Great Wolf Lodge

I'm going to start out this post with the ultimate teaser: our family was chosen for a kitchen makeover TV show. We were told that we were one of three finalists and needed to have somewhere to go for three nights: January 25-28. So we planned a vacation, packed our bags, and sat in our living room on Monday morning hoping we would get a knock on our door...and we did! We left our house, went on a three night vacation, and came back Thursday evening to a brand new, amazingly designed kitchen. Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard!? We still think so...and we lived it! 

But here's the catch: we can't share the name of the show, before and after pictures, etc. on social media until the show airs sometime this summer. 

We can, however, share pictures of our vacation! We had a blast! The first night we stayed at Great Wolf Lodge. The second and third night we stayed at a house on Mt. Hood (pictures on next post). We called it our swim and sled vacation, which equaled lots of packing for mom, but tons of very fun and unique memories. It is truly a week that we'll never forget! We are so blessed!

We made it to the lodge! The boys were SO excited!

 The boys had never stayed in a hotel before, so sleeping in a hotel with themed bunk beds and a water park was such a thrill. We were thankful for the little bit of separation these beds provided: Ben and I don't sleep well with kids close!

It took awhile to talk Josh into wearing his wolf ears; he sure was cute in them!

We LOVED the water park. There were so many different activities for the kids. The big boys were tall enough for all the water slides except for one, so Ben and I would switch off taking Seth and Sam to the slides, while the other would play with Joshy in the younger kids areas. I loved that all the kids wore life jackets the whole time. It gave them more freedom and me more peace of mind!

(Seth, Josh, Sam)

All the boys really enjoyed the wave pool which is where these pictures were taken (Seth below)

Sam

Josh liked playing with all the fountains

 One of the funnest things about the water park was this enormous play structure with a bucket at the top. (If you ask Josh what his favorite thing about Great Wolf Lodge was, he'll tell you, "The bucket that dumps and the hot tub bathtub.") At the top of the structure are a couple of water slides that the Sam and Seth could go down on their own. There were also multiple places with water guns to shoot or buckets to dump. But the best feature was the huge bucket (like the size of a bathroom) that would DUMP gallons of water every few minutes on people below the structure. 

(the structure is behind Seth & Sam in this picture)

Josh and Daddy playing in the waterfall

Seth and Sam did a good job coming to the toddler sections to play with Josh. They all really enjoyed these squirting boats.

This is a picture of Josh at the end of the first night. He was SO tired! And SO disappointed that daddy was going on the water slide without him.

We had false hopes of a good night's sleep, assuming the kids would be so tired from swimming. Ben was absolutely exhausted (he barely slept the night before because he was so nervous about the kitchen stuff), but the kids took forever to fall asleep. Then Josh was up for an hour or so in the middle of the night. And then, we had quite the morning wake up call: around 7:30, Sam tried crawling down his bunk bed ladder, and lost his grip and fell smack on his back. We heard a bloody murder scream and hopped out of bed. I scooped up Josh, because he was sleeping on the floor next to the bed and I assumed that he had gotten smashed. Thankfully, though, Sam missed him; however, Sam hit his back very hard and was really in a lot of pain. It was not the smoothest start to our day!

Poor Sammy, he only wanted to lay on his side and have his back rubbed for a long time. Thankfully, as time went by, the pain receded and he was able to play at the water park during the day.

Day two we explored "Slap Tale Pond" some more with the big boys doing the obstacle course and Josh playing on the lily pads. We also did all our last runs on the slides. Middle of the week in January was a great time to visit the lodge: there were virtually no lines! It was awesome!

 I love these boys so much!

The obstacle course. Seth and Sam were very cautious. I felt sorry for the kids in line behind them.

 Seth, Sam

 The boys' favorite water slide was "River Canyon Run"

 So happy!

 This is the afternoon of the second day. Josh was SO tired. We wanted the big boys to be able to swim more, so we just tried to appease Josh until it was time to leave and he could nap in the car. He only wanted Ben and threw a lot of fits, but we made it! The picture on the right is titled, "Swim Coma." He slept the whole way to Portland!

But we can't end the post with sad Josh pictures. Here's another cute one of the boys in the lodges' lobby. I really loved the decor of the lodge. Everything was very outdoor themed, including these over-sized log chairs. We look forward to visiting Great Wolf Lodge again someday!