Oh, Omaha

The family descends on Omaha! My Brother married his girlfriend, Kelly, last weekend in Omaha, NE.

 From top to bottom: Brad, my grandma, me, my brother Jacob, my mom, my sister Hannah, and my dad.

Our arrival in Omaha ( fun fact number 1: the airport was actually in Iowa) marked a number of firsts for our family. My Grandma, mom, and Jacob had never flown before. Brad had never been to the Midwest, and I had never ventured further west than Chicago. Although NE is very different than VA, and everyone thought we had southern accents (I found this hilarious, because everyone from NC south thinks Virginians sound like northerners) we really enjoyed our trip to the Midwest. We discovered that Omaha is an art appreciating, food loving, hipster kind of town, and fun fact number 2: we did not see any corn!

We were starving after a long day of traveling, so after a quick stop at the hotel, we had a late dinner at Spaghetti Works. The food here was OK, but the real star was the awesome, quirky decor!

From the old-fashioned fortune tellers that greet you at the door,

to the crazy cool light fixtures, this place had great eye candy. 

We thought the area around the restaurant seemed fun, so we decided to go back the next day and check things out. We discovered it was called Old Market and full of antique stores, funky clothing stores, and lots and lots of yummy places to eat.

Our first stop, after an amazing breakfast at WheatFields, was a soda fountain/candy store/antiques market called Fairmont Antiques and Mercantile 

This wall of pinball games made me want to start a collection of my own.

My sister rocking the retro cool of this hot pink car.

Our shopping excursion was dampened by a steady rain, but that didn't stop us from ducking in and out of nearly every retail store! We finally found some relief from the weather in a covered courtyard area between the shops called the passageway.

Brad and I, very happy to be dry for a moment!

Mom and Hannah were happy too! Fun fact number 3: Everywhere we went, people thought Hannah and I were twins. We've only been told that one time in our lives, but at least three people thought so in NE.  

After a day of window shopping, we had a lovely rehearsal and dinner ( more on that later). The day of the wedding, we had a few hours before we needed to gussy up, so we took in The Durham Museum.

The Museum is housed in the old train station and has lots and lots of art deco details.

It also had fun sculptures in the lobby that talked to you about the heyday of rail travel.

Downstairs, we learned all about the history of Omaha, went through an emotional exhibit of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs, and had a blast playing on the train exhibits.

My grandma deemed it, " The best museum I've ever been to." 

Stay tuned for more details on the big day!

<3

Hattie

PS, What's your favorite random American city to visit? I wouldn't have picked Omaha as a vacation destination, but it turned out to be a really fun city with lots to do. I want to add some more looked over cities to my travel list!