Great Wolf Lodge

The next stop on our itinerary was Great Wolf Lodge. This is an indoor water park and I was so excited about this leg of our trip. We got to check right into our room once we got there and the kids were in awe. It was like a regular hotel room, only with a tiny log cabin inside. The log cabin was just for the kids and had a set of bunk beds and a twin bed inside, along with their very own tv. They thought it was the best thing ever! Once we got changed, we headed straight to the park to play. Jack and Anna had a great time, but Sam was terrified of the water spraying everywhere. He hated it (which is surprising because he has absolutely no fear of anything else)! So I couldn't get many pictures since I had tiny arms wrapped tightly around my neck the whole time.

Jack is standing on his top bunk peering over the top of the log cabin.

Sam HATED this water that dumped out every so often. The wolf would howl about a minute or so before tons of water came pouring out onto the kids below. When he heard the howl, he would stand and glare at the thing until the water dumped out and then shouted "no" and "stop" over and over.

After a fun afternoon in the water (Sam did finally warm up to the outside pool), we went out to dinner and then came back to get ready for story time. The kids were encouraged to wear pajamas and watch a show, then Wiley the Wolf came out for story time after the show. Jack had so much fun on the big water slides that he chose to go back to the water park with Daddy while I took the others to story time.

After story time we met up with Jack and Marshall in the arcade and everyone had tons of fun playing all the games (even in pajamas)!

We picked up doughnuts for an evening snack and headed back to the room to get ready for bed.

We actually slept in the next morning (remember, Lucy wasn't there to wake us up) and finally got downstairs around 10:00. The kids saw the ice cream shop and begged to have ice cream. Since we were on vacation we decided to go for it - they loved it! We took this picture right before heading into the water park on the second day and then my camera died so this is all I've got.

Sam never did love things on the inside, but we still had a blast and would go back again! I hadn't been on a water slide since middle school and I have to admit, they are pretty fun!

Good Times with Old Friends

After leaving IOP on Tues we spent Tues night with Ninny and Grandy. We got to visit with them and Pop and Grammy, but I didn't take any pictures. We headed out early Wed morning to visit with some of my favorite people! Allison and her girls drove up for the day and met up with Huli at Lottie's house. We got to hang out while the kids played and despite the utter chaos, it was so much fun!

Huli hung out with the big kids, Anna, Jack, and Sydney.

There were literally kids everywhere.

Seriously, EVERYWHERE!

Holland checking out Lucy.

Sam, Sydney, Anna, and London playing in Colt's room. But where was Colt?

He was checking out the toys on Lucy's exersaucer!

Holland had to check up on Colt's driving skills.

We had Papa John's for lunch, just like we did in college, except there were WAY more kids this time around!

Sam and London were too funny. On this day they were buddies, but last time they were together Sam bit her (twice) and she still talks about it. Apparently she was able to move past that since here they are holding hands!

The girls

All the kids . . .
Sam - 2, Jack - 5, Sydney - 7 holding Lucy - 4 mos, Anna - 3, Holland - 12 mos, London - 2, Colt - 16 mos

We had such a great time with everyone. Eventually we headed on to our next destination. Actually only five of us headed on, Lottie was kind enough to keep Lucy at her house for the night so that the rest of us could have fun at Great Wolf Lodge. Thank you, Lottie!

Stay tuned, more to come . . .

IOP - Day 3

We were a little slow to get going by day 3 and Lucy fell back asleep for her first nap before we even headed out to the beach. Since it's hard enough to keep her out of the sun (she's still too young for sunscreen) I figured this was a blessing and just took her to the beach in her pjs. She stayed covered a while longer and finished her nap - that's a win, win for everyone! Once she woke up she got her first experience with the ocean. While she was a little upset in the pictures, once we put the camera away she was our usual happy baby and really enjoyed sitting in my lap in the surf.

Sam became keeper of the shoes and dumped all of our sand toys out so he could put our shoes in the basket to carry around.

I LOVE Lucy's face in this one!

After the beach, I took Lucy to the room to pack up and Marshall took everyone else to the pool. We rolled out of town by noon and even stopped for lunch in Cola at our favorite Groucho's. Three days of beach fun was just perfect for us - we all had a great time! Stay tuned for part two of our vacation . . . .