"Elmo-ha"

This past weekend we took a mini-vacation to Omaha, or as Jack called it, "Elmo-ha".  I found a coupon for 2 nights stay at the Coco Key Water Resort/Ramada Inn, food voucher, and arcade voucher all for $144, and I couldn't pass it up.  Reid's family had talked about taking a trip over spring break last year, but it didn't happen, so this was the perfect opportunity to do it, seeing that I'm on break from school.  So, Judy (Reid's mom), Scott and Tes and all 5 kiddos, and Reid and Jack and I loaded up Sunday morning and made the long detour drive to Omaha.  Since I-29 is closed, it ended up taking 4 hours and we were really glad to be there.  The fun started right away as we changed into our suits and spent the afternoon at the pool.  There were tons of slides and a lazy river.  Jack was really brave (and had a lifejacket for help) and went down all the slides that he was tall enough to go on.  He loved it and DID NOT want to go in for the evening.  But, we got to have lots of good family time around the dinner/breakfast table and the food from the restaurant was awesome. The arcade was loads of fun, too.  We got a $30 voucher with our coupons and that ended up being 140 tokens to spend!  It took us 2 hours to go through it between myself, Reid, and Jack all playing games.  We ended up winning close to 400 tickets and got some fun little prizes for the ride home.  We also spent a day at the Henry Doorly Zoo.  Jack was so interactive with the animals this year.  He absolutely loved running around with the "big kids".  He got even got to pet some goats.  

I was very pleased with our stay and hopefully we'll get to return again in the future.  Here are a few pictures from the weekend.  

Jack and Ella at the zoo.  Big grins are definitely in the Kirby gene: 

Family photo opp:

All the kiddos (minus Ella) at the entrance of the zoo.  Jack wanted to play on the lions all day:

On our way home to KC, we made a detour to Seneca, KS to visit my grandmothers Sharon and Eleanor.  I was so happy we went and they were both very surprised to see us.  Jack entertained them with singing and it was just really nice to visit for a bit.  We don't get to see them hardly at all and I know they enjoyed seeing their great grandson. 

Jack, Great Grandma Bredemeier, Scooby the puppy and mommy:

Jack, Mommy, and Great Grandma Skoch.  She couldn't believe how talkative and smiley he was:

This trip was just what I needed after a hard semester.  I'm so thankful for my husband's family.  Jack is lucky to have 2 wonderful families to grow up in.  We are so blessed. 

Until next time...