Great Wolf Lodge!

So, we actually took a family vacation! We left the day after my grandpa died. It was a good time for me to get away, enjoy some time with my family (which I know he would have wanted) and just relax...well, kind of. I was kind of having too much fun to relax. What a great place! I decided we needed to do something like that before the baby comes and we're stuck at home, sleep-deprived. It was WAY worth every dime we spent. And now, without further ado, here are...a whole bunch of pictures!!

The room we got had a cute little "cabin" for the kids, complete with bunk bed and their own TV and Nintendo (seriously, who has time to play Nintendo or watch TV while they're there?). It amazed me how well they took to the bunk bed. Evan had seemed leery of them in the past but was way excited about it and did a great job sleeping up there without being scared. Maren is still in a crib at home so I wondered how this would be for her. She loved it and called it "my yoom". She slept great on her bed and now I'm thinking bunk beds may be the way to go for these two. Exciting stuff to come! What silly faces they have here!

Evan took quite a while to warm up to the whole water park thing. But once he did, he had a blast! He would go down this purple slide and then skip/run through the water to get back on. The boy who is NEVER pushy or aggressive with other kids he doesn't know was trying to get ahead of others to get to the stairs first. I definitely saw a different side of him that was fun to see. I loved watching his face when he came down the slide and said "wahoo!".

Yes, Maren looks drunk here but I thought it was a really cute picture of Michael.

In addition to the slides, Evan really enjoyed playing in the fountains. I couldn't believe how free he got with letting water spray in his face. I love watching my kids overcome their fears and come out of their comfort zones!

Speaking of out of his comfort zone, that purple slide isn't the only one newly-brave Evan went down. He also went down some serpentine ones that started at the top of this four-story fort. Michael took him up a couple of times. I was shocked to find that Evan had to go down by himself, instead of on Michael's lap, and he did it! Well, at one point all the adults except me went on a crazy slide that I had no desire to go on, especially being pregnant. So I was taking care of Evan, Maren and our friend's daughter. Evan wanted to go on the serpentine slides while we waited. Well, I knew I didn't want to climb up all those stairs with these other two girls. Plus, there's water spraying everywhere in there and see that bucket about to spill at the top of the picture? That's full of 1,000 gallons of water that dumps out about every three minutes. I knew we could end up right under it at just the wrong time. So I told Evan that if he could climb up there by himself, he could go. First of all, I couldn't believe myself letting him do that. Second of all, I can't believe he took me up on it! I watched my little guy go and was so, so nervous. I tried to watch him like a hawk but it was hard to see him at times. I just hoped for the best. Evan wasn't too fond of the dumping bucket and he said it did dump while he was up there but he was fine with it. He came down the slide with a big smile and I let out a sigh of relief. Still can't believe I let him do it but it feels really good now knowing that I did.

All the fun really tuckered Maren out. Plus, we had stayed up until 10 p.m. the night before and she hadn't had a nap that day. Poor thing was exhausted. This is them waiting for me to get back with our pizza lunch. I was really looking forward to getting some snuggle time with her while everyone else played. Unfortunately...

She woke up just in time to get some pizza, regain her energies and get ready for more wet and wild fun! No snuggling!

Maren also loved the purple slide and would go around and around on it. She seemed so small to be going on this "big" water slide (comparatively, you know?) but she loved every second of it...as you can see by the big smile on her face.

And this is the Bybee family at the end of day 2 of our Great Wolf fun. It was about 10 p.m. by this time and everyone was completely beat. Ha! This was the best we could get. So, our neighbor, Anton, came over the day saying he was going to GWL and wanted to find out what it was all about. Well, we pulled out the pictures. We showed him videos. And we talked to him about it for about an hour. Yeah, we're ready to go back...like now!