Great Wolf Lodge

I am frugal to the max.  My favorite "department store" is Value Village, where 95% of my clothes come from.  It's so easy to find something when everything is organized by type of clothing, size, and color.  Most of my clothes bear fancy labels but I didn't pay fancy prices.   I crunch our grocery budget down as much as possible by using internet sites to combine coupons with sales at local grocery stores.  I have a produce co-op at my house each Saturday to save money on produce.  We have DSL, but pay less than the going rate because we use a slightly slower service.  The list goes on and on.  One place I am willing to spend money is experiences.

Last year, I took Isaac to the Great Wolf Lodge for Isaac/Mom day. 

We had a blast.  I decided to take the kids again this year, adding in Anastaya and Elizabeth.  It's a two hour drive from our house, to Grand Mound, WA.  The next closest Great Wolf Lodge is in Kansas, so compared to that, two hours isn't very long.  They really do a great job with the lodge.  It's decked out in a wilderness lodge theme.  You get two days of playing for one night's stay.  They have a huge indoor waterpark attached to the hotel. 

Anastaya going across the lily pad obstacle course

The girls hanging out at the edge of the wave pool.

Who doesn't love to pull a lever and splash people with water?

In addition to the water park, they have an electronic scavenger hunt called MagicQuest.  It's very well done.  The kids each have a wand that they use to interact with objects scattered throughout the hotel.  They go to specific places based on riddles they solve.  Here is Elizabeth interacting with a book.

The walls are painted with a forest theme and are really beautiful.  Each time they complete a quest, they earn a special power.  When they have enough powers accumulated, they can fight the dragon.

Here are the kids in the dragon's lair.

It's a nice break from the waterpark and the kids absolutely love it.  It's designed to wear them out.  The quest takes place over five floors of the hotel and they encourage the use of stairs over the elevator.  It's not unusual to go from floor 1 to 5 to 3 to 4 to 2.  Last year, Isaac was so into it, he did all the quests and adventures twice!

Great Wolf Lodge is a bit spendy but is worth it for two days of playing.  Driving home, I was the only one in the car who was awake the entire time.  Since I don't have a working radio in the car, it sure was a quiet ride.  I hope we can go again next year and take the younger kids.  

A Miriam funny.  Miriam is at the age when her brain is coming up with so many fun connections.  I bought her new shoes and the next day, as she was running across the pavement she fell down.  As I was patching her up, she told me I should not have bought her those shoes.  I asked why, thinking she'd tell me they were too small  or too large.  Nope, "They are too fast".  It was quite a mental image to imagine these shoes flying across the pavement with my daughter trying her best to keep up with them.  Reminds me of the story of the dancing princesses.

Another one, Miriam always sleeps in a t-shirt.  The other morning she came downstairs dressed in her snow white dress.  She said to us, "I woke up wearing this, but I wasn't wearing it when I went to bed".  It must have been quite a party in the girls' room!