Great Wolf Lodge Weekend

We decided to take a weekend trip with the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg.  They have a huge indoor water park and lots of activities for the kids to do.  The nice thing is, a two night stay gets you into their water park for 3 days starting on the day you check in at 1, and lasting until the park closes on the day you check out.  We did have a slight scare when we arrived as they did not have a reservation for Honza.  After a tense 5 minutes they discovered they had us under Honva.  Our room wasn't suppose to be ready until 4 on check-in day but was ready at 1, so we were able to get settled in before heading to the water park. 

The water park had a fort of sorts with a bucket that held thousands of gallons of water.  Every 5 minutes the bucket overflows and dumps it's contents on anyone below.  This area also had some smaller water slides.  Check this out:

There was a nice little toddler/baby area too with even smaller slides and water that got no deeper than a foot.  Breanne and David both enjoyed this area as well.  David is not afraid of water at all and did several face plants into the water without any hesitation.  Good thing Lauren and I were right by his side at all times.

Breanne's favorite areas were probably the wave pool, the lazy river (which Breanne actually runs through), and the outdoor pool.  She did go on the big slides she was allowed to go on, but she really preferred just jumping around in the water.  I kept telling her, "We don't have water slides back home, but we have pools".  This didn't seem to matter though, and all that really matters is that she had a good time.  I personally loved going down the two big slides on the double tube with Breanne.  She couldn't sit in the middle (she would just fall through), but if I put my feet up next to her, she would hold on to them.  She did an amazing job though as those slides got moving pretty fast.

Another nice feature at the Great Wolf Lodge, was a fantasy role playing game called MagiQuest.  We purchased a wand and a game book and were given 9 quests and 3 tasks.  Your wand is battery powered and shoots a ray of some sort into a special place on interactive pieces located throughout the hotel.  It was pretty neat to see Breanne point her wand at a treasure chest and watch it open.

You have found 100 gold coins!

Each quest gives you a rune you can use on your 3 tasks.  To get a rune, you must collect certain objects and give them to certain people.  While the first quest took Breanne and I close to one and half hours, we eventually got each quest down to about 20 to 25 minutes.  By the end of our second day, we were down to one more quest and hopefully on to the dragon!  This is no small feat, as some quests are time sensitive (try running to the other side of the hotel in 30 seconds or you fail with a 4 year old).  However, once we (I mean she) attained the title of "Master Magi" we took a look at the dragon and Breanne was no longer interested.  Well, I showed that dragon who was boss.  No, just kidding.  It was a ton of fun to do with Breanne and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Maybe next time, we'll slay the dragon.

Monday morning we got to the water park at about 10:00.  By 10:30, our son who constantly fought us on being stopped, helped, or blocked all weekend, was asking to be held.  He actually rode on top of Lauren and I on the lazy river for 20-30 minutes on two separate occasions.  At about 11:45, I looked at Breanne and noticed she just didn't look peppy anymore.  When I asked her if she was ready to go home, she quickly said yes.  Our kids were pooped.  We saddled up and headed on home.  This picture was taken on the way down, but it mirrors the one on the way home.

Also worth noting is that David is a ladies man.  Hanging at the outside pool, a little girl kept watch on him for awhile.  Eventually, she walked up.  After some chatter this was the result.

We had a great weekend and look forward to going back sometime, but first we need a little rest! :)

Herricane Irene with the Family

No, I didn't misspell Hurricane, but only wrote it the way Breanne understood hurricanes.  As we braced ourselves for the ensuing storm, Breanne commented that the hurricane must be a girl since it was a her icane without knowing it was named Irene.  I really think Breanne is onto something here.  Maybe we should call the ones that are girls hurricanes and the boy ones hisicanes.  It makes pretty good sense to me! 

Honestly, Saturday was a little disappointing.  It rained a lot, but the winds only got to about 30-40 mph during the day.  With all the hype, Breanne was often asking if the hurricane was here yet, but the storm seemed to delay.  Following a night of TV and videogames, Lauren and I decided to turn in at around 11 which is right about the time the real fun started.  At 11:30, the lights went out leaving us in the dark, and beginning a long spell of time without power.  I will admit, I was a little jealous we got the brunt of the storm in the middle of the night as I could hear the winds blowing very hard and would have liked to see it (and even been on my back patio to see it). 

When we awoke, the power was still out and there was a little excitement as we looked outside.  Since we couldn't have coffee, I ventured out in search of a place that had power so Lauren and I would be ready for our day.  It wasn't until I entered Howard County that I actually found a place with power and coffee!  By early afternoon, the novelty had worn off as the recording from BGE was telling us we may be without power until Friday and it was only Sunday.  We were refraining from opening the refrigerator unless absolutely necessary and I fired up the grill to eat whatever might go bad. 

By Monday morning, it was definitely not fun.  School was canceled (the first day of school this year) so I was home to help out, but the water bottles we froze to keep important stuff cold were almost thawed out and it was the end of most of the stuff still in the frig.  Fortunately the eggs had kept cold with the water bottles.  Seeing that this was our last chance to eat them, I fired up the grill and for the first time, I barbecued eggs.

The day went on with a lot of reading and playing outside (a very nice side effect of no power), but the kids were in need of baths and the sun was setting.  Lauren figured out, if you hang a flash light by it's string in the bath tub you have enough light to see to get clean.

This night was suppose to be the Circle Drive Fantasy Football Draft, but with no power and several people trying to draft online it was called off.  This didn't stop Josh, Joe, and I from hanging out and playing poker by candle light outside.  Notice Landry isn't present despite living in the neighborhood.  He couldn't take it anymore and headed to my parents where they had power!

 

 

Poker After Dark

Finally, at about 4:30 in the morning on Tuesday, I awoke to a bedroom completely alight.  I breathed a sigh of relief and fell back asleep.  The frig was empty, but I still had coffee!

You might think the rest of the week went grand, but it had it's ups and downs.  We lost power two more times, but never more than 12 hours (all the new food we got Tuesday didn't go bad).  However, the rescheduled Fantasy draft fell on a night we didn't have power, and the neighborhood crew drove all over before finally finding a McDonalds with wifi so we could complete our draft. 

Let's hope no more herricanes or hisicanes come anytime soon!