more vacation photos

I mentioned previously after the House Of Candles tour, we went to the "minature petting zoo". Mini ponies are adorable..and there was some pretty cool birds there, too.

 He is so handsome.

 No, not the pony.

There were many beautiful pheasants on the farm. I guess I have never really seen a pheasant. I won't

bore anyone with more pictures of these birds but I was in awe.

Ginger Bread House

 For an arm and a leg you could reserve the table inside the house at meal times. 

In the lobby at Great Wolf Lodge there was a ginger bread house, not your normal pint size house. Upon first recognition it looks like a house made out of construction material. It wasn't until the second day that Cara said to me, "Mom, can I eat some of the ginger bread house?" Of course my reply was, "What? No. Its not even real." Oh but my eyes were deceiving me because IT IS REAL! A real ginger bread house! The entire outside was covered in frosting with baked ginger cookie bricks. The frosting was decorated with thousands of spice drops. If this wasn't enough the roof was real graham crackers! The inside had candy canes adorning the walls. and yes...children were eating it. I still didn't let her eat it as the mere thought was gagging. Very cool none the less.

Day 2

In the morning, after a breakfast of donuts and bagels, Zach and I took the kids downstairs to learn about wolves. They made origami wolves and learned how to howl. Haha! I think this was by far Isaacs favorite time. We went to the water park until lunch. Slides, wave pool, lazy river, rope crossing, hot tubs, and water basketball. Wow! Olivia discovered she was tall enough to go down a few slides all by herself, and that she did. Over & over & over.

Oh, and let me not forget to say, Matthew woke up with pink eye...in both eyes.

After lunch we ventured out to explore the area. We ended up at The House of Candles. Very cool! We watched a man make candles and explored the farm animals. Then we headed to the Candy Kettle. There were barrels and barrels of candy. Hard candy, soft candy, gummy candy, chocolate candy, mint candy, spicy candy, all the candy you could want. The kids (and Zach) were in candy heaven. Each of us filled out own bag with all the tooth decaying sweetness we could find...or until the scale reached 1/2 lb. We ended up with a lot of yumminess.

Thanks to my ongoing search for free kids meals I remembered reading Sonic offered "kids eat free" with water park wrist bands. Yay! We ate dinner in our van for only 10.16$. I was so excited. Even more than the candy.

Back to the lodge we drove. Dressed in our cold, wet bathing suits and spent 2 more hours in the water. The lodge offers story time in the lobby at 8 each night. Off we went. It took the kids 1 1/2 hours and me sitting in the dark, for them to fall asleep the first night and I was not going to do it again. I was determined to wear them out. It worked. At 8:45 I had 6 sleeping angels and a quiet night with Zach.

It was the best day. I am so glad we decided to come

We made it!

We arrived. Luckily, not one child was threatened to be left on the side of the road. They behaved so well and Matthew even slept for the whole ride. Upon our arrival we immediately went to our room to explore. It is fabulous with 4 beds and 3 T.V.s. Isaac thinks this is awesome. Next time I book a room I am requesting the farthest room away from everything, oh wait, we already are. (In the picture we are on the 4th floor, 3rd balcony in.) At least I don’t need to worry about hitting the fitness center.  After a quick lunch of PBJ and chips, we all got our bathing suits on and headed to the indoor water park. Everyone was having a great time…until I lost Olivia. There’s a first time for everything and I am really surprised it has not happened sooner. She ran up a water assembly to dump water buckets with Michael. I wasn’t quick enough. Panicked, I walked as quickly as I could. I had to concentrate on not slipping and falling while holding Matthew on one arm. Isaac found her crying so he took her in the lazy river. Meanwhile, I send out a search team to find a 4 year old, with a pink bathing suit, pink swim goggles , named Olivia. Happy ending… we were all reunited. Thank goodness for big brothers!

We're doing it..we are really doing it!

Van is packed with 5 suitcases, a cooler, 4 paper bags filled with food, a stroller, and a giant stuffed dog. We are headed to Great Wolf Lodge for 3 days. This is our Christmas present to the kids. They have been counting down all month. We are all excited!

This is what I've learned while packing: Babies have WAY too much stuff! Every one will be getting their own suitcases so the "their clothes are touching mine" arguments cease. (Oh wait, that was me. What? I don't want his clothes on top of mine getting them wrinkled...or next to his shoes.)