Great Wolf Lodge!!!

This last weekend we took a trip down to Grand Mound, WA, to the Great Wolf Lodge! We went with my sister Carissa and her family, and our good friends Tessa and Corey, and their boys Macade and Braxton. I must say, it was an awesome time, and I'm already planning on going again in the next few months! In case you don't know, the Great Wolf Lodge is a hotel with a HUGE waterpark enclosed in it. It is always 84 degrees in the waterpark, and only those who are staying at the hotel are allowed into the waterpark, so it isn't super crowded.

The whole set-up of the hotel is awesome. It is super-kid friendly and felt like a mini-Disneyland because they decorated it so that you felt like you were in another little world. We got there Friday night around 4pm and played in the water park until around 6pm. We checked out the kiddie pool area, which the boys loved. It had two little slides, water sprayers, and a fun clubhouse-type area where water splashed you everywhere. We also tried out the wave pool, and it quickly became Bryce's favorite! The water park had inner tubes to use (and since it wasn't crowded, there were plenty to go around) and free life jackets for the kids.

This isn't the best picture, but it does show how big the room is. The bathroom and stuff it behind me, and behind the wall to the left is a couch, which turns out into a bed.

The food at the hotel is pricey, but each room has a fridge and microwave, so we brought lots of our own food and sent Corey out for pizza for dinner Friday night (thanks Corey!). We got the most basic room, and it was huge! It was big enough for all of the Poyfairs and the Rosses to eat dinner in our room.

After dinner on Friday night we went to storytime in the lobby. The anima-tronic show was slightly creepy, but the kids liked it. Then the brought out Wiley the Wolf, and his helper read a story to the kids. It was a fun ending to the night, and needless to say, my kids were wiped out. They fell asleep in the hotel room within 15 minutes, and we didn't hear from them until 7:30 the next morning!

Olivia, Rix, Cole, and Jack watching the show. Bryce and Macade re-sat themselves in the front row.

Bryce and Macade "howling" with the wolf. It was really cute to watch!

Cole didn't have the attention span for most of storytime. Instead, he spent the time sitting with me and reassuring himself verbally that the moose (which he called a horse) from the anima-tronics show wasn't going to get him. He'd say over and over, pointing to the moose "The horsey isn't going to get me." It was pretty funny.

Bryce and Rix with Wiley the Wolf. Cole wanted nothing to do with him (remember the fear of the moose? Imagine the fear of the big wolf...that wanted to hug him.)

The next morning we pulled out the cinnamon rolls that my mom and uncle Frank made us, and packed up the room. The park doesn't open until 9am, and check out was at 11am. We went down to the park and played. All day. It was awesome! We stopped for lunch at noon (we brought sandwich stuff and grapes - way cheaper than buying food there!!) and then played some more. Bryce, Macade, and Jack played in the kiddie pool area almost all day together with little breaks to the wave pool if there was an adult available to take them. Cole, Braxton, and Madelynn needed more watching, so someone always had to be there to make sure they were okay. Rix and Olivia got brave and went down the big kid water slides! Rix got bored with the kiddie stuff, and wanted to go down the tube slides and water slides all the time! It was fun because the tube slides he could go on allowed an adult to go with him, so it was fun to watch his face as we went down the drops! We were in the water park all day, and our fingers were soooo wrinkled, and my hair was so gross from all the chlorine water.

Bryan took some of the kids down one of the kiddie slides. This is the slide that Bryce went down almost all day.

Cole is loving this! You pull handles on the jetski to spray the water.

Cole loved these water sprayers! He would go to them and "fight" them by punching them with his fist. He also loved to cover them with his hands and feet. And I loved it because I didn't have to worry about him going underwater while playing with these!

I lost Cole while waiting for Rix and Bryce at the water slides. I found him with Adam - under the big bucket that dumps 1000 gallons of water on them. Instead of saving Cole, I took a picture (Cole is in the green life jacket).

Corey helping Macade across the lilypads. You can sort of see the ropes at the top of the picture. The kids are too little to use the ropes, so us adults moved the lilypads, that float back and forth, for the kids to jump across.

Corey helping Bryce across. The kids loved the challenge of making it across, and Bryan thought it would be fun to have a race! He challenged us girls to race across the lilypads and he would time us (by time us, he meant record it with the video camera and use the timer on that to determine who won!). We called it the Lilypad Olympics. And it was harder than I thought! It used a lot of upper arm strength, but in the end, I think Tessa won. And I may (or may not...) upload those videos on the blog.

Me (and my running mascara) with Cole, who, by the end of the trip, needed a nap soooo bad! Notice blankie is with us?

 I have to give credit to Braxton and Madelynn. They were so good the whole time we were there! They are definitely water babies (and sorry you all had to deal with Cole!!). 

By the end of the day we were TIRED! It takes a lot of energy to watch all those kids, and us adults got chances (by trading off watching each other's kids) to go down the big slides. Tessa, Carissa, and I went down the Howling Tornado. Holy crap! I would go back just to go down that ride!! We left around 6pm, stopped for dinner, and came home. The boys fell asleep so fast, and Bryan and I were in bed by 9pm.

This was the perfect little getaway for us. The Lodge is only 45 minutes away, and factoring in the cost of the waterpark and the hotel, it was a deal! The boys had an amazing time, and can't wait to go back, and neither can Bryan or I. Now that we have been, we know better what to bring and what not to bring. And we would love to take new people there (and old people again - are you up for it Tessa and Carissa??).