The hospital
gave Steven a few days off the week before Christmas in
exchange for giving him call the week of. Pretty good deal seeing as he
rarely gets called and most surgeries get scheduled for early morning.
With this opportunity we decided to pull the kiddos out of school and
surprise them with two days of constant play at Great Wolf Lodge.
Thatcher and Haley were under the impression we were heading for school,
yet two and a half hours later we pulled into the parking lot and upon
looking out their window they began squealing with excitement. It wasn't
until that point that Thatcher said, "So I'm not going to school?" We
immediately got to work swimming and playing. Kadyn and Dad quickly
discovered a water slide called the Howlin' Tornado. Kadyn played it
cool when she took me on it for my first time. She assured me it wasn't
bad and if I sat on the side of the tube facing backwards, "the ride
would be much more enjoyable". Her angelic smile beamed at me as we
sailed through a ginormous tube, and to my great surprise, it never left
her face as we dropped 90
degrees downward and quickly jetted into an even larger tunnel. I was
stunned. We returned
five more times to ride it over and over! Thanks to military discounts
we sprung for "Paw Passes" which offer a number of additional activities
we didn't know existed. The arts and crafts were great, everyone got to
stuff an animal, and, we enjoyed our first snow of the year as it fell
in the lobby after story time. It wasn't until the kids began
their adventure in MagiQuest however that we realized our eldest two
were
hooked. They LOVED that thing. Luckily, you take your wand with you
and all adventures are saved, thus, if you don't defeat the dragon
in time you can always return later to do so. Guess what Kadyn wants to
do for her birthday? :) It was a fantastic family get away for a
fantastic group of kids.
