Goin' to the Lodge... Great Wolf Lodge

School started this week for us.  Boo!  I am not ready for our summer to be over...  Summer 2012 was pretty wonderful.  Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.  :(

We squeezed every last drop of fun out of our final week of summer.  Last week was filled with fun activities!  On Monday, we surprised the boys by taking them to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine.  They have heard the commercials on the radio and seen commercials, so they were pretty excited to get to experience it firsthand.  ;)  Wade had earned a free night through the website where he books his travel for work, so our stay cost us $0.  Yipee!  That was right in our budget.  Ha!

We got there at 3:00 on Monday and went straight to the indoor water park.  My little fish children were all about getting in the water ASAP!  They were in their element!  After a few hours of water park fun, we went to our room to get changed for dinner.  Our room was so neat!  The kids had their own "cabin" with bunk beds, a twin bed, and a TV.  They were sooooo excited about their setup!

We let them hang out in there while we were getting ready.  Wade peeked his head in their portion of the room after about 10 minutes, only to find out that our eldest had charged $20 worth of "on demand" tv shows to our room.  Lovely.  We made a phone call to the front desk and they were kind enough to remove the charges and disengage the "on demand" option in our room.  Then we had a long talk with C-man about how "on demand" in a hotel room is very different than "on demand" with Verizon Fios.  ;)

Our side of the room was neat, too.

We went to dinner at a nearby restaurant and then went back to the hotel lobby for their bedtime story hour.  The boys were on the front row.  I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but Drew was sitting in Clayton's lap.  I am so glad that they have each other.  They are so sweet to each other (most of the time...).

After story time, we went back to the room.  It's kind of a tradition that "Fun Dad" sets up a candy bar when we are on vacation.  This "staycation" was no different - our kids got a healthy dose of sugar before bed.  :)

Between the bunk beds and Owen being in the pack n play, I was very nervous that my monkeys were not going to sleep well.  Thankfully, everyone fell asleep quickly and slept hard all night long.  Thank you, Lord!  I even had to wake Owen up at 10:00!  I guess that 3 hours of playing hard at the water park makes for a good night's sleep.

We were in the water by 10:30 and played until 6:00 - we all had the time of our lives!  Wade and I took turns hanging out with Owen while the other went on water slides with the big boys.  Clayton could ride all of the water slides and Drew could ride all but 2 of them.  My boys love seeing me scared on roller coasters and water slides, so I really played up the damsel in distress role.  ;)  I "screamed like a girl" on the slides and they thought it was hilarious.  I rode every slide there, I think.  I earned some major cool mom points - giving Fun Dad a run for his money.  Ha!

I loved hanging out in the wave pool with my little boys!  I think that was my favorite part.  We got a double tube and Drew laid in one half.  Owen sat in my lap on our side of the tube.  He laid his sweet little head down on my chest and we just hung out like that for half an hour.  I loved every minute...

We picked a good time to be there, because a "master builder" from Legoland was at the hotel to host a little competition.  Clayton and Drew were thrilled to participate.

While they did the Lego thing, I changed Owen into dry clothes and he took a poolside nap.  I was in Mama heaven snuggling with my boy.  :)

After a long rest, we were ready to play some more!  Owen was a big fan of the slides in the toddler area.  He would go down the slide and then climb up to go again - over and over again all by himself.  It was pretty cute to watch.

We had so much fun at Great Wolf Lodge!  I would definitely go back if Wade had another credit or if we got a super good deal.  I do think that the full price rate is crazy expensive.  Just a head's up for those of you with respiratory kiddos - the indoor water park doesn't have great ventilation.  By the end of the second day, Clayton was coughing a lot and said it was hard to breathe.  I can imagine that it would be really hard on a kid with full blown asthma.  If we go again, I would make sure to go in the summer when the outdoor water park is open.  It was nice to be able to go outside to swim when the fumes got to be too much.

I will say that the life guards were exceptional.  They were constantly moving and scanning the water - top notch.  I never saw any of them chatting or goofing off.  In the wave pool, the wolf would howl to alert you that the waves were about to start up.  Then the lifeguards would stand and concentrate on the water the entire time that the waves were going.  I was super impressed with all of the staff in the water parks.

 We had so much fun at Great Wolf!  Recently, I heard someone point out that we only have 18 summers with our children while they are under our roof.  I'd never thought of it that way.  I want to make every one of those summers count.  I definitely think that Summer 2012 will go down in the history books as one of the best!