Bring On the New: Mini-Family Vaycay Part 1: Coco Key

Back in September, DealGarden had a deal where you could purchase a 2-day stay at the Ramada in Omaha for a family of 4. The deal included passes to the indoor water park adjacent, as well as breakfast and dinner for everyone both days. The total? $150. We sprung for it back then and scheduled it for Spring Break, knowing we would be a family of 4 by then. To be honest, I wasn't terribly excited about the trip because our mini-vaycay from the summer proved to be such a let-down.

Fast-forward to Tuesday morning. We packed up and headed for Omaha around 10 AM. Our kids were AWESOME on the drive up. Charlie played with toys and the iPad, and Lucy either slept or was her usual, quiet, content, and perfect self. We stopped at a Sonic in Auburn, NE that was INDOOR. I had no idea they had INDOOR Sonics, but once we realized that's what it was, we had to see. I wish I had gotten pictures - you walk in and instead of a counter, there were windows, just like at a regular Sonic. There are booths and tables just like a regular fast food place, but at each table was a PHONE. You picked it up, pushed the red button, and they brought your food out when it was ready.

Charlie watching "Lucy" (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) on Daddy's iPad)

We were the only ones in there at first, which was nice because Lucy was ready to eat, but by the time our food came a crowd of elderly folks from a neighboring nursing or retirement home had come in. They were just tickled (to use a phrase my grandmother would have used) with Charlie, and he was basking in the center of their attentions. He said his name, his address, John 3:16, and told them the names of everyone in his family. He even sang for them. When we left, he hugged one of the gentlemen and said "Good-bye my friends." He is so stinking cute.

So adorable in her swimming suit!

We arrived in Omaha at about 1:30. They had told us check-in was at 4, so we were planning to see if they had a locker room or something so we could change and get to swimming, but they checked us right in and sent us up to our room. It was nice, with two beds and a mini-fridge with a freezer compartment. We weren't expecting that part, and it was a welcome surprise, as we had carted about twelve bags of frozen milk for Lucy and weren't totally sure how we were going to keep it cool. We unpacked, changed, and headed downstairs to the water park.

Charlie was mesmerized. He loves swimming and could not believe all the cool things there were to do! We couldn't believe there weren't more people there! Apparently, spring break in Nebraska was the week before - SCORE!

Charlie got to go down the slides over and over and over again without waiting on anyone. We played for a few hours, went upstairs and cleaned up, went to the restaurant for our free pizza, and then did it all over again!

Lucy is behind Rick...we didn't just leave her in the room :)

By the time we got back to the room, he was beat. He didn't quite understand the concept of hotel rooms and kept trying to tell us that he was ready for us to go. He finally went to sleep but woke up around midnight totally disoriented. He yelled several times and I was worried he was going to wake Lucy, but she's so good she slept through it!

We went down again the next morning and the place was virtually empty - I think there may have been one other family there and we didn't even cross paths. We played in the lazy river, went down the slides, and just walked all around in the water fall jungle gym thing. He was in heaven.