Great Wolf Lodge

Part of our gift to Allie was a stay at the Great Wolf Lodge. Derek's class ended on Friday the 22nd so the kids and I and Mony & Papa packed up on Thursday (Allie's birthday) and headed to Ohio so we could all celebrate.

We went straight to the Boonshoft museum upon arriving in Ohio, at Allie's request.

Then we had dinner at City Barbeque and ice cream at Young's Jersey Dairy.

this boy is exhausted

Friday we finally headed to Great Wolf Lodge. Allie was so excited and said, "this is the best hotel ever!" We spent about 4 hours at the waterpark, had dinner, went to story time, and then ended the night at the arcade. Well, the kids and Mony & Papa ended the night at the arcade. Derek and I went back to the waterpark until it closed. We were very impressed with the bravery of our girls! They went down some pretty scary slides. I'll post some pictures/videos from GWL's website of some of the slides they went on. The next day Mony & Papa had to leave for a wedding so they took Blake back home with them while the girls stayed with us and we spent the morning/early afternoon at the waterpark. We don't have a lot of pictures but we have tons of video. Hopefully I can get some of those posted at some point.

Allie in her very own Kid Cabin at GWL

notice a difference in her facial expressions.......she's overcoming her fears on the slides. And the slides are getting bigger too!

getting ready for story time

posing with Wiley

view from our balcony. The orange slide in the background was Allie's favorite slide.

Birthday Party Time

It's summer, which means the start of birthdays in our family (Allie -June, Avery & Blake - August, me - September, Derek - October). We had Allie's birthday party this weekend. I think it turned out nice and she had  a lot of fun.

Allie with the banner and t-shirt that I made for her

trying to melt the ice to get to some prizes

we had to get out the hose because those squirt guns just weren't getting the job done. It was shortly after this picture that Avery got sprayed on accident and declared the party canceled.

Wondering why you don't see Avery in many pics? She had a melt down at the start of the party and declared that the "party was cancelled!" I whisked her away and Daddy had a talk with her and she took a very long nap. She didn't get up until pretty much everyone was gone. We let her have some cake after eating a late lunch.........I think she enjoyed it! ;)

and what better time to see your first 'real rainbow!' than on the day of your birthday party

dinner at Pepe's per Allie's request

Zoo, Buddy & Kim's & Just hanging out

I can't believe that I haven't taken very many pictures since we've been here! We've had a few get togethers with family and I didn't take any pictures at those. And the few other excursions we've been on, I only have a few pictures from. I need to do a better job with that.

Last Friday we picked up GG and went to the Columbian Park zoo & McDonalds.

an emu

On Saturday we went to Bryan and Kim's to meet baby Hannah (and see them too!) We had a cookout (sooo yummy) and went to their pool.

He got tuckered out really fast

That morning we went to the Children's Tumor Foundation fundraiser that my cousin's famiy was putting on......

Today we went to the library and the girls played in the sprinkler.

Avery and her backwards swimsuit

a few more random ones from my mom's camera