Weekend of Family Fun

The girls and I had gone over to a friend's house for the afternoon to watch a movie and gotten home a little after 6. My husband was all ready home and says to me "did you know that the tax refund check is in?". I said, "no, it is, good." He said that he wanted to surprise the girls with a trip overnight somewhere fun with a pool like the Dells, Springfield, or something like that. He had been thinking about it for a few days and decided that if the check were to come in before the end of the week we would do it.
That night I did some laundry and packed the kids suitcases without them knowing it. I went online and checked into some pricing at various resorts in the Dells area. I also checked a water park resort here in Rockford and one in Chicago.
We finally decided on Great Wolf Lodge . We had been there twice before for my husband's company picnics (which they pay for I might add) and really liked it. They have a really nice kid area as well as some new larger slides for adults or big kids.
I made the reservations and my husband packed the car. Finally somewhere around 2:30 am we went to bed.
When we left we just told the girls that we were going out to lunch and a drive. When we arrived at the resort the girls looked at it and said, "this is a hotel, why are we at a hotel?" My husband said that I went in to get a map (which is partly true because usually they give you a map of these kinds of places and a guide of what to do). When I got back in the car after "picking up the map" we went to park. That is when we told them what we were going to do. They were shocked that we packed their bags while they were sleeping (sounds like a movie).
The girls had a great time at the waterpark. They enjoyed the kid areas. Even the baby had a great time. She kicked, paddled,and slapped at the water. She even waded in the small kidde pool as well as rode down a couple of slides in the toddler area.
My older girls loved the kid slides (the white slides) and even tried a tube slide and a couple of the larger slides. My husband asked the girls if there was anything they wanted to try before we went home. One of them said "the green slide". I said "what green slide?" She said "the one by the green bucket." My thought was she would just go up to the top and then turn around and go back down in fear. So I took her up to where you climb through the fort to get up to the slides and made a deal. I told her that if she goes down the slide, I would stand under the bucket (it drops 1000 gallons of water on those standing under it) by myself and let them watch. Apparently she liked the deal because we got to the top of the slide, she sat down, and almost before the lifeguard could say "go", she went. I could not believe what I was seeing. I followed her down. She loved it and talked her sister into trying it. I made the same deal. Of course, I stood under the bucket and let them watch.
One of the girls really loved the big slides and she could not get enough, much to my liking. Finally I have kids who will go on the bigger slides with me. yay!! I was so tired out after hiking up the steps with a large tube on my back so that my girls and I could go down the slide. My arms are tired from paddling down the lazy river to get out of the water to do it all over again. Finally, I made my husband go down the slide with them.
She even said she wanted to try the larger tube slide which she ended up being too small for as she is not quite tall enough. In the end, I don't think she would like it anyway as it was dark and fast.
We intended on getting back a little earlier on Sunday so that we could go to the evening service at the church, but the girls were just getting into the larger slides and we wanted them to be able to really get what they could out of the waterpark.
What a great weekend of family fun. I am looking forward to the next time.