Thursday, April 28, 2011

Waterpark & Omaha Zoo

We needed this trip. Each of us needed to get away from life for a few days and play, and play we did!!
We stayed at a Holiday in with an attached waterpark. Coco Keys resort. We LOVED this waterpark!! We've stayed at a lot of waterpark hotels over the years, but I think this has been our favorite so far. It had so many different areas with something in each that someone loved. Ammon and Rebecca spent alot of time in the kiddie pool. It was zero depth entry and only went to 1 1/2 feet, which was perfect for Rebecca to walk and crawl in and for Ammon to swim with his goggles. The play area was big enough for Simeon to enjoy, but small enough that Rebecca could also play in it without feeling overwhelmed. They had 3 good sized slides that Corrine & Ammon went down dozens of times that were big enough to be big slides, but not too big to scare them. Then there were the big slides. It took some convincing to get Corrine to go down them. The 2nd night we were there she went down with dad. She ended up going down both the tube slides 4 times each! They also had a 4 foot pool with 4 basketball hoops and climbing net (monkey bar style) over the water. Simeon spent a lot of time there. Ammon liked that areas of that pool were only 3 feet deep so he could swim and if he got nervous he could stand right up. And the lazy river was long and didn't shoot water at you-just how we like them!
I didn't take a single picture here. I decided I wanted to enjoy the waterpark with the kids, not just be stuck behind the camera and then worry about the camera getting wet or stolen. So no pictures-but know it was a blast!!

We hit up the Omaha zoo on Thursday. It's one of our favorite zoos. We like that it has both outdoor and indoor exhibits. It is a hilly zoo though, so we got lots of exercise today!



We headed to the bears to see the enrichment time. The water got turned on and the bears got much livelier. It was fun to see the bears walk right up the glass and look at you.


Ammon got a very close look at a gorilla!


The main gorilla exhibit was empty today because they were replacing a piece of glass. You could see where a gorilla hand had hit the glass-HARD-and cracked it.

One of our favorite parts of the zoo is the Lied Jungle. It's HUGE. You walk around the top of it through different area to see monkeys, birds, bats. There are vines the kids can hang on and sit on and a rope bridge to cross. Then you look down to see hippos and other animals. Then you can go down to the "floor" of the jungle and explore down there. The main trees that hold up the dome are massive and you really get the feel of walking through a jungle. The kids always love to go through the viney roots of a certain tree that's made just for kids. They also like to go through the hidden staircase to go up to the waterfall.





We also like to go through the desert dome and the kingdom of the night. While we were in the swamp part Rebecca came up to me and said "Scary-up please" She didn't like walking by the alligators and other animals in the dark.



The walk through shark tank tunnel was another favorite of the older 3 kids, but NOT by dad who escaped to avoid getting sick! There were a half dozen or so sharks in the tank, but the one with all the crazy sharp teeth everywhere was the most favorite to watch. The kids were counting how many sharks swam over them.

I love how into the shark tank the kids are in this picture and you can see it on their faces and how not a single one is looking at me.

The shark with all the teeth.

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