Waterpark of America

We needed one last trip away before school and all the kids activities started back up. We love waterparks and we had told Corrine that she could get her American Girl Doll's hair redone, so we headed north to Minneapolis for a few days. We stayed at the Radisson hooked to the Waterpark of America for the 1st 2 nights.
We got a waterpark view room which had a separate room with 2 sets of bunk beds for the kids, and had a balcony over looking the flow rider.
The waterpark had alot of slides on different levels, including a family raft ride from the 10th story. Rebecca was able to go down it if she wore a life jacket. It was a fun and fast slide.
Rebecca loved the kids area and spent hours going down slides by her self and the bigger ones with dad. She also enjoyed jumping into the activity pool to dad. Ammon spent hours jumping into the activity room and swimming to the side. He really improved his swimming this weekend.

Pictures are in random order.

A day out with Ammon & Rebecca

Today I just had Ammon & Rebecca. Simeon is at camp and Corrine is spending the day with Grandma Smith. So the 3 of us headed to the Quad Cities to play at some of our favorite spots there-the Family Museum and The John Deere Pavilion.
The outdoor area of the museum was the hit of the day, besides the goop Rebecca played in for 20 minutes before we convinced her to go somewhere else.
During the summer they have different activities throughout the museum. Today they had bubbles outside. Both the kids were having a great time playing with them. Ammon somehow lost his footing and ended up sitting in the container of bubbles. We laughed about it saying that I wouldn't need to put any laundry detergent in the wash today!! He thought that was funny.



Then we went over to the water area. This is by far the funnest thing for the kids to do. Endless water for them to fill, pour, dump, and splash in. Rebecca got her pants soaked, so off they went to dry while she played some more.



We then headed over the bridge to Illinois to play on the tractors. Theses tractors hold the kids attention for a long time. They are HUGE and full of gadgets to touch, steering wheels to drive, seat belts to buckle, tires to climb in, and tractors to walk under. If Ammon loves playing here, then Rebecca is in heaven!! It was hard getting her to leave.
When we left I went in to ask for directions to another ramp, since ours was closed due to construction. Then Ammon asked the man how they got all the tractors into the building. He showed us the massive doors they open to bring them through, and how they do it.



I loved this old tractor. It was super rusted and really showed it age, but that also helped show the hard work it had done. If had run into this out at a farm, I'd had taken dozens of pictures of it!





When we left we went to the entrance ramp the guy told us about. He said it was taking him 45 minutes to get home instead of 20 at 5pm, so I thought no big deal it's 3pm we'll get on quickly. Boy was I wrong. I saw a long line of cars and thought that's the wrong lane, so I got over and ended up missing the ramp. So I decided to just make a u-turn and get on from the other directions. Miles later the line ended and I knew we had to find another route home. I knew the 80 was north of where we were and figured I could find it. My GPS kept trying to send me back where we had come from. I started going north and had a feeling that I could find my way to the 80. We ended up on a beautiful road right next to the river. There were the most beautiful parks and walking paths along the river. It made me want to stop and get out, but I was also not totally sure where we were and how long it would take to get home, so we kept going.
After driving for some time I started to recognize the area and then I saw the name of the town we were about to go through. I knew that town. I knew it because it was the town we went to for lunch after Becky's funeral. We drove right past the church where we had lunch.
Another 10 minutes and I saw what I was going towards. A ramp onto interstate 80. I knew we could find it and we did. It made me feel good knowing that my instincts were correct. It took us 40 minutes longer to get home then normal, which I'm sure was shorter then the wait at the ramp to get onto the 74.
Now I can't wait to go back on that road again to explore some of the fun things we saw, like the over look hike, the parks and the John Deere plant with a visitors center. I wonder what they have there. I'm excited to find out!

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.