Playing Hookey!

Dan has today off because its Veteran's Day.  He thought maybe he should take off Monday and Tuesday too.  So we did!  And since its no fun to just sit at home, we gave Joshua and Marian a break from school on Tuesday.  We went to Great Wolf Lodge!  They had given us a good deal and we thought it might be a good time to get away, since we won't be going anywhere for the holidays this year.  And if we needed another excuse, we were celebrating my parents leaving the MTC for Kenya, and we were celebrating the Marine Corps Birthday!

We left after the kids got home from school on Monday.  It was a 2 1/2 hour drive to Williamsburg and Rylee cooperated by sleeping the whole way.  That meant I drove the whole way because I wasn't going to stop if she was happy!  We arrived, checked in and were in the waterpark by 5pm.  The kids had so much fun!!

Dan got the first shift with the kids and I got to hold Rylee.  Dan managed to get Delaney in the deep pool once.  

 Later we traded off and he took Rylee while I got to go out and have fun with the kids too.  The waterslides were the best!  Marian and I even went down one together.  She was so cute about that.

Callie went down the waterslides.  (Delaney went down one on accident and flipped and rolled the whole way down.  She refused to go again!)

Joshua loved the wave pool and was such a fantastic brother.  He hung out and played with Callie a lot. 

Marian spent a lot of time here.  She went round and round on these logs.  It was fun to watch her methodically crawl from one to the next.  She's usually so adventurous that I expected her to just leap across, but she didn't.  She planned her way very carefully.

Me, I got to hold Rylee for a while.  This is our self-portrait.   She didn't get wet.  Well, not on purpose!  Callie turn one of the many s[prayers on at just the right moment to get me pretty good.  Rylee wasn't happy.  She was quite content to be snuggly held though.

Joshua also liked the logs.  He and Marian had a competition going on for a while.

It was well after their usual bedtime before we were settled in our room.  We got the one that had a queen bed and queen sized fold out couch.  Plus it had a "kid's Kabin" area with a bunk bed and single bed. The kids area had a tv for them and they thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Callie is in her jammies; Delaney is wearing goggles.  This is the kabin room.

Note Delaney there.  Callie wanted this shot- check out that grin.  I think she wore it the while trip!

Note Joshua on the top bunk, and there's Delaney  on the left.

Yep, there's Delaney!  Such a funny girl!  And there's Callie's smile again!

We had a decent night, and Dan got up at 6:30 with the kids and he managed to keep them fairly quiet till after 8, when I got up.  (I got up several other times in the middle of the night too, to feed Rylee, retuck Marian, and to cover Delaney.)  Marian woke up with a fever, so Dan took Joshua, Callie and Delaney out to swim when it opened at 9am, while I stayed with the other 2 girls and packed everything up.  They came back at 11 for a snack and we checked out. 

You can swim all day on the day you check out, so we headed back to swim some more!

This is the super-cool treehouse.  Check out the huge bucket at the top, the one that says "Great Wolf Lodge... its tipping!

And now it's dumping 1000 gallons of water down.  It does this every 5 or 10 minutes and the kid love it.  

Delaney wore this life vest today , but was actually more cautious.  On Monday she kept bobbing deeper and deeper into the wave pool, and I had to haul her out several times as she bobbed too deeply.  On Tuesday she hung out at a safe depth and just bobbed there in her life vest.  Here she's getting a little tired out.  Oh yeah, that twisting her hair while she sucks her thumb is her new thing.  

Marian wore her suit, but she didn't swim much.  I think she ran in two or thee times, but mostly she sat in the chair or snuggled with Daddy.

I have the most pictures of Callie because she was so darn cute, and I could fine her.  Plus she loved to pose for pictures there.  She had such a good time.

Joshua felt it vital to get his picture taken by the big wolf head in front of the hotel.  So here he is!!  It was a successful trip.  All of us had fun, the drive went well and we only had 2 meltdowns when we got home!