Goin' to the Lodge, The Great Wolf Lodge

Oh, the excitement. Oh, the joy. Oh, what the hell. We are at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound Washington. Yeehaw.

It all started at the school auction last year when I "won" the package. It included a nights stay for up to 7, a $50 gas card and $300 to spend at the GWL. My intent was to come for Coulter's birthday like we have the past 2 years but he informed me that he wants a regular birthday party with his friends. That's reasonable for a 7 year old boy. He may be changing the date of his party to some random date in the future when his friends may be in town. We'll see.

So what to do, what to do..... I know. Sarah and I have talked about taking our kids. All our kids get along, Sarah is so lovely, pragmatic and such a good friend. It all seemed like a good match....and indeed, it has been.

Since the room was covered, Sarah offered to bring the food. There is a half fridge and microwave in each room. It's been nice. I am so used to planning everything that it was quite nice not to have to do that part. The kids had lots of snacks, hot dogs, yogurt etc. and I was spoiled with Thai Food. Love it...

We gave each of the kids $20 for whatever they wanted so we didn't have to worry about begging for stuff. When they were out, that was it. You want hot chocolate? If you've got the cash fine, if not, too bad. A toy, shirt, ice cream...all the same. That also worked out well. We had a couple savers and the other 3 couldn't leave until their money was gone. Fine. The savers get to keep their money. Great, extras were covered.

We arrived at about 2:30 and had a 20 minute wait in line. The room was ready so we unloaded, organized and went to the water park. We planted ourselves and set up home base so the kids would know where to check in. Sophia and Oliver paired up, Coulter and Kees paired up and Sarah and Charlotte paired up. I got to blog and sit for a while. Nice. Of course that was short lived. Coulter was on a mission to kill me.
When I was looking at dates for this adventure I wanted to make sure it wasn't busy. Who wants to spend their time waiting to slide rather than sliding? NOT ME!!! What I didn't take into consideration was that without a line you don't get to catch your breath. I would run up 95 stairs, immediately hop on a raft and go. I would still be winded when the ride was over just to run up and do it all over again. After about 4 times in a row I told Coulter I couldn't do it anymore. That I needed a break. He laughed. He weighs all of 50 pounds and that's all muscle. So he essentially floats up AND down the slides. Me, not so much. Each time after that he'd come to me and say, "Comon' mom. I'm gunna kill ya." Then he'd giggle and run away. I did more than 1400 stairs while I was there. Not bad for "lil" ole me.

Kees finally is going on the medium slides. The first two times we went to GWL he'd only go in the kiddie pool. If you look below on the left you can see a purple slide. I think Kees has been on that slide about 300 times. He wouldn't get off it last time. This time we went up to try the medium red and yellow slides. Kees was going to ride down with me but they don't allow that any longer. He had to make the decision between going alone or not at all. He was afraid but he went down alone....and he LOVED it. As a matter of fact he ran that loop for about 2-1/2 hours. He had a smile on his face the whole time and didn't notice anything but his loop.

Then there was Sophia. She was a little leery of going with a boy but after she got started, she thought going with Oliver was awesome! He's a great kid who just wants to have fun. She'd say, "Let's go on the Howlin' Tornado." and Oliver would respond, "OK, but then can we go in the wave pool?" Sophia would agree to that plan and off they'd go. It seems that the whole time we were there that is how they got along. There wasn't one cross word between them and that made Sarah and I very happy.
Charlotte and Sarah stayed close to the ground. I did see Sarah go down one of the medium slides that Kees was on so I caught her at the bottom. You'd have thought she went down the Howlin' Tornado by the look on her face. She came down on her back and under water. When she came up she was surprised and proclaimed, "That's it for me." And her water sliding day was over. Sarah is afraid of heights so there was no way she was going up the "big" slides. She'd be sick before she hit the water. Charlotte went down the same slide though I didn't see her immediately following the "ordeal." She seemed content knowing she had done it. She enjoyed the wave pool, hot tub and one of the regular pools. Their water park experience was a bit more sedate than the rest of us.
We were on the slides until about 7 the first night. That gave us about 3+ hours. We all went back to the room and had some dinner. Thai Food for the adults and hot dogs, apples and such for the kids.

After dinner the kids wanted to play Magic Quest. You get a $17 wand and then activate it for another $14 or so. What a bargain. The thing we had going for us is our friend Annette had given us 2 wands so we only needed to pay activation. The two big kids had one wand and the 3 smaller kids had the other. We let the biggers go off on their own. Sarah and I wandered around with the smallers. We went up the stairs, pointed the wand at something that would move and give us the next clue. Then down two flights of stairs with the same routine. Up three flights, point, clue, down one flight, point clue.... You get the picture. HELLO....aren't there enough stairs in the water park? Sheesh... enough already. After about 20 minutes we told the kids they could each have the wand on one floor and point it at everything on the floor to make it do what ever it was it didn't. Essentially, "Let's get out of here." Great! DONE!

Back to the room. A bottle of wine for the mom's and a movie for the smalls. They all lined up on the bottom bunk and watched Harry Potter or something. I think the kids finally got in bed between 10:30 and 11:00. We were all exhausted. I actually slept pretty well which is unusual for a hotel, especially that hotel.

The next morning we all were up at about 8. I laid in bed until 9. Sarah even gave me breakfast in bed while she took the kids to Starbucks....to get coffee and even brought me back one. I could get used to this having a wife stuff. We had some snacks and packed up. Check out is at 11 but you can slide until 10 pm. We loaded the car and divided and conquered. I parked and checked out while Sarah took the kids to the water park. And it starts all over again...Coulter trying to kill me, Sophia and Oliver playing together, Kees on he own personal slides and Sarah and Charlotte in the wave pool and hot tub.

We played for more than 3 hours and then got into dry clothes. The kids played a bit more Magic Quest, went to the gift shop and snacked. We finally rounded everyone up at 3:30 for our road trip home. They all watched movies while Sarah and I chatted.

The kids were all terrific the whole time. The stay was fun, busy but fun. We all ate well and didn't have to buy stuff at the lodge and wholly had a fine time. In my book that was a very successful trip.