Great Wolf Lodge

we have just returned from a wonderful little trip and a great discovery! we had heard about great wolf lodge before but didn't really think about. last December friends of ours invited us to join them at the GWL in sandusky ohio. for those who don't know, GWL is an indoor water park/hotel. interesting concept. don't need to go far, come out of your hotel room and walk to the fun! great with little kids. unfortunately last December a huge snow storm rolled in and we were not able to make it. our friends, coming from pittsburgh, we able to make we, sadly, had to reschedule. we just made it up this past weekend. we left friday morning and even packed a picnic lunch (in the spirit of saving money and enjoying the beautiful weather). turns out that was one gracie's favorite parts of the trip! we arrived in beautiful sandsusky ohio around 3 or so and you never saw 4 people check into their room and change in to swimsuits faster! very corny but very cute place. looks like a GIANT log cabin. they have wooden bears and and lodgy type decor everywhere. but super kid friendly. everywhere you turn there was something fun to look at or play with. while i was checking in eric walked around with the kids and in the lobby you can view down to the next level and see the water park. well, you've never heard such squeals of delight! it was like they just discovered gold or something! "MOM! SWIMMING POOL!" mind, you we didn't keep this a secret. all week long we told them we were going to the water park. it seemed as if this was some awesome discovery.

anyway, we made our way down to the park and couldn't try everything fast enough. there was a pool for swimming and water basketball, a kiddie pool with tiny little slides and dumping buckets, a HUGE tree house with all sorts of things to turn and pull and squirt water, there were BIG tub slide, and small kids slides, and a lazy river and the only things we didn't do was the larger single person slides, as we were not ready to through our kids down something without us!

we were holding our breath a little because miss grace was a superstar at sesame place last may, she was a bit of a scaredy cat at the water park at massanutten last summer. but she rocked it! couldn't get enough! eric took jackson on the huge tube slide that truthfully looked a little bit much for me, but he just giggled the whole way down. i eventually tried it. figured if my 5 year old thinks this is the best thing ever it can't be THAT scary. it was a little fast but quite fun. we decided to try gracie and she loved it too. there was a HUGE staircase to go up too. so you know it had to be good if they were willing to truck up there each time. i was grateful also, to do something a little more exciting than swimming.

they kids had EXCELLENT behavior all weekend too! which makes for a nice vacation. that first late afternoon we went swimming for a little while and then wanted to come in to wash up for dinner and we were expecting a lot of resistance but they both went rather agreeably considering! i love having children that are an age that you can talk to and explain that we can come back and it's time to do something else fun. we had dinner in one of the park's restaurants. cute kids stuff. gracie got to have a "bears in a blizzard", a vanilla milkshake with oreo cookies and teddy grahams on top! what more could a little chunky monkey want!

after dinner each night we went to the arcade, which gracie refers to as chuck e cheeses, as that is how i explained it to her. dizzying lights and sounds sure to delight any child! they spun around not really knowing what to do first, but i enjoyed some games of skeeball, and we ran around until bedtime.

we ventured out for lunch and dinner on saturday. i believe there was another day or two we could've explored sandusky ohio. we drove to the shore of lake erie and looked out but we didn't have much time to get out and walk around. there were also some other little historic towns. we had dinner in Norwalk, in a cute little revived diner. everyone loved the kids there and it took me 45 minutes to realize most everyone else was over 65 so i think kids were a novelty in that town. we had lunch at a weenee hut! if you can believe that. eric mentioned it and gracie got it in her head she wanted a hot dog so we gave it a try. what a pleasant surprise! cute place and i got to have a hot dog with guacamole, tortilla chips, cheese and sour cream. YUM!

all in all a great weekend! good times, good children. the next time we venture to GWL though we might try the one in the poconos, it's a little closer.


our little picnic lunch


j coming out of the BIG slide


g coming out of the BIG slide, there's a HUGE smile on her face


dad and g waiting under the big bucket


enjoying some air hockey in "chuck e cheese". note this is after he adamantly stated he wanted to go upstairs and take a nap, aka go to sleep, as he had had it for a day. but mom and dad started to play air hockey and he got a second wind for that!