A Northwest Thanksgiving

 We had toyed with the idea of going to Disneyland with 2 of my brothers this Thanksgiving, but in the end decided that might be a little more fun than our tiny kids could handle.  But we had already saved up some money for the trip and thought we should do something, so we made up our mind to drive in the other direction to my brothers house in Washington and then my sisters in Portland.  The kids did relatively well. 
Especially since we brought along my parents and an entire bag full of snacks and activities for them to do. 

 We stopped halfway in Boise for some hotel swimming and cable tv.  Did you know they have an entire channel devoted to PBS kids shows?  Brilliant.

 We arrived at my brothers and had a really nice Thanksgiving.  Delicious turkey, Italian soda's, enormous bean bags for the kids to sleep in, and of course some clay pigeon shooting for the boys. It was really nice.   

 On Friday we went up to my brothers school and played on these little scooters.  What you do is sit on the scooter like this:

 Hook up to a dad:

 And race around the gym like crazy. 

 It was so so so much fun.  I wasn't planning on really participating because I'm a mom and I'm pregnant and I'm really good at observing the fun.

 But I couldn't help myself, it was the most fun I've had in a long time. 

 After that we packed up our stuff and went over to my sisters house.  We both have 4 kids and all 8 are 6 and under so it was crazy.  So loud, so messy, so fun.  We ate way too much and laughed until we couldn't breathe.  We even went to a 10:20 showing of the James Bond movie one night
and realized we are just too old to do that kind of stuff apparently.  That was painful.

 Sunday was Charlie's birthday.  It took him a while to warm up to the idea but once he started opening presents he was on board.

 I can't believe this boy is only 3.  It's been a long 3 years I guess.  It feels like he's been around a lot longer than that.

  He looks like such a big boy in this picture and a little unlike himself

 There, that's more like him:

We love our Charlie to pieces.  He brings so much laughter and happiness to our family.  Life wouldn't be the same without him.  But where's Lottie in this picture?

 Just looking beautiful eating her burger. 

 Monday morning we packed our stuff up again and headed 2 hours north to this place called the Great Wolf Lodge.  This place was incredible.  It's an indoor water park resort built for families.  It was so much fun.  I only wish we could have stayed another night.

 My sisters room was right across the hall from ours which was awesome.  We could just leave our doors open and let the kids run. 

 As soon as we got there we changed into our suits and swam.  After feeding the kids right there along the water we got them all changed into their matching jams and my mom took them down to the story time they have in the lobby of the lodge.

 All the kids meet at this clock tower in their pajamas and they have these animatronic characters pop out from all over and tell the kids a story.  I wish I would have gotten a picture but we went out to dinner with my sister and her husband and then we ran back to the water park to ride the big water slides.  It was so fun.  They had this one water slide that the four of us went on in a huge tube.  It was pitch black inside and then opened into this enormous half pipe tube where you would slide up the sides until we were at like a 90 degree angle and then drop you down and up the other side.  It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.  Then we ran up and did it again.  Then went back to our rooms and made my parents put their suits on and go do it.

 The next morning we did this really cool quest game that they offered there.  You buy these magic wands and then you get this little map with different things you have to find all over the hotel.  The wands were interactive with pictures and secret books and magic crystals and other things all over the hotel. 

 It pretty much blew Jack and Lottie's minds.  They were running all over the place whipping their wands at everything and everything lights up and talks.  Did I mention that I loved this place?

 After our magic quest we spent some time in the arcade earning tickets and buying things with them.  That's always a good time.

 After some quick lunch we suited up and hit the water again.

The wave pool was everyone's favorite place to be I think.  At one point they closed the wave pool for about 20 minutes so we were over in the kiddie pool when we realized we didn't have Charlie.  John started looking for him and found him a second later being escorted out of the wave pool.  They all just loved being pounded by those waves.  
They must have my dad's surfer blood in them.

 The other place they loved were these lily pads.  The first day we were there it was super busy with leftover weekend people,and the line at the lily pads was annoying, but by Tuesday we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  Lottie did these things probably 25 times. 

 We had so much fun playing and splashing in the water but we did need to get on the road at some point since we were going to be driving all night and we were 2 hours further away. 

 So we put the kids into their jams and stopped for ice cream at the lodge while John loaded up the car.  Charlie stood there eating his ice cream for a good 2 minutes while Wiley the Wolf stood directly behind him and we tried to get him to turn around.  He is so oblivious sometimes.  When Charlie finally did turn around he burst into tears.  Ooops.

 Why are great big wolves in ranger costumes so scary to kids?

  Anyway, we started driving and the kids got to see lots of fun things like this as we went along. 

 I was so worried we'd have someone crying the entire 15 hours home, or someone sick or just otherwise unpleasant but they were wonderful.  They all fell asleep at about 8:30 and slept the entire way back.  We arrived at about 6 am and put them all into their beds and they woke up at about 10.  Not bad at all.   My parents sat right there next to Charlie.  I don't know where they were when we took this picture??

 The days leading up to our trip John and I joked about how this would either be a really great thing for our family or a really horrible thing.  They sometimes drive us completely crazy and we feel like all we do is yell and say no to them.  Although there were plenty of meltdowns and tantrums on our vacation it turned out to be such a good thing for us.  It reminded me how much I love my kids and how much more fun everything is with them and how boring my life would be without them.  They are a handful but we'll never forget all the fun we had this Thanksgiving and it makes me excited for trips with them in the future. 

 And, I loved spending an entire week with this scruffy guy.