily spend all day there. In fact, we spent MANY days there when my husband was in residency. We lived right off the lake and spent a lot of time taking advantage of the great activities it has to offer!

If we were to spend the whole day there now, here is what I would do:

Pack up a cooler for lunch (or the makings of a BBQ), then  choose which of the following activities I wanted to fit in:

• The new pool (This does cost money, but not bad for a daycation-it is a really reasonable rate, but the pools in Omaha are only opened for a limited season each summer. The pools open Memorial Day weekend usually and they close when school starts which is generally around August 10th.)
• Walk around the lake (MY favorite thing to do!)
• Play at the playground
• If I had a boat (or a friend with one) I would happily just go boating all day!
• Fishing
• BBQ

Now, just as an FYI, you can reserve some of the covered shelters if you want to make sure you have a place to eat and hang out. You can find more info about Shelter rentals here.

AND I will add a few things: The water Park is AWESOME and inexpensive for what it is. You could spend all day there if you wanted to! Or spend part of the day there and enjoy the rest the Lake has to offer as well.

So, head on over to Lake Zorinsky and ENJOY!!!

Hello friends! Boy I have not been on here much! I have just moved across the country and I am doing my best to settle myself and 5 kids into a new place. I have also been trying to figure out what to do with my blog. I wondered if it was time to retire it altogether or maybe just revamp. I have decided to go with the revamp. I am still a mom of five looking for a great deal, I still want to share great deals, product reviews and other great content. However, my blog has had some changes.

While in Omaha, I focused a lot on local grocery deals, store sales and local free or cheap activities. I tried to do the same when I lived in Scottsdale, AZ last year but found it was difficult. In that area, grocery deal match ups and couponing were not of interest. I think some of it was backlash due to the perception of couponing people now have thanks to shows like Extreme Couponing. Some of it was the fact that most people living in that area do not need to coupon. Whatever the reason, it was a fail-my blog numbers dropped dramatically.

The place I live now is a small town. It does not have the same kinds of options for pricematching and groceries that big cities have. I am still learning how to shop and save money here. Luckily for me there is a FANTASTIC blog locally that is helping me learn. If you are a local or are planning to visit Grays Harbor at any point, make sure to check out Annaliese over at Grays Harbor Deals. Her blog is awesome! And I know her personally-she is awesome too!

Most of my readers live in Utah and Nebraska. I have a good group in Arizona, and I found I have a growing number all over the country-actually all over the world. I learned in looking at my blog stats, that the posts with the most hits are usually my travel posts. Awesome! Reviews and travel posts are the ones I like to do the most!!!

So, here comes the new plan (which is a work in progress, so bear with me): we are bringing back the weekly series! We are continuing to review and give away products, and we are focusing on deals that are not quite so local (that's not to say I won't post local stuff-I will sometimes). 

My former Weekly Series looked like this:

• Sunday: Sunday Savings: Newspaper round up
• Monday: Mommy School Mondays 
• Tuesday: Tuesdays Travels
• Wednesday: Beckee's Best of Omaha Grocery
• Thursday: Thrifty Thursdays (Random thrifty tips on a variety of topics)
• Friday: Weekend Warriors: Daycations
• Saturday: Service Spotlight Saturdays
• 
  

Following is my original explaination of what the Weekend Warrior series was intended to be:

As a reminder, I intend for this series of posts to give suggestions of good day trips you can make in and around Omaha with your family. Hopefully it will give some good ideas of things to do close to home for local readers (and for those of you visiting Omaha, it might give you some ideas of what to do while you are here).

The Weekend Warrior Spots I wrote about near Omaha are:

• The Henry Doorly Zoo here
• Adventureland in Iowa here
• Eugene T Mahoney State Park here
• Shenandoah, Iowa here
• Lake Zorinsky here

I will probably continue to write about places around Omaha as I think of them, but since I have moved to Scottsdale, AZ now, I will also write about Daycations/Weekend Warrior Spots near here. I have not been to many (really only to Wet N Wild, Tombstone and the first part of the Apache Trail so far), but I have a list of places I want to write about. Here is my goal list:

• Tombstone
• Bizbee
• Apache Trail
• Tuscon
• Phoenix Zoo
• Wet N Wild
• Sonoran Desert near Tuscon
• Tonto National Forest (including Three Bar wildlife enclosure)
• Grand Canyon!

If you have any suggestions of places I should research and add to this list, I WELCOME (cough cough BEG FOR cough cough) suggestions!!!!

One of the weekly items I used to do that I want to bring back is my Friday feature called Weekend Warriors. It is where I share a bunch of info on one of my favorite places to visit in a day or weekend. I thought I would start out by reposting my very most often viewed blog post EVER! The original Weekend Warriors: Lake Zorinsky post can be seen here, or just keep reading because I am posting it below as well! Enjoy!
As a reminder, I intend for this series of posts to give suggestions of good day trips you can make in and around Omaha with your family. Hopefully it will give some good ideas of things to do close to home for local readers (and for those of you visiting Omaha, it might give you some ideas of what to do while you are here). So far I have talked about the following:

• The Henry Doorly Zoo here
• Adventureland in Iowa here
• Eugene T Mahoney State Park here
• Shenandoah, Iowa here

Today, I want to talk about a favorite place for our family to visit any day of the week: Zorinsky Lake.  Check out the pictures I took of the sunset over the beautiful lake (this is from up on the trail):

Zorinsky Lake is located at 156th and F streets in West Omaha. There is a HUGE lake with about 7 miles of walking trails around it, a couple playgrounds, lots of picnic shelters, and now a brand new swimming area with water slides (opening tomorrow!!).

We LOVE to walk around the lake as a family and could easily spend all day there. If we were to spend the day there, here is what I would do:
Pack up a cooler for lunch (or the makings of a BBQ), then  choose which of the following activities I wanted to fit in:

• The new pool (This does cost money, but not bad for a daycation)
• Walk around the lake
• Play at the playground
• If I had a boat (or a friend with one) I would happily just go boating all day!
• Fishing
• BBQ

Now, just as an FYI, you can reserve some of the covered shelters if you want to make sure you have a place to eat and hang out. You can find more infor about Shelter rentals here.

AND I will add a few things: The water Park is AWESOME and inexpensive for what it is. You could spend all day there if you wanted to! Or spend part of the day there and enjoy the rest the Lake has to offer as well.

Also, many of you in Omaha are likely aware of the fact that the lake was drained to get rid of Zebra Mussels and was empty and frankly really ugly for the last year (ish). Well, I can happily report that when we last went to the lake in June right before moving, it was almost totally full agian and lookig BEAUTIFUL as usual!!

So, head on over to Lake Zorinsky and ENJOY!!!

I was thinking today that I wish I could just go somewhere this weekend and do something different, and as I thought about it, I decided that were I able to do that, I would want to go to Kearney, Nebraska. Those of you familiar with Kearney are probably questioning why. Well, I will tell you why:

1. We have driven under/by that darn Kearney bridge hundreds of times and have never stopped. SO, I would want to go FINALLY visit the Great Platte River Road Archway.
2. When we moved to Omaha the first time in 2003, we stopped in Kearney and ate dinner at a place called Skeeter Barnes. It was BBQ food, and it was SOOOO good that I literally still think about it and crave it now (7 years later). 
3. As I have been looking up all there is in Kearney, I found that there is a lot of fun stuff to do with a family that could fill a daycation! Check out their 2010-2011 Kearney Visitor's Bureau brochure online here.

Last week for Thrifty Thursday, I asked for YOU to share your tips and got some great ones, so today for Friday's "Daycations" I am asking readers to share their favorite place to spend a daycation near you. It doesn't matter where you live-just share your favorite.

Please leave a comment sharing your favorite and include your first name and where you live (city, state) and one of your favorite places nearby to spend a day (you can also share why you like it if you wish). You may leave this on the Facebook wall, in a comment here on the blog or email me (beckeesdeals@gmail.com ).

Here is my sample:
Beckee in Omaha, NE.  I have a lot of favorite places to go for a day away, but one I will share today is going to the Wild Animal Park and to Mahoneys between Omaha and Lincoln. 

Or...
Beckee from Salt Lake City, UT   One of my favorite places to go for a day growing up in Salt Lake was Snowbird to hike! I miss my mountains and cannot wait to get back to them some day!

Reposts stink...total cop out-I know...but here is the thing, I am on an ancient desktop that takes me triple the time to work on this blog so I do not have the time to research out the Tuesdays Travels or Weekend Warriors info right now. Please forgive me!

The GREAT news is I was notified by Toshiba late last night that my laptop is fixed and shipping back, so once we get that back and up and running I will be able to get back on the ball and give you some new info.

So, here is the big question of the day-what destinations would you like to see in Tuesdays Travels? Or in the Weekend Warriors Daycations? Please comment here, on Facebook, or email me at beckeesdeals@gmail.com  and let me know what you want to see-I really need your help and  inspiration here!


Thanks for reading and thanks ahead of time for your suggestions!!

I intend for this series of posts to give suggestions of good day trips you can make in and around Omaha with your family. Hopefully it will give some good ideas of things to do close to home for local readers (and for those of you visiting Omaha, it might give you some ideas of what to do while you are here).

I cannot possibly do a series of posts about daycations/staycations without starting with probably the most popular Omaha destination: The Henry Doorly Zoo. I am not really a zoo person, or an animal person at all, but even I can appreciate that this is a must see in Omaha. It is an incredible zoo-one of the best in the world as far as I am concerned. And it is huge!! You can EASILY spend all day there and still not see it all.

There are a number of outdoor exhibits, but many of the exhibits are indoor-so you can go and enjoy the zoo anytime, snow or shine! In fact in the middle of the HUGE snow storms this winter, when the kids were out of school for days and days on end of snow days, I braved the roads and we went to the zoo and had a great time in the heat of the Desert Dome and the Rainforest.

Speaking of the Desert Dome, here are just a few of the attractions you will find at our great zoo:

• Desert Dome
• Rainforest
• Aquarium
• Nursery
• Cat Complex
• Gorilla Valley
• (Opened Today!!) Madagascar exhibit!

See the complete list here.

Now lets talk a bit about cost. It can get pretty costly at the zoo here which is why I recommend making a full day of it.  There is a ton to see and I believe it is worth the cost, but only if you are going to make a "daycation" out of it.  Pack up a cooler and plan to picnic there. There are plenty of places to stop and eat. 

If you are a local, or plan to come to the zoo with your family more than one day in a year, I would HIGHLY recommend getting a year pass. They always go from May through April, so buy yours in May so you get the WHOLE year in. Usually some time in April the zoo will send members a form with which you can renew your pass at a discounted rate for the following year. After a certain date it is more. I did not renew mine yet this year and got a letter yesterday saying if I renew by May 18, I can still get the family pass for $78, after that it will be $88.

That being said, lets do some math.  Admission for adults and children 12 and older is $11.50, Seniors (over 62) are $10, Children 3-11 are $7.75, and Children 2 and under are free.  I have a family of 6: 2 adults ($11.50), 3 children ($7.75), and one FREE child. So, for us to go one day would be $46.25.   If I go to the zoo only 2 times with my family this year without a pass, that is  $92.50. So, you can see that the annual family pass for us is a no brainer. Even if we were just visiting Omaha and thought we might return to the zoo once more that year, I would get the pass. Just my advice for families like ours.  Do the math with your family and figure out if the pass is worth your while to purchase!

If you live out of Omaha, and happen to have a zoo pass to a "reciprocal zoo", you can get in for a discounted price. With your reciprocal zoo pass, children 2 and under are still FREE, Children (ages 3 - 11)  are $3.75, Adults (ages 12 and over)  are $5.75, and Seniors (ages 62 and over) $5.00.  That's a pretty good discount! The zoo also offers discounts for big groups (over 40). You can see the details for those discounts here.

The Henry Doorly Zoo is a great way to spend a day in Omaha and I highly recommend it! Plan ahead, pack up for the day, bring a cooler of food, and go enjoy this beautiful Omaha site!

**The picture above is one I took at the zoo last summer. Beautiful, right?!

What kind of an Omahan would I be if I did not take the opportunity this Friday to talk about the College World Series?! Since 1950 the College World Series has been held in Omaha and is now a secured tradition in the city. This year is a bittersweet year for die-hard fans as it is the last year it will be held at Rosenblatt Stadium (there is a new stadium being built where it will be held in the future).

That being said, the series officiallly kicks of tonight with a FREE concert wth Country music singers Julianne Hough and Bucky Covington III at the 2010 College World Series Road to Omaha® Jam starting at 6 p.m. Central time. The free family-oriented concert will be in the southeast parking area of Rosenblatt Stadium and is part of a full day of activities that include the Opening Ceremonies inside the stadium starting immediately following the concert.

The reserved tickets have sold out, but it appears you can still purchase general admission tickets, and there is an option for "ticket exchange" available. To read all about these ticket options and everything else going on for the College World Series, please click here.

As a reminder, I intend for this series of posts to give suggestions of good day trips you can make in and around Omaha with your family. Hopefully it will give some good ideas of things to do close to home for local readers (and for those of you visiting Omaha, it might give you some ideas of what to do while you are here). So far I have talked about the following:

• The Henry Doorly Zoo here
• Adventureland in Iowa here
• Eugene T Mahoney State Park here
• Shenandoah, Iowa here

Today, I want to talk about a favorite place for our family to visit any day of the week: Zorinsky Lake.  Check out the pictures I took of the sunset over the beautiful lake (this is from up on the trail):

Zorinsky Lake is located at 156th and F streets in West Omaha. There is a HUGE lake with about 7 miles of walking trails around it, a couple playgrounds, lots of picnic shelters, and now a brand new swimming area with water slides (opening tomorrow!!).

We LOVE to walk around the lake as a family and could easily spend all day there. If we were to spend the day there, here is what I would do:

Pack up a cooler for lunch (or the makings of a BBQ), then  choose which of the following activities I wanted to fit in:

• The new pool (This does cost money, but not bad for a daycation)
• Walk around the lake
• 
  
• Play at the playground
• If I had a boat (or a friend with one) I would happily just go boating all day!
• Fishing
• BBQ

Now, just as an FYI, you can reserve some of the covered shelters if you want to make sure you have a place to eat and hang out. You can find more infor about Shelter rentals here.

Yesterday I posted about a great article that got me thinking about unique fun things in Omaha. You can read my post here. But, ever since I read the article written by Josefina Loza about 32 Adventures in Omaha yesterday, I have been slightly obsessing over one of the 32 adventures she presented. She said:

"If you've never seen a traditional soda fountain, head to Shenandoah, Iowa. It's worth the hourlong drive. The George Jay Drug Co. has had a soda fountain since the 1890s and it still prepares treats the old-fashioned way."

So, I thought, this adventure would be a great weekend warrior fast and furious getaway!! I can assure you, next time we have a free day, we will be trying this out!

I looked up the directions from my house in Omaha to Shanendoah, Iowa, and found out it is about an hour and a half drive. I thought that if I was going to drive that far, I would want to do more than just the Old Fashioned Soda Fountain, so I looked up Shanendoah to see what else we could do there.

According to Wikipedia:

Shenandoah is a city in Fremont and Page Counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 5,546 at the 2000 census. Once referred to as the "seed and nursery center of the world," Shenandoah is the home to Earl May Seed Company and the radio station KMA, founded by Earl May.

After reading this, I feel like a day in Shenandoah would not be complete without a stop over at the original Earl May-maybe we could pick up some things for our garden.

I also found a fantastic website here that lists Apple orchards in Iowa. There are 2 Apple Orchards that are only 18 miles from Shenandoah: Mincer Orchard and Wright Orchard both in Hamburg, IA.

So, here is what my plan for a daycation to Shenandoah would look like:

• Wake up early and drive out to Mincer Orchard or Wright Orchard in Hamburg, IA to pick apples (You will have to call them ahead and make sure they are in apple picking season and make sure they are open/available for you to go there: Mincer: (712) 382-1793, Wright: (712) 382-1146)
• After picking apples, head over to The George Jay Drug Co. to get old fashioned sodas and maybe lunch.
• Stop by Earl May.
• Head Home having had a great adventure with the family!!

***Please note that The George Jay Drug Co. is closed on Sunday's so don't do this adventure on a Sunday!***

As a reminder, I intend for this series of posts to give suggestions of good day trips you can make in and around Omaha with your family. Hopefully it will give some good ideas of things to do close to home for local readers (and for those of you visiting Omaha, it might give you some ideas of what to do while you are here). So far I have talked about The Henry Doorly Zoo here and Adventureland in Iowa here. Today I want to talk about Eugene T Mahoney State Park.

Mahoney's is a GREAT place for a day trip or a weekend getaway! There is SO much to do! There is an aquatic center with pools, lazy river, water slides, and a really fun kids area. There is (and I am quoting their website here) "miniature golf, a driving range, tennis and basketball courts, softball fields, horseback trail rides, crafts, fishing, picnicking, hiking, 70-foot observation tower, nature conservatory, the Denman and Mary Mallory Kountze Theater, hiking and biking trail and beautiful waterway".

You can camp in cabins or tents and there is even a lodge you could stay in! We have as yet not stayed overnight there because we live so close that we just go home to sleep, but a lot of friends go out there for the weekend.

I think I have probably made the point that there is a lot to do there! Our family loves to go spend the day at the Aquatic Center, and it is one of our favorite Daycations to do near Omaha. You do have to pay admission to the aquatic center separately from your admission to the overall park. In fact almost everything has a fee for it, but if you carefully plan what you want to do, it can actually be a fun and fairly inexpensive getaway.

Admission to the park is $4-5 unless you have a State Parks pass. I HIGHLY recommend buying the parks pass as it is only $20 for the year and it grants you admission to all state parks for a year. It you plan to go to any Nebraska State parks 4+ times, you should buy this pass. We buy it each year.

Before you get to the park, look through the activities and choose which ones you want to pay to do. You can read about the available attractions here.

As I said we like to go to the aquatic center, then we sometimes go and play at the playground (which is free). Cost for the aquatic center, is Adults $7 and Children (12 & under) $6. Children two years of age and younger may use the swimming pools at state parks for free. You CAN buy a season pass for a Family of 2-5 people for $270 (we can use this one as our 6th family member falls in the 2 and under free area). We never go enough to make the season pass worth it, but if you go often, the pass is worth while!

I love that if you want to stay overnight at Mahoney's, you can choose what accommodations you want and reserve your spot online! It is really convenient. You can check out all their accommodation options and see how to reserve online here. I know that certain weekends (like Memorial/opening of the season/4th of July) go quickly, so you might need to reserve early for these dates!

What activities have you done and loved at Mahoney? Does your family have a favorite activity there? Please share your Mahoney's experiences with us!!

Today's Daycation locations I am focusing on is Adventureland near Des Moines, Iowa (I believe actually in Altoona). This is a fun Daycation to take from Omaha! We have some friends that drive down and back in a day, and others that make a weekend trip of it, and stay in a hotel overnight. We went once as a family and we just made a day of it.

Adventureland is about a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive from Omaha. If you wake up really early and drive down to go to the park when it opens, then stay all day until closing and drive home, it makes for a long day, but it is fun! When we went, that is what we did. The cost for admission is obviously a bit pricy as it is an amusement park, so you will want to do all day and get your money's worth.

According to their website, current prices are as follows:

• Season Pass (4 yrs +) (Free Parking Included!)  (Per Person - Nontransferable) $95.00 (through 5/31/2010)
• Regular (10yrs +)  Admission Price At Gate $35.00
• Internet Only (4yrs+) $30.00
• Child (4-9yrs)  Admission Price At Gate $30.00
• Seniors (65yrs +)  Admission Price At Gate $30.00
• Second Day (Must Be Purchased at the Gate) What's This? $20.00
• Special Needs (such as: being pregnant or wearing a cast) (Must Be Purchased at Gate) $23.00
• Parking Fee (Per Vehicle) $5.00
• Children age 3 or younger FREE

• 
  
  Purchase tickets online or get discount tickets at Hy-Vee. Also many local credit Unions have discount tickets.
• 
  
  Pack up a cooler of food so you do not have to eat at the park-it is really expensive!
• 
  
  Plan to spend the day at the park-bring water and a stroller and just plan on making it a long fun day!
• 
  
  If you are going to spend the night, look for local hotels with Adventureland packages-many have them where you can get great deals on hotel and passes.  If you are going to spend more than one day there-make sure to get the Second Day Pass for your second day.
• 
  
  If you plan to got a few times during the season, do the math and figure out whether a season pass is a better deal for you!

Please check out Adventureland's website to see al the fun and exciting attractions they have!

If you have more frugal tips for this particular daycation, please share them with us!!

I intend for this series of posts to give suggestions of good day trips you can make in and around Omaha with your family. Hopefully it will give some good ideas of things to do close to home for local readers (and for those of you visiting Omaha, it might give you some ideas of what to do while you are here).

I cannot possibly do a series of posts about daycations/staycations without starting with probably the most popular Omaha destination: The Henry Doorly Zoo. I am not really a zoo person, or an animal person at all, but even I can appreciate that this is a must see in Omaha. It is an incredible zoo-one of the best in the world as far as I am concerned. And it is huge!! You can EASILY spend all day there and still not see it all.

There are a number of outdoor exhibits, but many of the exhibits are indoor-so you can go and enjoy the zoo anytime, snow or shine! In fact in the middle of the HUGE snow storms this winter, when the kids were out of school for days and days on end of snow days, I braved the roads and we went to the zoo and had a great time in the heat of the Desert Dome and the Rainforest.

Speaking of the Desert Dome, here are just a few of the attractions you will find at our great zoo:

• Desert Dome
• Rainforest
• Aquarium
• Nursery
• Cat Complex
• Gorilla Valley
• (Opened Today!!) Madagascar exhibit!

See the complete list here.

Now lets talk a bit about cost. It can get pretty costly at the zoo here which is why I recommend making a full day of it.  There is a ton to see and I believe it is worth the cost, but only if you are going to make a "daycation" out of it.  Pack up a cooler and plan to picnic there. There are plenty of places to stop and eat. 

If you are a local, or plan to come to the zoo with your family more than one day in a year, I would HIGHLY recommend getting a year pass. They always go from May through April, so buy yours in May so you get the WHOLE year in. Usually some time in April the zoo will send members a form with which you can renew your pass at a discounted rate for the following year. After a certain date it is more. I did not renew mine yet this year and got a letter yesterday saying if I renew by May 18, I can still get the family pass for $78, after that it will be $88.

That being said, lets do some math.  Admission for adults and children 12 and older is $11.50, Seniors (over 62) are $10, Children 3-11 are $7.75, and Children 2 and under are free.  I have a family of 6: 2 adults ($11.50), 3 children ($7.75), and one FREE child. So, for us to go one day would be $46.25.   If I go to the zoo only 2 times with my family this year without a pass, that is  $92.50. So, you can see that the annual family pass for us is a no brainer. Even if we were just visiting Omaha and thought we might return to the zoo once more that year, I would get the pass. Just my advice for families like ours.  Do the math with your family and figure out if the pass is worth your while to purchase!

If you live out of Omaha, and happen to have a zoo pass to a "reciprocal zoo", you can get in for a discounted price. With your reciprocal zoo pass, children 2 and under are still FREE, Children (ages 3 - 11)  are $3.75, Adults (ages 12 and over)  are $5.75, and Seniors (ages 62 and over) $5.00.  That's a pretty good discount! The zoo also offers discounts for big groups (over 40). You can see the details for those discounts here.

The Henry Doorly Zoo is a great way to spend a day in Omaha and I highly recommend it! Plan ahead, pack up for the day, bring a cooler of food, and go enjoy this beautiful Omaha site!

**The picture above is one I took at the zoo last summer. Beautiful, right?!