What's the best day of your life?
Everyone has a different answer to that question. Some would say the day they got married. Others would point to the birth of their children. There's even some in the world who would point to their favorite sports team winning a championship (not me!). If you're asking Ellie, what she would refer to as the best day of her life happened just ten days ago at Great Wolf Lodge right here in Kansas City.
As part of the kids' Christmas gift from my parents, they decided to pay for a night's stay at Great Wolf Lodge. Now, I realize a hotel stay may not seem like the most exciting thing in the world. However, when that hotel stay is coupled with an indoor water park, it certainly becomes a lot more exciting for a five-year-old and a two-year-old. For the dates of our stay, we chose to take advantage of the long weekend provided by Martin Luther King Day and spent the night on Sunday night, leaving on Monday.
Basically as soon at Ethan woke up from his nap on Sunday around 1:00, the four of us loaded up in the car and drove the 30 minutes over to Great Wolf Lodge. Even though our official check-in time wasn't until 4:00 pm, we could still arrive early and enjoy the water park until our room was ready. Conveniently enough, our room was already ready so we could do a full check-in. Once we were all changed into our swimsuits, it was time to head to the water park.
The first thing that drew Ellie's attention upon entering the water park was the giant "Treehouse" taking up residence in the middle of the water park. It didn't take long for Ellie to start weaving her way through the falling water and various cargo nets in an attempt to reach the twin water slides at the top of the structure. From there, she laid down on the slide and off she went! As the afternoon went on, she probably rode those slides more than ten times.
Of course, the "Treehouse" wasn't the only attraction in the Water Park. For Ethan, he was undeniably drawn to the Lazy River first and foremost. With his life jacket safely buckled, he happily bobbed through the Lazy River, making lap after lap after lap. While the Lazy River is definitely relaxing and an enjoyable way to spend the day, it didn't take me long to start looking up at the three giant slides four stories above my head.
Once my parents, who were spending the night at Great Wolf Lodge with us, arrived, I finally convinced Bethany to ride one of the big slides with me. We took our places upon an inner tube at the top of the structure and launched ourselves off only to quickly fall into three series of funnels where we spun around and got repeatedly pelted by gallons of water. Our tube actually turned completely backward and we had to complete the slide looking at where we had come from rather than where we were going.
While I definitely wasn't going to find anyone willing to ride that particular slide with me again, there were two more giant slides to be ridden. For the record, those two giant slides didn't just appeal to me; they also appealed to Ellie and Ethan as well. From the first time they hopped on a raft to head down "the blue slide", they were completely enamored with their trip. In fact, they were so enamored that on some occasions, we were making trips back up the four flights of stairs as soon as we landed.
 |
| Ellie somehow convinced my mom to ride the blue slide with her! |
While Ellie loved "the blue slide" due to its open air concept and fast speeds, Ethan preferred "the yellow one". That slide had the fast speeds that are a hallmark of all water slides. However, the majority of the slide took place in pitch black conditions. While Ellie was understandably terrified by those very conditions, Ethan loved every second of it. His screams of delight definitely confirmed that.
Of course, the water park wasn't the only exciting thing about our stay at Great Wolf Lodge. The kids also got the opportunity to sleep in their own special "log cabin" complete with bunk beds inside our room. Actually, "sleep" is a bit of a misnomer as they were awake until after 10 due to a Chiefs game but that's ok. They also got the opportunity to meet the Great Wolf Lodge mascots and participate in both an Arts and Crafts time and a Story Time! All of us even got furry wolf ears to take home with us to boot!
 |
| Pajama party at the clock tower!!! |
When you take all of the fun that we had over two days into account, it's no wonder that Ellie referred to her time at Great Wolf Lodge as being the greatest day of her life! She even has already asked on multiple occasions when we can go back again. I suppose that's pretty good marketing for Great Wolf Lodge so if they want to offer us a free night's stay for mentioning them, I'd be ok with it. I'm not holding my breath though! #DaddyWrite
 |
| I'm a wolf. |
No comments:
Post a Comment