Great Wolf Lodge

We were fortunate to go to Kansas City and stay at Great Wolf Lodge on Eli's birthday weekend! I was kind of bummed that I will be recovering for a good chunk of the summer, and that we won't be able to go on a family vacation like usual. This was the perfect solution! We wanted to do something really special with the kids before Asher is born and our family changes again. We had a blast! All of our family went (even Brandon's parents drove up to come with us). We started the weekend with a birthday lunch at the T-Rex Cafe. It is a dinosaur themed cafe that was far more amazing than we could imagine! There were beautiful fish tanks all over the place and all different kinds of moving dinosaurs. The kids LOVED it! Cora was a little scared when she first walked in and saw the scary T-Rex, but once we told her it was pretend she was fine. We will definitely be back! We also stopped at Cabela's to show the kids the giant fish tanks. Eli saw a 99 lb catfish and asked, "Is that a great white shark?" Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. We spent the rest of the weekend playing at the Great Wolf Lodge waterpark. Eli was giddy with excitement the entire time. Both kids were singing the "Great Wolf Lodge song" and having fun. Eli was able to do all the big tube slides with Brandon, the medium single slides, and the little slides. It was so fun to watch him run around in excitement trying to decide what to do next. He lasted longer than any of the rest of us at the waterpark each day. Cora surprised me the most. There is a kid area that has fountains and two slides for the little ones, but besides that most of the park is for the big kids. I was worried she might not have enough to do. Boy, was I wrong! She walked up past the crying and scared 3 yr olds, counted to three, and then went down the slides exclaiming "MORE!" at the end. I could hardly believe it. She spent our entire time there going down the slides over and over again. We could hear parents trying to convince their scared older kids to do the slides using her as an example! I was so stinking proud of her! Watching both kids have so much fun was awesome! Besides the waterpark, the kids loved going to the story time, where they got to meet Violet the wolf. Eli loved playing ski ball at the arcade and we finished the trip by letting them get brother and sister wolf stuffed animals to remember it by (they have both slept with them since). It was just the pre-baby vacation we needed and I am so thankful we got to do it! Now that the birthday/vacation frenzy is over, I can focus on what we need to get prepared for this baby coming!