Our weekend at Great Wolf Lodge!

Or, 50 ways to lose track of your kids, and ALL your money!

This year my sister and I decided that instead of buying each other's kids more toys they don't really need we'd book a family get-away instead. And so last weekend found the 10 of us (4 parents, 6 kids) enjoying the thrills of Great Wolf Lodge.

(And nope, I'm getting nothing from writing about our trip. But, Great Wolf Lodge- I'll take some free stuff!)

The fireplace, which mysteriously never had a fire in it.

Great Wolf Lodge, if you haven't had the pleasure, is a chain of indoor water park/hotels with an outdoor/wolf theme. They are very, very good at getting you to spend gobs of money. Think of a casino for children, with water slides. I mean, you have to walk through the arcade (games NOT included) to get anywhere. Genius! 

Missing from the photo- silly Wolf ears

At first we kind of panicked, and balked at the idea of spending MORE money at this place. (The rooms aren't cheap.) But after a drink and a few hours of watching the kids have fun, we gave up got over it.

Bear hugs

And they did have a blast. This kind of place is right at my kids level: noisy, crowded and with lots of opportunities to play games and eat junk food. They wanted to move in.

When he get so big!?

She loves Characters!

I've learned to relax some of my hard and fast rules when we are on vacation, so 9PM Saturday night we were eating ice cream sundaes after getting down at the evening storytime/dance party. Bedtime? What's that!?

Ropes course + pool= FUN

And of course, there was the water park. I tried to play "cool mom" and went on the scariest, hugest, silliest water ride with Daniel. I've got a bruise the size of a baseball on my leg from my terrified scramble out of the pool, and my throat is still horse from all the screaming. (Daniel loved it, especially when I started cursing at the top of my lungs.)

waiting for her Princess Tiara

Princess Wolf Lodge

And of course there is an ice cream themed spa for kids. Of course there is. Like I said, these folks know how to make money. There was no way we were NOT going to get something in this spa.  Luckily they have a $10 "Scoops Sprinkle" treatment (lotion, lip gloss, tiara), which was fun and totally worth it.

Wolfie selfie

So yes, we "stomped, stomped and howled" for two days. Not a bad way to spend a freezing February  weekend!

Have you been to the lodge? Any tips you'd like to share?