Great Wolf Lodge...

For the past few years we have had parties for Ava's birthday.  If you remember, last year she wanted a Rio themed bash, and since I was 9 months pregnant, I didn't want to have to do much so we went to Fun Fore All.  It was great, but expensive.  So this year, Ava had it in her mind that we'd do Fun Fore All again.  After talking her down from that she started throwing out other options; pool party, Living Treasures Zoo.  After looking into both, and realizing it was getting increasingly difficult to plan a party, we came up with another idea.  What if we went on a family getaway trip?  I pitched the idea to Nathan but explained that it was far from cheap and would cost more than a party.  His answer?  YES!  His theory was that, (1.) he'd enjoy it more, he hates parties and everything is left up to me; and (2.) it would be family memories.  

Great Wolf Lodge, here we come!  Ava had a blast, and we did too.  It was her first time in a big water park and she was fearless.  Ava went on every slide they had, even going down the big tubes by herself a couple of times.  But I'm pretty sure her favorite part was what she called the "Big Dump."  Every five minutes water would fill up in a huge bucket and it would sound an bell which every child in the place knew meant it was about to happen.  They would all group together under the bucket and await the big dump of water. Nathan and I both got to experience the massive waterfall and honestly, it kinda hurt.  But when else are you going to get to have that much water dumped on your head?  

The "Big Dump"

Do you see that large bucket at the top middle of the picture?  That's the large bucket that fills with water every 5 minutes.  Then this happens:

Getting ready to race Momma down the slides

 For added fun, we decided to upgrade to a Wolf Den Room.  Ava has stayed in hotels before and we wanted this to be different.  She thought it was super cool that she got her own "den" room, and even better that she got to sleep on the top bunk and have her own tv.

 

All kids staying at Great Wolf Lodge get a free pair of wolf ears. 

After our first day at the water park they had a dance party in the lobby for all the kids.  I've never seen Ava dance so much.  Hannah is much more of a music kid and loves to dance, unfortunately she was a bit too small to join in the party. 

 

Our second day at the water park was filled with more slides and lots of water dumps.  Ava had a blast and still talks about wanting to go back.  Although we had fun, I don't know that we'll go back to GWL.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great place.  But right down the street is Kalahari, and they have more slides, bigger slides, a wave pool, kiddie pools and slides, and a lot of other water activities.  I kind of wish I would have checked into that first...  but we had a good time at GWL and we did enjoy it. 

Here is a video we took on one of the slides!

 Ava's new waterproof camera sure came in handy.