The best water park ever...

Now for more description of our Great Wolf Lodge adventure...Sean's stepmom suggested a trip up there after visiting last summer. She said Matt, our 8 year old nephew, thoroughly enjoyed himself last year. The kids were not disappointed. What a place!

There were 2 large outside pools with lots of fountains, water slides and basketball. The kids didn't spend much time in these as the inside was even better and the outside pools were kind of cold. One section included 2 waterslides (one was in the dark), 4 face first slides that you had to use mats and a large wave pool. The next section had a pool for basketball, a pool to climb on floating "logs", a smaller water slide and a lazy river ride. The last section had 3 other water slides and a huge jungle gym with water going everywhere. On top of the jungle gym was an enormous bucket that poured out over 700 gallons of water every few minutes. A warning sound would go off and the kids would come out of the woodwork to stand under the deluge. According to Alex, one of the water slides in this section was the best ride in the park. The tube went down a steep drop and then rocked back and forth in a funnel. Apparently, carrying the tubes for this ride was really a killer.

Benjamin did great. He loved sitting on the fake jet ski and spraying water at Daddy. He really got into the park by the second day and wasn't bothered by water in his face. One nice thing was that the park provided water ski type life jackets for all the little kids. After putting one on Benjamin the first afternoon, he insisted on wearing it as soon as we walked in. That's better than fighting him over it. Benjamin also spent time in a "dry area" that had lots of foam balls to play with. Since his first love is balls, he was in heaven!

Emma LOVED riding the waterslides with Aunt Sarah, although Aunt Sarah didn't love carrying up the double tubes. Boy, were my legs tired after climbing all those steps. No pain, no gain, I guess. After much fussing, we did convince Emma to go down the small slide by herself. She was hooked after doing it once. She went round and round while Aunt Sarah floated in the lazy river. That's the way to do it!
One funny note about Alex...we think he was the only boy there in swim team type trunks, but he didn't seem to care a bit. He was happy as a clam.

We were very impressed with the service at the hotel and I was pleased that we rarely had to stand in line. The wave pool got a little crazy at times, but it was still manageable. All in all, it was well worth the extra 400 miles roundtrip that we spent driving up there.