a house full of insanity: Adventure is out there!!

Now that Memorial Weekend is officially over and we are home, summer with mommy begins.

Last Friday was the kid's last day of school. We walked to school and enjoyed a

extremely short day of recesses, last minute party activities and learning who their teachers are this fall. Mommy could have used a few more hours to prep for our weekend camping trip, but it was nice to get on the road a little earlier. The kid's school does something at the beginning and end of the each school year. They have a school wide ceremony at the front of the school raising and lowering the American flag. It brings all the kids and parents together and really solidifies school spirit.

The only hard part is trying to round up three school age kids in the mass of people.

(we had lost Rosie for a few minutes but eventually found her at the other side of school)

{Gigi and her Kindergarten teacher}

{Bubba with his First Grade Teacher ... Gigi loves her too!}

I surprised the kids on our walk home by telling them I was taking them out for lunch.

We walked a little past our house to Habanero's (a Mexican restaurant) which serves our favorite, queso dip. We were waiting for Daddy to get home from work so it was a great lunch with my four lovebugs.

After we walked home and emptied their backpacks with all the pencil boxes, report cards, and random papers from their desks/cubbys we were ready for our adventure!

For the three day weekend we decided to head to Omaha, Nebraska.

Nate and I had never been there and we had heard great things about their zoo.

It was a 5 hour car ride pulling the camper, so we had to be creative in curing the "are we there yets?"

I had purchased lais for the kids to wear to start summer and they were dancing in the backseat to Daddy's music selections.

We also picked up a travel scavenger hunt game to play.

It was easy for all the older kids to play and we spent at least an hour trying to find everything from a green car to a car with a bald man in it to a really dirty car. Daddy even pulled the smell it card. He had to smell something really bad. (the key was NOT inside the vehicle)

Daddy unofficially won the game.

This trip was our first stay at a KOA campground.

Before this, we had mostly stayed in state campgrounds with limited amenities.

The KOA had organized activities and a large play area complete with a jumping pillow.

The kids spent hours and hours on the jumping pillow. Mommy and Daddy even enjoyed sometime bouncing around on it until Mommy had to find the bathroom. Bouncing and laughing really hard don't mix!

I had made the kids a little end of the school year gift.

I quickly whipped up library bags for the older kids and got each of them 2 books to read over the summer. I was overjoyed that they loved it. Before we had even left the driveway, the kids had their nose plastered in their books. I was one proud momma. Bubba who usually tries to find anything else to do but read, was really engaged in reading his first chapter book.

The weather forecast was not good for the whole weekend.

I was obsessed about checking it every couple hours to see if the thunderstorms they predicted were really going to ruin our weekend. Surprisingly the rain didn't spoil our weekend. It rained every night when we were sleeping, but during the day we only had the occasional pickle shower.

Saturday we decided to head to the zoo after seeing the rain was going to pass us by.

The Henry Doorly Zoo lived up to its reputation.

We had a blast.

We rode the skyfari across the zoo which was a little scary. I wasn't nervous until we were up in the air and I had the two little girls to keep in their seats. My mommy death grip on their legs, we gazed at the giraffes, cheetahs, and rhinoceros below us. I was proud of Rosie who was really scared to go on it, but when she got off at the end she wanted to go again!

Lil Miss was fascinated by the animals and really liked all the monkeys and gorillas.

Bubba got to see his favorite animal up close and personal. The peacock.

We cooled off, yes it ended up being really hot, with sno cones and frozen lemonade.

When we left the zoo right before closing the kids fell asleep right away. We successfully wore them out.

On Sunday we headed back into Omaha to the Durham Museum. In doing research we had discovered that the Dino named Sue was going to be at the museum starting that weekend. Rosie learned about Sue this year at school and couldn't wait to see it person.