not The Vermont Life

Little Stuart

Interesting baby frog behavior: he kicks up to the surface, but if he can't find the fake plant or floating ledge he just freezes and floats down the bottom, playing dead. Whatever direction this posts in, Little Stuart is floating on his back.

Great Wolf Lodge is the Wolfiest Lodge

You've got to cover the eyes of your small children for this, or be doomed to listen to their jealous cries, because this post is all pictures of awesome. We spent two nights at Great Wolf Lodge, a hotel with its own indoor water park (that means year-round! always warm!) and arcade and crafts and magic. It has about 10 locations around the country, nothing near Utah or Arizona so you guys are out of luck. Get ready.

Well, we did have to drive 4 hours to get there (thank you, Seattle traffic, and double thank you, Tacoma traffic).

We stopped at a random McDonald's to stretch our legs and eat ice cream. We were on letter P in the Alphabet Game.

At the Lodge, when you order a kid's meal, you get a pair of wolf ears. And they put lids on the drinks! 

Now here's a bunch of pictures of the water park.

The wave pool was Scott's favorite part.

 

Dean's first steps into the wave pool.

 

There was a separate kiddie pool area with things to climb on.

 

Look, Dean on a jet ski!

 

Mike helped Dean jump over some waves.

 

This is Scott being an alligator.

 

Swimming lessons have really helped Scott's confidence in the water. 

 

Dean didn't love the water park quite as much as Scott, so sometimes he just wanted to sit in a chair and watch.

 

Scott was tall enough for all the waterslides. MIke and I had to convince him to go, but then he got the hang of it.

 

Me and Scott in line for the big raft ride.

 

On the ride itself.

 

Mike and Scott coming off the ride.

 

What else does one do there? They had evening story time in the lobby.

Mike and the kids camped out while I went for ice cream.

 

Dean was getting a little tired near the end.

 

Scott at the ready with spoon, wand, and ice cream.

 

They also had a craft room for kids. Dean loves to paint and mix colors.

Starting to paint his treasure box - yes, it's all glittery paint. 

I didn't take pictures of the arcade, but we started out there playing skeeball. Once Dean had enough tickets to buy candy, we bought a few Smarties and took them to the craft room. He painted and ate candy. I helped paint.

The finished box!

 

At preschool Dean learned that you can paint your hands and make handprints. So he insisted on painting his hands. Why is he not smiling? Because art is serious business.

Finally, the other whole big important thing at the Lodge is MagiQuest. It's kind of a live action role-playing game. Five floors of the hotel are filled with magical objects that respond to magic wands. Smaller kids can just wave their wands around, bigger kids can go on actual quests to find specific objects.

Wands at dinnertime.

 

Dean's blue wand. Sadly they didn't have red wands, so he had to go with his second-favorite color.

 

Scott's wand, plus the book full of quests. He's standing in front of a magical tree.

Now, Mike started doing the quests with Scott, but he forgot to talk to the magical tree first so the objects they found didn't actually count. I decided to take over, so for about six hours over two days Scott and I ran up and down five flights of stairs and back and forth across the lobby, collecting gold and runes. Dean and Mike stayed busy with more skeeball and painting.

This is Scott casting spells in the Pixie's Perch.

 

Once he completed all ten quests, Scott could open this special chest that was extra sparkly.

 

Then Scott was able to go into the dragon's lair and defeat the dragon by freezing him and throwing ice arrows at him (with the helpful advice of the guy in the purple shirt).

After defeating the dragon Scott became a Master Magi and got a special certificate. I think I am a Master Magi by Association, but I didn't get a certificate.

All that in under 48 hours! Although we were exhausted afterwards (Mike doing all the swimming, me doing all the questing) we would totally do it again. Probably in the dead of winter, though, because we never had to go outside! It's like Vegas for little people!

Cul de sac Crew, Minors Edition

Backyard Waterslide

We have a clever neighbor boy, a long hose, a d a sunny day. They turned our playground into a waterslide! Yes, Scott is drinking out of the hose.

Senior White Belt

Scott has been taking tae kwon do lessons since January. His class is known as the Little Tigers. He was able to "take" his first belt "test" in April, and the test for the Little Tigers isn't too strenuous.

So, he passed! Or graduated! Or advanced, maybe advanced is the correct word.

The school held a belt ceremony for all belt levels.

Scott is the third from the left of the middle group in front, holding up his trophy for achieving all five stripes on his belt (a whole different thing from the actual color of the belt). You can see in the top photo how he has all five stripes. Yes, those stripes are made from colored electrical tape. It's a big deal.

Wearing the new belt, holding the trophy, it was a very proud day for Scott.