These are rather unfortunately called Raspberry Strippers but they are surprisingly easy and quick to make, they look elegant, and man are they ever delicious. They have been one of my go-to cookies for years now. I made them one rainy afternoon at my parents’ house when my mom needed a dessert for a dinner she was taking to someone from their church who’d recently had surgery.

We usually have lunch at OJ’s, a Mexican restaurant near my parents’ house, with my mom and her friend Donelle (whom I’ve known my entire life and is like an honorary aunt—she occasionally comments on this site as “Aunt B”) when we’re in Omaha.

When we visit Troy’s stepmom, almost the first thing Annalie asks is, “Can I play with your jewelry?”

This is Kailyn. She’s one of the Kay girls, the closest to Annalie in age, and they’re good buddies. She usually sits with us in church and invites Annalie to come to Sunday school with her. This visit was the first time that Annalie went to Sunday school not once, but twice. Now that she likes Sunday school, we should probably work on actually getting ourselves to church on a regular basis when we’re at home, eh?

Kailyn went with us to see the stage version of High School Musical at the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center. The Rose is the home of the Omaha Theater Company, one of the oldest children’s theater companies in the nation.

When I was growing up, the Omaha Theater Company’s home was the Emmy Gifford Children’s Theater. I saw dozens of plays there over the course of my childhood, some on school field trips and many more with my mom and brother. From an early age, The Emmy Gifford instilled in me a love and respect for live theater, and I have extremely fond memories of it. The best thing was how, after every single performance, the cast invited the audience to stick around and ask any questions they might have about the play. Can you think of anything cooler than that!?

In the late 1990s, the Rose (which was formerly the Astro Theater) was donated by the Blumkin family to the Omaha Theater Company, and renovated with a multi-million dollar donation from the same family. Since the Rose opened, the Omaha Ballet Company has been established and performs in the same theater.

I was very excited to take Annalie to her second play here. She loves the movie version of High School Musical this play was pretty good. Annalie LOVED it. I think I’m going to have to make it a tradition to try to get tickets to a show each time we’re in Omaha from now on.

Troy took this photo of me getting my hair done. In the background on the right, my mom is talking to Trace, who has been my mom’s (and my occasional) stylist for 15 years. We share a love of the movie That Thing You Do! and its music, and have awesome conversations about movies and TV every time he cuts my hair.

In the background on my left, you can see Annalie and her cousin FJ watching a movie on the DVD player. FJ’s mom, my cousin Tressa, just happened to have a hair appointment at the same salon at the same time as my mom and me. So we got to see Tressa one more time, and Annalie and FJ got to hang out with each other one more time. Very cool.

Troy’s stepmom gave us this photo of Troy and his dad petting a goat at a park in California. It was taken when Troy was about 2 1/2, in 1972. On the back Troy’s mom wrote, “Troy, Keith, and friend.” I love her inscription, and also Troy’s seventies-licious sandals and Keith’s plaid-tastic pants.

Annalie took this photo of me when we were visiting my Gramma. I don’t post photos of my Gramma here because the internet makes her nervous and she doesn’t like her picture to be online where just anyone can see it. If you’re a Flickr friend, you can see the pictures there.

Rachel and Jeff invited us and my parents over for dinner, which was really nice. I love to eat out, but when we’re traveling we eat out SO MUCH that we always especially appreciate when someone invites us into their home and cooks for us.

The path to Rachel’s backyard garden (which is set down from the main part of the backyard) looks rather enchanted, don’t you think?

It’s working well for growing peas, anyway! Annalie was quite excited when I asked her what kind of plant this was, and she immediately recognized the peapods.

Hills are great for running down. Don’t you wish you had the energy of a five-year-old?

Annalie and Gramaw Debbie didn’t plan to wear matching outfits that day. Honest.

Two extremely random photos. We were in the parking lot of a movie theater when I glanced over and saw the antennae all lined up. I just liked it. If you’re from Omaha, you probably know where these antennae are. Any guesses?

Driving down the main street in my parents’ neighborhood, I cracked up when I saw the BK sign and made Troy go back later so I could take a photo. I was tempted to photoshop out the ‘G’ so it would be even funnier…but I refrained.