Omaha Vacation

If you could dream up the most family friendly vacation ever it would probably include the zoo, a kiddie pool at the hotel that at max is 3 feet deep and an interactive museum that could only be described as controlled chaos. Our mini vacation to Omaha was a great success with lots of quality time with our friends and family.

I am now going to picture blast you in the face.

We spent Friday at the zoo trying to get Dexter to look at the animals at the exact moment that they were walking by. We had varied degrees of success. Those tigers and lions were lazy, sleeping underneath a tree and trying to be generally invisible to toddlers so that was kind of a bummer. But we did see this puma who put on a pretty decent show for us.

And there were sprinklers all around the zoo just begging to be run through since it was hot, hot, hot. We don't need no stinkin' big cats, right? Sprinklers are boss.

 So is this goat. 

And then Saturday rolled around and it was off to the Omaha Children's Museum which I totally and completely endorse. If you have a toddler, get thee to the Children's Museum stat. They are free to run around like no impulse control, crazy little people and you have the peace of mind that everything in the room is meant to be manhandled and climbed upon. You're tired of saying "no" all day long and redirecting and distracting, I get that. This is the land of yes! Yes, climb on that! Yes, pick that up! Yes, try that! The yes to no ratio in this place is in your favor, you tired parent, you.   

PICTURE BLAST!

Even when he's not eating...he's eating.

My instructions were to "hug like a Sudsy" and this is what he came up with.

 

Lettuce, really? I thought I taught you better than that.

Other travel details of note:

We had lunch at the Upstream Brewery and congratulated ourselves with a beer for being such great parents who take their kids to do fun things like the zoo and museum. I got talked out of the Peach Harvest Wheat since according to the waiter they were all "pretty disappointed by it" and talked into the I don't know Tropical Saison. Verdict: wine without being wine. Or as Josh said, "tastes kind of boozy."

We stayed at the Best Western Kelley Inn which is a little off the beaten path of the touristy Old Market area but it had a pretty perfect sized pool for little kids. All the guests we saw were families so word must be out that this is the place to be if you want other understanding hotel patrons that don't mind crying babies and those no impulse control toddlers I was telling you about earlier.

I definitely feel comfortable dubbing this vacation a success. But for future reference, I do have one question for you well traveled parents out there...what do you do when you put the kids down for bed when you're staying at a hotel? I don't think Dexter would go to sleep if we stayed in the room with him...which is why we made our own parent's lounge (and by parents lounge, I mean sitting on the floor in our PJs with a cooler and Chex Mix because not only are we awesome parents that take their kids to do fun things like the zoo and museum but we're also super classy), at the end of the hallway by the elevator. Yeah, we were those weirdos. The pool seemed a little far away from our room and I don't know if a monitor would've reached that far. Do you leave your kids?