Carli's Great Wolf Lodge Adventure - Day 1

I am not good a doing parties.  Honestly, they stress me out and I don't enjoy them.  My girls do.  Carli turns seven on October 1st but started talking about her birthday and her party way back in July.  We talked about what we could do and what we couldn't do and finally I gave her a choice.  We could go do something fun as a family or she could have a party.  She choose to do something fun as a family and we opted for a return trip to the Great Wolf Lodge.  So, we booked our trip, talked to our school teachers, invited Grammy & Pa and packed our bags.

We left Sunday morning.  We went to Shiloh for Sunday service b/c their service is early and we could get to Dallas in time for lunch with Uncle Danny, Grammy and Pa.  A nice benefit was getting to see a lot of folks we had missed seeing over the last few months.  We were pretty bummed that Ms. Patty wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it to church.  The girls sent her a "We Love You" message, but it just wasn't the same.

Drew did amazing on our drive.  He fussed a bit but not too bad.  We got to Carrollton and beat the Sunday rush at Babe's.  The girls thoroughly enjoyed getting to see Uncle Danny.  Ava  is still convinced he lives at the beach and was very impressed that he "drove" all that long way just to eat lunch with us!  :)

 

 

We broke the news to Pa that we were hitting up Ikea before we went to the hotel.  One, because Grammy really wanted to go and two because we had time to kill.  We didn't even go upstairs to the show room and just walked the marketplace.  The girls and Pa complimented each other nicely and had a blast!  :)

We got to the Great Wolf Lodge right at check in time and still had to wait for our room.  The girls told Pa and Grammy all about the big dumper and how they were going to be brave and ride the slides this time.  Drew was unimpressed and took a nap!

They gave us all wolf ears at check-in and Carli got special birthday ears!

 We didn't have to wait terribly long for our room.  Once we were able to get in, the girls were pumped to get to the water park.  Grammy was great and took the first shift of watching Drew for us.  The girls were true to their word and headed for the big slides right off.  The small pool area and wave pool where we spent most of our time the last two trips were a distant memory!  The slides were a hit!  After awhile, I went to relieve Grammy as it was apparent that Drew was done napping.  While Grammy and Pa took the girls on the slides, Keith and I introduced Drew to the water...he was not impressed!

I am not sure how many times we climbed the stairs to go down the slides, but as Keith put it the girls gleeful giggles and screams while riding the tubes down the slides make the trip totally worth it!

The lily pads are a favorite.  I'm not sure what the appeal is, but the girls did them at least three times.

After a couple of hours we were all wiped out and hungry.  We came back to our room for dinner and to get ready for bed.  Drew practiced his howling abilities since he got a new pair of wolf ears.  :)



 We bought the birthday package and it came with a door poster and birthday cake.  After dinner we sang to Carli and enjoyed her cake.  She was pretty excited!

Cake eaten and kids worn out, we were all in bed before 9!  Time to rest up for a full day of waterpark fun and adventure tomorrow!