The Bartlett Family Vacation

We're back from vacation and I could sure use a... vactaion. :) It was fun, but the four of us are happy to be home and in our own beds!

Our theme this year was: "Vacation Is Good For You".

The first night, I made my family eat supper at the Cracker Barrel - its my favorite place to eat, and only my sisters could understand the irony of this restaurant choice... I didn't have to take any of the abuse my Dad took for making us eat there when we were kids -- my family actually seemed to enjoy it :)

On Friday, we visited the Omaha zoo. It turns out that Reagan and Joel have about the same attention span for looking at the exhibits. We were able to "look at" the majority of the zoo before lunch-time. I wish I could have counted the times I heard Joel tell Reagan "Oops, I think we lost Mommy (again)".
Here are some pictures from our day...

Reagan with Mufasa.

Our new family photo:

Reagan with the polar bear's back-side.

Grant in one of the tunnels in the Gorilla building. This was towards the beginning of the day when he still liked the stroller.

Grant finally fell asleep around 10:30,
so Joel and Reagan took a tour of the petting zoo. I think this is the same goat she posed with last year...

Lunch! (Seriously.)

On the train. Reagan begged (lots) to ride the train. We agreed and as we waited in line with a grouchy, stubborn, crawling, antsy, one-year-old, the train finally arrived and blew it's whistle. Reagan freaked out (she has a huge fear of loud noises) and decided she didn't want to ride the train - she was too scared. Sorry, Reagan! Get on board. Vacation is good for you.

Grant was as bad on the train ride as he was when we were in line. I think he would have thrown himself overboard if I had loosened my grip during one of his fits. Vacation is good for my patience, too.

On the carousel. Joel is hidden behind the zebra.

After a long day at the zoo, and a short afternoon nap, we made a stop at Chuck E. Cheese. I took this picture because the daughter of two engineers should not eat pizza this way.

The second day, we took the kids swimming...
...and then to the Omaha Children's Museum. What a great place! There was a "Wiggle Room" for kids Grant's age. It was a nice change for him after being strapped in the stroller for the whole day at the zoo!
Reagan loved the Children's Museum even more than Grant. There was a children-size store where they took turns "shopping" and "working at the checkout". There was a child-sized house, an arts & crafts station where you could draw, color, glue stuff, and paint your own face. There was a dinosaur exhibit (Reagan didn't even notice the dinosaurs, she just made a beeline for the play structure) and Clifford the Big Red Dog was even there to give out hugs.




The kids had a great time... but I think we pushed Grant's limits a little too much. On the way home, I kept thinking of the movie Dumb and Dumber... "Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? EEeeeeeeeehh!" That's the sound that Grant made in the car for most of the 3-hour trip - when he wasn't having a tantrum or crying. Ah, Grant.... this is why vacations are not all fun, but they are good for us :)