Operation GET WET!

Last week we took a mini-vacation to Omaha, NE (about 3 hours away) with 4 kids in tow.  (And no, I didn't mis-count!  Jordyn brought along her best friend, Emme!)  We stayed at a hotel with a super-fun indoor water park attached, and spent some time doing what you're supposed to do there -- GET WET!

Sadly enough, I didn't get too many pictures.  Oh, believe me, it was killing me!  Jeremy actually tried talking me into leaving my camera in the room (until he remembered who he married, for goodness sakes, and knew that was no option!)  So, there I was, standing out among the kids playing in the "very-shallow-and-meant-for-little-kids-so-Moms-and-Dads-don't-have-to-worry-about-drowning" area (the sign should have said that, anyway!) I was holding my not-so-cheap camera under a towel as kids pranced around, splashing about!  Every now and then, when the splashing diminished, I quickly pulled the camera out to grab a few shots of the kids!

Here are a few of them!

Carter especially loved the water spraying up (and zappin' him right in the tush!)

Rylee spent most of her time getting Dad's legs wet with the watering can!  (Jeremy did not sign his waiver to allow me to post pictures of himself in his swimming trunks... nor did I in my swimming suit.  But we were both there.  Promise.)

Jordyn and Emme spent their time in the "big-kid" area... going down the water slides and getting super-dooper wet!  Though I wanted to get pictures of them, too, there were several reasons I didn't... 1) Did you read super-DOOPER wet?  There was no way I was comin' out of that area with a dry camera! and 2) There were boys there... okay, teenage boys there, and though I like to think of myself as pretty cool, even I got the "Please-pretend-you-don't-know-us-while-we're-at-the-water-park-and-we-will-only-acknowledge-your-existence-when-we-are-back-in-the-hotel-room" look.  So, there you have it.  No pictures of the girls at the water park!  (Was I offended?  Not at all.  I was a girl once.  I mean, a teenage girl once.  I was happy to be invisible.)

So, why aren't there more pictures of the little kids?

I tried to remember what I was there for... and now here comes the learning.  As much as I wanted to capture the kids having fun, I realized that I didn't want them to say someday, "Geesh, remember when we went to the water park and Mom didn't even play with us?  She just stood there, asking all the other kids to stop splashing so she could get pictures of us.  Wish she would've just put the camera down and gotten wet with us!"

So, that's what I did.  Was the trip so unbelievable memorable that, even at their young ages, they will remember it when they are older?  Um, no.  Was the moment so traumatic to them because they were begging me to play and I was saying "no"?  No.  But, I put my camera down.  (Actually, to be quite literal, I put it back in my camera bag and into a very high-priced locker pool-side so I didn't have to run back up to the room!)

And I splashed with them.  And I stood at the bottom of the slide and caught them (along with 3 other kids who's parents ditched them in the kiddie-area so they could go have a drink at the swim-up bar... no lie.)  Anyway, I really enjoyed my time with them!  And, though every other minute I thought to myself, "oh shucks, that would've been a super-cute shot" or "oh, look how cute that is that Rylee is shoving  gently helping Carter down the slide" my camera stayed in the bag.

So, the learning is coming.  Maybe next time, I can put my camera away and NOT think "oh shucks, that would've been a cute picture."  (But then again, maybe not.  I'm only human, you know.)