Finals have ended finally! I never thought they would, but they have! All I could think about after I was done was, "What's next?!" Next would probably next semester, or wait, all the stuff I have to do over break. Blah. That is life though. Everytime I told someone I still had a final two days ago on Thursday, they were very surprised. But, I finished it, and drove back home to ye 'ol Bellevue, NE. As I suspected, nothing had really changed in Bellevue. Though when you grow up in a city, it's always fun coming home and seeing what has changed. In Bellevue: a new apartment giga-plex, the work on our 3rd middle school, and of course a plethora of new housing developments, including one that is suppose to be really fancy.

I did, however, get to go to one of my friend's Christmas Parties on Friday night. I'm not going to lie, it was weird going to a party where everyone had gone to my high school. It was like a semi-class reunion. I only really wanted to see maybe 4 of the 12, but it was fun to hear about everyone's lives who I don't normally talk to on a regular basis. We ate, danced, and talked until really late.

I also went shopping with my mom on Friday. It was insane. Every year that Omaha gets bigger, the malls get more insane every year. Thank goodness my mom has a handicapped sticker, otherwise I would have parked halfway back to Bellevue. We didn't even go into the mall, we only went into Dick's Sporting Goods at the Westroads. And that still took us 40 minutes. I'm glad that I'm completely done with my shopping, and had been before I even got back to Omaha.

Since I'm in Omaha this next week, I decided I'm going to give advice about places to see in Omaha. The spot to see in Omaha this post is: The Old Market! The Old Market is what remains of Omaha's downtown warehouse and fruit-packing industries. In the 80's, all of downtown Omaha was in urban decay. The city started to revitalize it by building a "central park" called Gene Lehy Mall and the announcement that Conagra Foods was going to build its world headquarters in Omaha. Then the Old Market began to be created as a mecca of old buildings being restored into shops, restaurants, bars, and condos. The restoration continues today, and I've found the Old Market to be one of Omaha's most unique attributes. Sorry that was verbose, I spent a lot of time hanging out there in high school. :-)

Below are pictures from my Christmas party!




This first one is one of my best friends, Karen (right), and her sister Althea (left).



The second one is of my good friend Kayley. She decided she wanted to look sassy in this picture.




The next one is a rather striking pose by Karen and I.




And the last one, again, is Kayley and I in the den.