Great Wolf Lodge & Family Reunions Rock

We went to Great Wolf Lodge this week­end. We drove out to a fam­ily reunion on Hubby’s side & Hubby thought that it would be fun to stay there. Since we only had a long week­end we were going to have to stay in a hotel ver­sus mak­ing a week trip out of it & rent­ing a house, which we have done before. Choos­ing a fam­ily place was impor­tant, that way if the kids decided to you know BE KIDS then it wouldn’t be as much of an issue. And we did have a cou­ple of touch & go kid moments, but over­all they were really good. His par­ents & sis­ter also stayed with us in the same suite. And his brother with his wife & kids stayed at the lodge too.

It has an indoor water park that we took full advan­tage of.  Com­plete with giant slides, inner-tubes, huge wooden play­set equipped with all sorts of water devices meant to tor­ture the peo­ple on the lower lev­els, and a kid­die pool.  There were lots of life guards, who were really very good with the kids.  Con­sid­er­ing they were all teens I con­sider being gen­tle with small chil­dren a pos­i­tive, teens aren’t given enough credit for this.

All the kids had fun, the boys even got to go down the big­ger slides with Hubby. I did not but I hung out with Mamacita & D-man in the kid­die pool.  I must say it was really a lot of fun, minus the hor­ror I felt get­ting into a bathing suit.  I don’t know why I thought a bathing suit while still strug­gling with baby weight was a good call, oh yeah it was for the kids.  The things I’ll do for my kids.  I am sure those who saw my there in my black post­par­tum bathing suit glory are think­ing they’ll never want to have more chil­dren or any chil­dren, those poor teens the shock of what a woman’s body looks like after 4 kids in 6 years.

We even had a few hours with D-man tak­ing a nap that Hubby’s sis­ter watched him in the suite (thank you!!) so I got to play more with Mamacita sans baby. It was so cute because she sat next to me in the kid­die pool & said “it’s just girl time.” The only down­side with the water park is that I wish there had been a lit­tle more just for smaller kids that was sep­a­rate from the mas­sive amounts of teen boys that were run­ning around try­ing to soak each other. How­ever, all in all it was a rockin’ good time for the kids. If we are able to go back when D-man is older we decided we will, so he can take advan­tage of play­ing in the water. He did get a his toes dipped in but given he just fig­ured out he has toes play­ing in the water isn’t a skill he’s yet mastered.

The fam­ily reunion, the whole point of going up, was also a good time. It’s held the parish hall & there is lots of fam­ily there. It rained ear­lier in the day but held off while we were there & there was so much food. I mean SO much food, there is no way that even with that many peo­ple there it could all have got­ten eaten. And was tempt­ing to eat more than you ever should, espe­cially from the dessert table.  Don’t they know that some of us can’t resist temp­ta­tion, it’s how I got 4 kids in 6 years & am still try­ing to lose the baby weight.

It was really nice though to take the kids to see every­one & have them meet more of their fam­ily, even if they had no idea who most of the peo­ple were. The last time we went we only had Mr. J with us & I was preg­nant with Mr. G, it was 5 years ago. I couldn’t help but think of all the changes that have hap­pened in the last 5 years. Hubby’s Grandpa (whose fam­ily it was) is no longer here on Earth, but we know he attended the reunion in spirit. I’m sure he got a laugh out of the kids run­ning around & Mr. G try­ing to sneak cook­ies. We are also now a fam­ily of 6, there have been changes with jobs, school, and so many other events have taken place. I can­not wait to see what the next 5 years brings.

Of course given how excited they were to have a sucker that their Aunt (Hubby’s sis­ter) bought them & their penny art they made with Hubby. We could have prob­a­bly just have done those with some fam­ily reunion cook­ies & called it a day.

Tagged as: children, family, family reunion, great wolf lodge, water park