For those of you who have never been to a Great Wolf Lodge location, you are missing out! We are so lucky to have one only five minutes from our house However, since it is so close we rarely spend the cash to actually go. On a normal basis you have to stay at the hotel to be able to enjoy the indoor waterpark, and it's just not feasable to spend $189 to stay five minutes from home. We love it there though so I was really excited when an opportunity arose through Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Charlotte where you could purchase day passes for only $5/each. I couldn't pass it up! We went today and had so much fun. It makes me want to get a hotel room and take the kids back!
You know, while most of the time it is sad watching how quickly my children are growing up, today was one of those days when I was so proud at how big my older two are getting. It's still sad that they are getting big so quickly, but I was more in awe and excited for them today as I watched how brave and skilled they have become in the water in such a short period of time. When we got to Great Wolf today, they measured Katelynn and said she could go on all but one of the BIG waterslides! At first the thought freaked me out: you mean MY BABY GIRL can go down a huge waterslide all by herself? The idea had never even occurred to me when I had purchased the tickets to Great Wolf last month. Really? The BIG, BIG slides that Mommy and Daddy even have fun going down? REALLY? But, yes, that was really the case. When we went to Great Wolf last time, it was June of 2010 and Katelynn was nowhere near as much of a watergirl as she has become since then. I remember how much effort it took for us to convince her to go down the kiddie slide. She went a few times, but she didn't love it. Now all of sudden today not only could she go down the big slides, but she LOVED them! I took her down the huge raft one and then she and I went down the smaller one and two person raft slides. I thought for sure she would be scared, but I am pretty sure I was the only one with apprehension about her going down them. Katelynn was all smiles and doing the typical girl "screams" as she went down. It really was a proud moment for me as her mom. She was so brave and had so much fun. And really it was even more fun for me once I got over the fear of letting her do them. Now I have another partner in crime to ride the fun stuff with. Who would have thought? (Sadly, I have no pictures of her on the big slides since I had to ride with her but here she is on the smaller scale ones)
Justin amazed me just as much, if not more, than his big sister. At her age, she had no interest in getting soaked. Justin has always seemed a little more daring than Katelynn has, but I wouldn't call him my waterbaby like I would Katelynn. He gets bored of the pool and lake much faster than she does, and he does not like water poured over his face (or at least I thought he didn't). When I booked our tickets to Great Wolf, my plan was to let Katelynn skip school, but when I told her of my plans this week, she had a fit about missing school. How dare I suggest she be allowed to miss a day of school to go to a waterpark? One day she will not believe me that she didn't agree to it, but she didn't. I had to take her to school and wait on going to the waterpark until after she was finished with school. I could have taken the boys, but I actually chose to wait, thinking Justin would tire of the park before Katelynn even dipped her feet in the water if he went earlier. Now that we have went today, I realize how wrong I was about that. Justin had a blast, and he didn't even need any "warm-up" time. He was purposely standing underneath buckets of water, waiting to get soaked and his face covered. Even when they caught him by surprise, he would wipe the water from his eyes and keep on laughing. About halfway into our day there, he asked to ride the "big slide". Now, Justin can't ride the really big waterslides, but he can ride the ones attached to large play structure they have there, and while they aren't quite what Katelynn did with the rafts, they still are pretty high up there and have a few turns. It took him a few minutes to get brave enough when he found out they wouldn't let me go down with him; he had to go on his own, but he did it and I was so proud. Once he did it once, he didn't want to stop going. He must have went 15 times while we were there. It was hilarious though because after he had went the first time, he wanted to go again but I made him take a quick break since he was getting cold and shivering. When we went back to try it the second time, they had switched lifeguards, and he was scared all over again. He was convinced I wasn't taking him back to the same slide since it wasn't the same person standing at it. It took another minute or two to get him to go again. Haha.
Today really was such a fun day for all of us (the kids and I.. and Grandpa Miller too who joined in place of Daddy), but it was bittersweet. Jonathan has been traveling non-stop since Michigan in August and it's just not the same without him here. I hate that he has to miss out on some our family events, especially something like this that has left me in awe of our own children. It was one of those things that talking about it after the fact is just never going to be the same as if he could have been thre with us and witnessed it himself.
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