Don't worry about me, I'm at the bar

Being down South, we know how to play with our children.  Not only does our Chuck E Cheese serve beer but our Great Wolf Lodge does also.  Why?

Because parents want to bring their children there and create the memory for THE KIDS, not for us.  If we are in a slight brain fog most of the time, that's a good thing.

We can listen to that bell dinging for two straight days, and laugh each and every time the kids, like little Pavlovian dogs run over to get doused by water - laughing a little harder and the little kid that busts it before he makes it over to X marks the spot.

We can smile and smell out 20 bucks per kid for the arcade and smile even bigger when they come back with a bag of 73 tootsie rolls as the reward for all their "work" in the arcade.  Especially with this proud owner of the pucker powder and tootsie rolls is the kid you are taking to the dentist the next day.

We can also think it's pretty funny watching our kids stalk the person walking around in dry clothes, waiting until that perfect moment when they turn their bucked and douse them.  Then wonder why in the world would the person walk under that gauntlet of kids with buckets of water.  I mean, really?

We can relax in a chaise and watch a full parade of people in bathing suits, who shouldn't be in THOSE SMALL bathing suits run by you with little Arnold hoping to make it to the infernal dinging bucket - especially when they both bust it and Mom pops out of her bathing suit while little Arnold is crying that he missed that dousing (not to mention, there's another 1,564 douses during his stay at the Great Wolf Lodge)

We can sit and not feel comfortable in our bathing suit, or find it funny trying to keep everything in place as you ride down the Howling Tornado with your kids.  Better yet we think it's a good idea after some time at the Lodge (bar) that we'll ride down the rides with our kids and then run with them to bust it in front of the dousing bucket.

We can sit through story time with all the freaky looking characters, some mechanical some real, and it's the real ones that have probably been to the bar too because they seem to really enjoy sneaking up on you and scaring the hell out of you (insert freaky looking fox here)

We can go to the buffet and argue that they really don't need the prime rib from the menu, and no everyone is not getting the $16.99 Dippin Dots.

We can go to a small hotel room and watch the kids jumping from bed to bed, finding tootsie roll wrappers in our sheets and stepping in wet puddles of carpet for a night.

Yes, there is a reason we pay 4.99 a beer at the Great Wolf Lodge.  It's to preserve that memory for our little kids, and to create the fuzzy one for us, otherwise we wouldn't go back.  Some say that friends don't let friends drink alone, the same is true for the Great Wolf Lodge, why suffer by yourself when you can bring a friend to suffer with you.  Or at least talk about the one lone guy walking by you in a Speedo - now I want to see him go down the Howling Tornado.

And I thought Silly Bandz were Ingenious

Closing in on the last days of summer, we wanted to cram in that last little bit of sunshine, I mean, fun things to do. Our family always ends the summer with a “last hurrah” and every year it’s a trip to Wet and Wild! This year we decided to do something different, we went on a LONG trip (45 min) to Concord and The Great Wolf Lodge! Ooohhh Ahhhhh! In case many don’t know me, I’m cheap and this presented a great deal. Check in at 1pm, use the water park until 9pm, then use the water park until 9pm the second day! So we booked our Kid’s Camp and packed a bathing suit and went on our way.

The Kids Cabin is a small log cabin the kids sleep in complete with their own TV and three bunk beds. We knew this place was made for kids when they had more amenities in their cabin and the lodgey feel than we did. Our side was a VERY soft bed (did not make Goldilocks happy), couch, table and a TV we couldn’t hear because the kids TV was bouncing off the walls to us.
Here’s the ingenious part, this lodge has a large indoor waterpark that remains a constant 84 degrees. As we checked in at 99 degrees and 100% humidity, someone was smart enough to create a place even adults are happy with, The Great Wolf Lodge! The kids eyes rolled back in their heads as we entered the waterpark, and I was pulled in three directions almost at once. Max and I started on the easy slides, me looking all cute in my bathing suit if I must say so myself. As we waited, I heard a constant bell dinging,

“What’s that?” I asked the lifeguard at the top.
“Oh you’ll find out,” he said with a maniacal smile on his face.

And I did as 200 gallons dumped out of a bucket at the top of the contraption I was standing in right down on me and all the kids waiting for the water slide. So much for looking like Pamela Anderson on Bayway (no snide remarks here please) Looking sufficiently like a drowned rat, they pulled me to the rest of the slides (mom, will do it now her hair’s messed up). We rode mats down through tubes, we robe a float down more tubes, we ended up on something called the tornado. Now here is a nice sidebar, Maria takes all the kids on a nice gentle log plume ride and says, “You take them on the next one, if it’s anything like mine it will be FUN!” Sure.
This is called the Howling Tornado, should have been a red flag there. We climb in the tube and both children vote and make me the one that rides backwards (NICE). The Howling Tornado dumps us down a tube, into a pitch dark tube with another leave your stomach at the top drop before dumping your down this wall into another tube that shoots you out the bottom. I was still back at the first drop when the ride ended.

So ingenious, indoor water park where you don’t have to worry about sunscreen, bugs, or rain, complete with all the favorites – fudge, pizza, coffee, sandwiches, and BEER and you have The Great Wolf Lodge. As the kids settled down listening to their recants of the waterslides brought a smile to my face until I realized, “we’re doing it again tomorrow.” Maybe if I start with the slicked back look, I won’t look so much like a drowned rat.
Is it worth the price of admission? I’ll tell you after day two. What other ingenious things have you found in your travels?