A mini-vacation

Kevin ended up not having to do one of his overtime nights this past weekend so we decided to head up to Omaha for an overnight vacation.  Straight to this awesome Holiday Inn my friend Jaesi and her family had stayed at many many times before they moved.  It has an indoor splash play area as well as the big slide, regular pool, and hot tub.  The kids napped in the car on the way up and we hit the pool as soon as we checked in at 4:00!  Actually we were a half-hour early and we knew it but they let us check in anyway.

I didn't get a lot of pictures because my camera lens kept steaming up at the pool but I got a couple to show you what it's like.  There's a few more pictures on the hotel website, the link is above.

The play area has lots of sprinklers and dumping buckets and 2 slides along with the little fountains in the outer areas.  The kids were actually pretty timid of all the splashing in their faces at first but they settled into it the longer we were there.  Except for Carter who didn't like one bit of it.  He'd cry every single time I set him down.  But he also had a bit of a cough and I don't think he was feeling that great.  I think another time he'd like it much better.  He was content to be carried around on my hip though or to be in the big pool so we still had a good time.

And then there's the big slide!  The sign says you have to be 48" tall to go down it and Eli's about a foot shorter than that so he didn't get to go on it.  But the next morning when Kevin took the kids while Carter napped there weren't as many people and there was another little boy Eli's size that was going down the slide so Kevin let Eli try it too.  I guess he loved it and went down several times.  And Kevin took Hannah down with him.  So fun!  It's just a stairway that goes up to the top of the slide and then the slide itself goes outside the building (as pictured) and then enters back into the building and into the bottom shoot area, not a pool so it's pretty kid-friendly.

There's also a regular pool that has a circular area that branches off of it.  That circular area has a current that goes around and around.  With his life vest on Eli could actually just float around on his own without being held, Kevin right behind him.  Kinda fun.

After wearing the kids out in the pool for awhile we got changed into dry clothes and headed out to eat.  The Old Market area of Omaha is about 6 blocks south of our hotel so we headed there, eventually found a lot we could park in, and enjoyed dinner at a pizza restaurant.  While we were out we saw one of the horse and carriages parked at the roadside, so I pointed out "Cinderella's carriage" to Hannah and she was delighted!  =)

When we got back to our hotel room it was almost 8pm so we stayed up a little bit watching the busy city traffic down below (we were on the 3rd floor).  Finally at 8:30 we put Carter to bed and hung out in the bathroom giving Eli and Hannah a bath while Carter got settled.  Then we all went to bed.  Pretty much the only rooms I could find were 2 king beds, so we did that, and it was actually really nice.  Felt like we actually had SPACE in our room!  Plenty of room for the pack n play and more room if we'd needed to sleep kids on the floor.  But instead Kevin slept with Eli and I slept with Hannah and we had no issues!  I was wide-awake at every peep of a sound, making sure that one person didn't wake allll the others, but it was fine.  

In the morning we got up and ate breakfast at the hotel  buffet and Kevin took the kids back to the pool while Carter had his morning nap.  And then we checked out at 11am and headed out for a few errands in Omaha and then lunch and back home with VERY tired kids.

All in all, it was such a fun little getaway!   Something about staying in a hotel and enjoying the pool made it feel like we WENT somewhere!  =)  We'll definitely be going back sometime!  Of course Omaha also has CoCo Key (indoor) Water Resort on the other side of town, but that's huge and for now way too much for us.  Maybe when the kids can all swim we'll make it a treat!  But for now this was perfect!

And now Kevin's on nights again from now all through Outage which will run til at least the middle of April.  Family time is very cherished these days!