Vacationing at The Lodge

This past weekend we had another Buehring/Ward/Morrison/Downum family get-together reminiscent of DisneyWorld but instead of an entire week of moment-to-moment action in the happiest place on earth, we had a weekend rush of water slides, lazy rivers, lily-pads, cabanas, arcades, birthday cakes, sun and more sun at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas.

Because my mom is awesome, she planned everything right down to the two birthday parties (one for my nephew turning 5 and one for Lanie turning 5, a little early) on two different days with two different sets of decorations and two different cakes in our own cabana with our own cabana girl.  Whew.  That's a lot to take care of.  But she did it, effortlessly.  Thank you mom and dad, again for giving our family another chance to have an adventure together.


As for my kids, they each met success in some form or fashion.


Elijah --- the ultimate Master Magi of the Magic Quest.  At the Great Wolf Lodge, they have this intricate game where you buy a wand and then follow clues around the entire hotel, all floors, and complete quests.  Needless to say, Elijah was all over this game.  He ran around the hotel, up and down stairs for two hours so he could become the master magi and get his name (aka FireBurster) on the leader board.

Lydia & Lanie --- Master of the Lilypad walk-across.  I was in awe of how quickly their little bodies could run across the lilypads without so much as a bauble.  The adults, not so much.  It's harder than it looks.



Lydia - Master of the water handstand.  And I am the master counter:  "Momma, how many seconds?  Momma, how many that time? Momma, did you count?"




Lanie --- Master of sneaking onto super slides that require her to be ONE inch taller.  When Lanie wasn't given the color band that allowed her on all of the cool slides, I was peeved.  Yeah, I know it's for safety, but I couldn't imagine how her lack of an inch would really affect her going onto an intertube with me.  We did it the right way, though.  We asked the front desk about changing her color.  They told us they couldn't give her a new color, but they could snip off the old one and leave it up to us to talk to any lifeguard that objected.  For all that I fretted, not one single lifeguard asked if she was tall enough.  Not a single one.

And as it goes, they each learned a lesson or two.


Elijah learned several things.  1) Arcade money doesn't last long and that sometimes, you don't get the 1000 tickets that your cousins do. 2) Agile sisters are sometimes better at the lilypad walk-across.  3) Being tall enough to ride EVERY slide with his cousins is AWESOME! 4) It's okay to be silly with your sister when you're on vacation.

Lydia learned that it's okay to do something scary, like ride the Howling Tornado, because in the end you'll be glad you did.

Lanie learned the difference between a digital camera & a disposable camera when she was given a throw-away with her birthday package.  She was so concerned with it and asked me so many questions.  "When can I use it?" "How do I do it?" "Where are the pictures?"  "When can we go to Walgreens to get them?" It was so foreign to her, but she got such a kick out of it.






And of course, there's me and Kenny.  We learned and re-learn that trips are a lot of work but completely worth it. We may endure late, late nights, awkward sleep arrangements (hotels are not friendly to families of 5), poor eating habits, and kids on hyper-drive but, and you know this, we just gave them a memory.  So again, thanks mom and dad, for helping us do that.