Family Reunion/Vacation

Well, we did it! We went on "vacation" to see family! The unofficial bi-annual Flaming family reunion was held July 5-7, 2007 in Omaha, NE. And boy, was it very humid/hot - at least for this family that's been acclimated to the dry, cool mountain climate. Don't we look hot? and I don't mean the good kind of hot.

We started out on the 3rd heading to Kansas to stay with my mom. We spent the 4th with her and our "gang" friends - Faith, Todd & Julie, Scott & Amy and Jonathan & Amy (and all our kids and kids' friends). We grilled out and shot fireworks (and a potato cannon) during brief spurts of rain all evening. It was so great to see everyone! Then on the 5th we grouped up with my brother Ben, and his wife Lisa and mom and made a caravan to Omaha.

Thursday night was a planned dinner with 50+ family members meeting at Valentino's Italian Buffet. Mmmmmm!! Friday was open for anyone to do whatever we wanted, but since we weren't used to the humidity anymore, we voted to stick close to the pool! Actually, by the time we got going we went hunting for a mall - of all things - because the kids had spending money. But, before they could figure out what to spend it on, it was time to go to the water park at Mahoney State Park.

Now, for those of you growing up around Wichita, this place beats FantaSea hands down. The complex has kid's water playground, two twisting, 236-foot water slides, and an awesome wave pool! We stayed all afternoon and got worn out. That evening we had a catered family picnic with all the fixin's.

Saturday we packed up and decided to head back by way of going across all of Nebraska and then down through Colorado. We spent Saturday night in Colorado Springs and then had a leisurely drive down to Santa Fe on Sunday where we stopped in to see Melissa's parents. We ended up spending the night with them, which was a very nice finale to our family vacation.