Family Vacation!

We decided to surprise the kids with a little family vacation to Great Wolf Lodge!

Katheryn was worried about Twinkle, our elf on a shelf, so he came with us!

Of course we had to get a room with the bunk beds. Both the kids love them, but Nick never wants to go on the top bunk. He just likes sleeping in the same room as his sister

We decided we were going to try out the MagicQuest game this time.
Nick had fun, but he got really tired (I think we'll need his wheelchair next time).
But Katheryn had a blast running around!

We went for 2 nights/3 days, but I didn't take all that many pictures while we were there.
One morning at breakfast we decided on some selfies!

The have this giant gingerbread house in the lobby. And it is an actual gingerbread house! You can actually book to eat your meal there.

We also got to meet Santa and Mrs Claus (and this is inside the gingerbread house)

I only have pictures at the pool the last day (I didn't bring my water camera).

Nick and Kyle stayed in the big pool most of the day.

Katheryn and I would go out and explore different slides. We would go on the medium slides and race each other down. And we went on the big Wooly Mammoth slide multiple times (and a lot of begging), but I couldn't get her on any of the other slides.

BUT I did get Kyle and Nick on the Wooly Mammoth slide, 1 time. We carried Nick and waited in line to get on the slide, and then when we got to the top, they told us because of Nick we could have skipped the line.
But Nick wasn't interested in the slide again.
But I did get 1 great picture!

But the kids had lots of fun in the water. We would spend a couple of hours in the pool before getting out and doing 'land' stuff (MagicQuest, the arcade, bowling... which sucked... visiting the gift shop, or just relaxing in our room)

Of course once we left the kids were asking when we were going back again!

It was a wonderful winter mini-vacation!

Underwater

I got an underwater camera for Christmas, so of course I had to try it out!

I had a blast with it!

 

The kids were not as impressed with it as I was

But Katheryn was game to try until I got  good picture

 

And Nick didn't really have a choice, but it only took a couple of attempts to get this one

 

And they still liked the water after I got my masterpieces, so we were all good!

This was the closest I got to an underwater picture of Kyle

Howling Weekend!

We spent 3 days and 2 nights at Great Wolf Lodge. After our trip in 2012 I wanted to come back. And we still didn't get to do everything they have to offer!

The bunk beds were not as fun as a couple of years ago during the night hours, but during the day they loved it!

We spent some time every day at the arcade, and the kids all had their favorite games to play
Nick won all of these tickets (200) playing a single turn/coin of a game!
He was so proud of himself!

Katheryn liked chopping up all of the fruit!

 

There was a lot of tough decisions before we left on how the kids wanted to spend their 1200 tickets

And of course we needed more time in the pool!

 

These floaties were great! Katheryn tried to swim a bit without them, but it was too busy.

 

The first day we spent in the kiddy pool, the kids didn't want to do anything else.

But the shallow water let Nick crawl around... and tear up his feet (not that bad, but some)

And we were close to the slides so they could try them out
Katheryn was very brave this year and went on all of the kid slides. The yellow and the green were her favorite because they were twisty.

Nick went on the orange one (his favorite colour). He went on it only once, and said he didn't want to go on again "because my legs might go up again"

When we went investigating we found a bigger pool that he liked a lot more.

Even if it gave him the opportunity to go underwater.

I wanted to spend time in the 'lazy river' which wasn't so much lazy as filled with people and tubes in a fast moving circle with times when water dumped on you
Nick didn't really like it

I liked just floating (as long as I wasn't run over by anyone) and Katheryn loved just running around in the water

But that was the extent of the exploration. No wave pool or anything that potentially dumped or sprayed water. There was also an obstacle course kind of pool that no one wanted to do.

But even if we didn't do lots of what they had. The kids had all of the fun that they wanted

 

I tried to get them to explore the big blue slide. But not this time. Looked like fun!

We had a FANTASTIC family weekend!

Fun and exhausting!

Happy 6 years!

6 years ago, this little munchkin was born

 

And somehow this little tiny baby became a big girl! 6 whole years! It's like a lifetime and a moment at the same time.

 

 

For Katheryn's birthday this year we decided to take our family gift cards to Great Wolf Lodge and have a big birthday weekend!

 

 

When we arrived, Katheryn had her own present waiting for her!

She has been sleeping with this wolf ever since

 

No... I don't think she is happy and excited at all...

Katheryn was very particular that she didn't want to open any presents until her actual birthday.
And also that because it was her birthday we had to do everything she wanted to do

Like being the pool all day

Telling everyone she is 6 years old

 

Playing with her brother in the big pool

 

 

And go on all of the kiddy slides

 

Part of the birthday package had a cake. I brought candles and a lighter, so we went back to our room and blew out candles (singing in the restaurant didn't go so well)

There was also the dancing to the Birthday card... but I posted that earlier

She had an amazing day! And we were all exhausted at the end of it.
More Great Wolf Lodge pictures to follow!

Water, water, everywhere!

Our vacation is almost done.

In total, between my camera (460pics), Kyle's phone (20 pics) and a waterproof camera (27 pics) I took over 500 pictures in these 4 days! Uploading the pictures onto my blog took time becuase first I had to edit out what wasn't good, or doubles, or blurry (got down to 320 pictures). I played around with most of the water camera pics becaue I realized half way through the film that it was 800-speed, so they are really dark. 

I went through all the pictures again to pick out of those what ones I wanted to share, to tell our story. I realized very quickly that there was no way to do one post for the whole trip, I couldn't even do 1 post per day!

 

 

Today we tried to take it easy. Check-out time was 11am.

There was some kid activities in the morning, but we couldn't even think about getting up and going. So next time we'll have to remember about them. We were out of the room at 1059, and ready for another full day at the waterpark. We were able to stay there until the park closed, but we also knew that we would be driving home sometime later too.

The kids said good-bye to the bunkbed.

 

 

 

I made sure that we had Nick's walker, because this is what I was waiting for. I don't want Nickolas to be dependant on me for moving around the waterpark. I wanted him to have the freedom to play! To splash! To be independent!

But Nickolas was tired and cranky and clingy and didn't want to be anywhere away from me. He wanted to be carried everywhere. Half the time he didn't even want in the water!

Until we got him in and then he had fun. He actually really liked just floating. He would almost fall asleep.

And once he started swimming and kick, kick, kick! He was having fun!

We were trying to get Katheryn to see that Nick is kicking and swimming (and she should try it too). But it didn't work. Katheryn liked playing in the water and splashing in the water.

We tried to get her to go down one of the kiddie water slides, but she absolutely refused. No Way!
Nickolas did go down yesterday. Once. That was enough for him, I was able to carry him up and put him on the slide, with a little push and then Kyle was on the bottom to pick him up. He said he didn't have fun - with a big smile on his face - but didn't want to go again.
This picture (with my water camera - no flash) was in front of the small water slides.

The kids didn't like water falling. In the waterpark there is a tree-fort kind of area with all kinds of water buckets and water guns and playing. Katheryn went up yesterday, but today when we tried to get her up and exploring she said that there were 'water booby-traps' and she didn't want to.
So we didn't try to make either kid do something they didn't want to do. We were tired too. But we also wanted them to get a whole day out of the park today before we left.

Kyle and I did have a little bit of relaxing time.

And Katheryn loved the basket balls! She made herself in charge of distrubuting all of the balls to kids who didn't have them.

But she took take for splashing!

Nick was fighting us some of the time, not wanting to do anything different. BUT I brought that walker all the way here, just for him to play in the water! SO he was going to playin the water!!

 

In my head I imagined him playing and walking around with his walker. Having Fun! I made sure to ask before going if it was safe for the walker to get wet. Really wet. I got the A-OK for our equipment guy.

And Nick eventually agreed wit him.

Evenually Nickolas let go of our hands and wanted to try to move around himself.

It was actually pretty good physio for him to navigate and move where he wanted to. There was a slope into the pool, and so he had to go down the slop a bit, but also learn how to stop himself from going too fast (but leaning backwards). He mastered it in no time.

We stayed in the park until about 2pm, then ate lunch and were on our way!

 

 We had a 2 hour drive ahead of us (at least with rush hour on a Friday afternoon). We knew it was time when the kids started getting really grumpy!

The kids slept all the way home.

 

Always a sign of a good vacation!