Sunday, September 28, 2014

Visit to Great Wolf Lodge

Our friends moved to Oregon about a year and a half ago. Last year we met up with them and spent the weekend on the coast. We had so much fun catching up and hanging out that we decided to make it a tradition.

This year, we decided to make it even more fun and leave a day early so we could spend a little family time at Great Wolf Lodge--a hotel with an indoor water park.

Minutes after our arrival:


 Check-in is at 4 but you can start using the water park as early as 1 on the day of your arrival so we headed out the door around 10, stopped at Costco, and got on the road just after 11am. We made it there at 12:52 and decided to eat some lunch in the car before heading in. If you look really closely, you can see that Dragon is covered in Peanut Butter. I honestly can't figure out how he made such a big mess but his car seat is also covered in it.

At check in they gave us all wolf ears!


Our room was actually all ready to go when we checked in so we brought some of our stuff in, changed into our swimsuits and headed to the water park.

Dragon had a blast but he was being a little pill about me taking his picture.


This is what happens when I get a shot of his face:


He was so mad that I tricked him into looking at the camera!

Luckily, that wasn't the end of his fun in the wave pool. Unfortunately, I had to head to our room after an hour or two of swimming to get Colt warm (since his feet and legs were turning purple!) and fed and put down for a nap.

When Dragon and Daddy got back to the room I found out that every time the waves in the pool started a wolf howled so Dragon started calling them "Wolf Waves".

After dinner we got everyone in their PJs and headed down to the lobby for the clock tower show and story time. We had no idea what to expect but it was a lot of fun.

(Once again he was being a pill as I tried to get a picture of the bear claw they painted on his face)


The lobby was huge but super cozy at the same time. They had a giant fireplace and a fun antler chandelier. Ben and I could have hung out here all day! If I'd had a good book I could have just settled down on a couch with some hot cocoa and been content for weeks! The pouring rain outside made this fire that much more cozy.



Just before the clock tower show started Dragon was playing with some boys from another family. They started jumping off a ledge to a window that looked into the water park that was about two feet high. He was having a blast and I jokingly turned to Ben and said, "he's having so much fun. He could do this forever. ... Or until we hear a piercing scream and he winds up with a broken leg!" 

After that I went back to cuddling with Colt and taking pictures of him with his cute wolf ears:

He was less than amused but he tried to act cool about it.



Ahh, just look at these adorable cheeks!



We sat there enjoying a little peace for about three minutes when I noticed Dragon hadn't stood back up from his last jump and I could faintly hear crying. Ben runs over and sure enough, he's on the ground with a hurt ankle.

Ben tried rotating it around and he didn't seem to be in any extra pain from that so we concluded it wasn't broken and had him just hang out on our laps until the show started. 


The show was a cute little thing with talking trees, a moose, raccoon, mouse and squirrel. I think Dragon enjoyed it, although he'd probably have enjoyed it more if his ankle wasn't hurting but it was too late for that.

Once the show and story time was over we headed up to our room to get ready for bed and I got one of my favorite pictures of the weekend:


I wish I could say that that was the end of our ankle hurting drama but it was not. 

We got our boys to bed and I hung out watching a show for a little bit. In hindsight I wish I'd just gone to sleep when they did so I could have actually gotten sleep but ... that didn't happen.

Anyway, about 10 minutes after I shut the show off, Dragon started whimpering and grabbing his leg which soon escalated into full on crying. We felt horrible but didn't really have anything we could do because he wouldn't let us put ice on it. 

Eventually we got him back to sleep. In fact, it was just in time for Colt to wake up for a feeding. So, at about 1ish I finally got to sleep. At 1:30 Dragon woke up again. After we got him to sleep again I said we should probably give him a blessing the next time he woke up, if there was one. 

There was. Ben took Dragon to the gas station for some $10 tylenol and came back around 3:30. We asked him if he wanted a blessing but he refused so finally we told him it could help make him better and he let Ben give him one without crying about it.

As soon as the blessing was over he started climbing down off the bed and Ben and I just looked at each other like, "What is he doing!?". His feet touched the ground and suddenly he yells, "Run!" and starts to run back and forth across the room. He wasn't healed but it sure was cute to see him put so much faith in the blessing.

If it hadn't been 4am I would have thought the whole thing was hilarious but ... I was SO tired! 

It was still hilarious but we quickly reigned him in and told him it was time to go back to sleep. 

Unfortunately, instead of waking up bright and early and getting a start on the day ASAP we slept until about 9, ate breakfast, packed up our room and made it back into the pool a little after 11. 

Dragon's ankle was still hurting him but he managed to have a mostly enjoyable good time.








Back to the wolf waves with Daddy...



...while Mommy and Colt hung out and watched. 


It would have been WAY more fun if they'd let kids ride on their parents laps down the water slides but Dragon was brave once and only once and did it on his own.


He did think it was fun and wanted to do it again but, when we got to the top and I had him wait for his turn he lost his bravery. I think tiredness had a lot to do with it too.

They had a huge bucket that dumped 1000 gallons of water every few minutes. It was fun to sit right outside the splash zone. I should have taken a video from that angle because it was a lot more exciting watching this huge wave coming right towards you.


We knew Dragon was getting tired when he sat down in the 2 inch deep water and made himself comfortable.


We decided it was probably time to get on the road again before a melt-down occurred.


Unfortunately, we started the process a little too late because he was definitely not a happy camper as we headed to the car.

When he woke up from his nap later that day he happily and immediately said, "Bye waters". "Bye slides". "Bye wolfs". "Bye waves". Apparently he was too tired when we left to process that we were leaving.

I love having fun adventures like this one. It would have been a lot more enjoyable if Colt had been a tiny bit older and, of course, if Dragon hadn't gone and hurt his foot but I'm so glad we could spend some time as a family doing something Dragon loves.

I'd love to go back again when our boys are a bit bigger. Maybe we could even go on the bigger water slides next time, we just have to figure out how to get our kid to grow so he can meet the height requirements!

"Bye Great Wolf Lodge"

3 comments:

christy said...

Fun! I've heard about great wolf but never been. We are going to Centre Parcs here in a couple of weeks. It has a big indoor water park. You stay in a cabin in the woods and you can also go canoeing, cycling, ropes courses, zip lines etc. Resort style camping. Lol

Fran said...

Wow, what a fun place! The blessing story is so sweet! By the time it was 3:30 am I felt like I was super tired just reading it!

kelsey said...

That place looks so fun! You guys are cute in your wolf ears.