Great Wolf Lodge!

The reason I was happy to get home at a decent hour from our camping trip on Monday, August 26th...was because we were basically turning right back around and going on another vacation the following day. 

There was a Water Worker Conference being held at Great Wolf Lodge from Tuesday, August 27th - Thursday, August 29th. Michael's commissioners really want him to attend conferences so he signed himself up. He talked to the head commissioner and asked if we could come along. The reason being is the hotel automatically comes with 4 water park passes. So all we had to do was pay for 2 more water park passes and we were good to go. Of course Michael did have to attend some classes so I was solo with the kids a bunch, but that didn't bother me one bit. 

Michael had to head down early on Tuesday morning to register so he took his company car. The day you check in you can't go into the water park until 1pm and sometimes your room won't be ready until 4pm so I was in no rush. Plus I still needed to finish laundry and repack for this trip.  

The kids and I still ended up getting there right around noon. Thankfully Michael was able to get a room that was already available. Our room was on the 4th floor and was super close to the elevators and stairs which if you know anything about Great Wolf Lodge and the Magi Quest game then you know this was a great location. 

We got all our stuff unpacked and headed down to pay for the Magi Quest game. The kids were all excited to play.

My friend Melinda lets us borrow her wand which is so nice!!! 

We did a few quests and then Michael was almost done for the day so we headed back to the room to meet up with him. 

Like with everything, we had a budget for our camping trip and the Great Wolf Lodge trip. We ended up not spending as much as I had planned on the camping trip so we just rolled that money over to our Great Wolf Lodge trip. Since we did that I thought it would be fun to let each kiddo choose one other special activity that they could do. We were already doing the Magi Quest together, but I wanted them to be able to choose their next adventure. There choices were Howl at the Moon Glow Golf, Creation Station (think Build-A-Bear), Oliver's Mining Co or Howlers Peak Rope Course. 

Ella and Zeke chose to do Oliver's Mining Co. First they got to choose their bag of sand. 

Then they got to dump it in the sleuths.

Down in the water they went. 

Shake them back and forth. 

And back and forth. 

Those white charts on the bottom of the above picture were gem charts. The kids also got bags to put there gems in. 

Once some of the smaller sand started to wash away they were able to start picking out their gems. 

It was fun watching them get so excited to find something. 

Sometimes the gems would still have bits of sand stuck to them. 

So Ella would dip them in the water to rinse them off. 

Once they picked out all their gems they bagged them up. 

As you can see she's not the least bit excited about her gems! ;) 

After mining for their gems we got to go into this mirror maze. It actually would have been better to do the maze before mining for the gems since the story goes in that order, but the kids were too excited about their gems.

They still enjoyed the maze though. 

The older boys chose to do Howlers Peak Rope Course. The first time we came to Great Wolf Lodge we saw this outside the water park, but it was February and pouring down rain so it was closed. 

I wish I had done this with them. I would have loved it! 

There were 3 different levels with bridges to cross and zip lines. I guess 2 of the zip lines weren't working, but it was still fun. The best part about their special adventure was they could go as many times as they wanted for our whole stay. They ended up going a total of 3 times. 

We also ended up doing really well with our budget! So much so we had enough money left over that we rolled that into our family entertainment and took the kids to the Puyallup Fair and got them all Dizzy Passes so they could ride as many rides as they wanted. 

It's so fun having older kids....the big boys would take out the younger two to go on Quests and we didn't worry at all. Occasionally they would be gone for a bit longer than we liked, but we'd just go check in the stairway and find them. 

As for the water park it was awesome! This was the summer of the water parks for Ella and I. In one month her and I went to 3 different water parks in 3 different states. Silverwood in Idaho, Wings & Waves in Oregon & Great Wolf Lodge in Washington. 

My plan the two mornings we were there was to get in the park right when it opened and save front row seats for Michael and I. 

This was my view! The kids LOVE the wave pool and I love that at Great Wolf Lodge they don't allow the tubes in the wave pool. Zeke would put on a life jacket and away he'd go. 

After awhile he'd come back freezing and have to snuggle up in some towels.

See those cups on the left....those are awesome. You buy them and you get unlimited Icee refills the whole trip and then you can bring them back the next time you come. My friend Melinda let me borrow hers, but it had a run in with the dishwasher so it was pretty sad. Thankfully they exchanged it for free! I bought one for us that way we were able to have two kinds of Icee flavors. We always had a white flavor for Ella in the pink cup and then a different flavor...usually Coke in the blue cup.

One day I put on my wolf ears and forgot I had them on. I even wore them down the water slides! 

The next day my view was a little more over to the left. 

It seriously was the best time! The kids are at that age where were just let them go and they have so much fun. I would join them for a bit and then sit down and read. We ended up staying until around 2pm on Thursday and then we were ready to go home. 

Of course on Friday night I started feeling horrible. I slept in on Saturday until 11:15am! I haven't slept that long in ages. I mainly stayed in bed all day on Saturday and almost all day on Sunday. I finally started feeling better on Labor Day which was perfect since the kids started school the very next day. I'm sure all this water park fun had something to do with me getting sick, but it was totally worth it!