Home of Douglas Loots

This weekend we packed the family and Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra in the van and headed to Omaha for Maria’s birthday party, a trip to the Henry Doorley Zoo, and a night at the Springhill Suites Hotel.

We took off at 9:30 Am and got to the Zoo shortly before lunch. We couldn’t believe the crowd at the zoo. We went in and walked around for a bit until Ryan, Mikhael, and Maria joined us. After eating lunch we continued through the zoo for another couple hours. It was about 92 degrees and everyone was hot hot hot. Fortunately there were enough buildings that were air conditioned we got cooled off every now and again.

Brayton’s favorite part of the zoo was the jungle, but he also liked the aquarium, and the petting zoo. He liked trying to feed the goats and watch the sharks and fish swimming around in the aquarium.

After the zoo, we checked into the hotel and had a swim in the pool. The kids had a great time, and we swam for about an hour and a half. I was surprised they did so well. We ate supper the Colette had prepared in the hotel room, watched a quick movie on the laptop and then everyone was in bed by 8pm. Lauren crashed immediately in the pack & play, however, Brayton was still a bit wound up. B & I were sharing a bed, and Colette had her own bed. I put my arm on B to try to hold him in place, which worked alright, but he was not ready to go down yet. He was talking, saying nursery rhymes, counting, ABC’s etc. I was pretending that I was asleep and watching him through the corner of my eyes. Finally I decided to close them all the way, all of a sudden I felt a finger go up my nostril. I pushed his had down to his side and didn’t say anything. He proceeded to pretend that he was sleeping, and waited about a minute (which was probably an eternity for a little boy) before attempting the finger up Daddy’s nose again. This went on for another time when I decided enough was enough. I held his hand by his side and he again began reciting nursery rhymes.

After a while Colette had had enough. She told B if he wanted to sleep on the floor he could. That lasted all of about 2 minutes, and the ultimatum was that if he didn’t want to sleep he had to lay next to me and be quiet. He decided that was okay, crawled into bed and was out like a light in just a few short minutes.

The next morning, we had some breakfast and went to Mass and met Ryan, Mikhael, Maria, Grandpa Gordon, and Grandma Cindy there. After mass we went back to Ryan’s house and celebrated Maria’s birthday party.

Poor Lauren fell down and cut the inside of her lip up, it was cut bad enough that it was still very sore today and she was very fussy and wouldn’t eat much.

All in all, our first stay in a hotel room went really well, and everyone was worn out after the weekend and slept well when we got home.