The Woods: Happy 6th Birthday to Cody! Great Wolf Lodge Celebration October 2016

I saved up enough Expedia.com points to treat ourselves to a night at the Great Wolf Lodge. We decided to do it around Cody's birthday. We didn't tell them where we were going, but went to pick the boys up at school a tad early to get a quick start. The Hotel is about 1 1/2 - 2 hours away. When I went into the school office to pick up the boys, Cody and Decker came in and since it was POPCORN Friday...Cody had to stand in line to get his bag of popcorn. So it added extra time to our trip. It is an indoor waterpark / hotel. When we checked in they gave the kids these Wolf Ear headbands. Cody got a unique one since it was his birthday. We had a fireplace in our room...so romantic. ;) Here they are doing their Wolf Howl!

They had story time at the Tree in the middle of the hotel. The tree comes to life and there are little robotic animals that come to life--raccoons, squirrels, birds etc. And then a life size character comes out and hugs the kids and takes photos with them.

Our hotel room had bunk beds in them and each of the boys picked out their bed. There were extra little critters in their room too.

We bought a wand that you use in the hotel. There are characters and screens and artifacts when you point your wand at them, they become alive from the magic of the wand.

There was a huge wave pool in the park. Kaylie didn't particularly like the waves. They made her nervous.

The boys loved it though!

There was also a huge bucket that would fill up with water and every few minutes would empty on any bystanders below.

There were plastic lily pads that Cody crossed using a rope bridge.

The Howling Tornado was one of the best slides. Cody wasn't big enough to go down the slide. :( I convinced Decker to go with me once, but he didn't want to do it again.

I survived!

Mike and I took turns hanging with Kaylie and the boys. Kaylie took a little nap and I got to enjoy a little rest.

The hot tub was a favorite spot too. Kaylie would just relax in her life jacket and float around the tub.

Dad's turn with Kaylie...when she's tired, she starts to play with her hair...

It's story time again...

Then we celebrated Cody's birthday at home. He prefers waffles over pancakes.

There was a fun run at the Boy's school and Decker made me all these reminders to pick them up after school. He's a little afraid I'll forget.
Going to digress a bit here...to tell you a little bit behind the "why"... Mike and Decker were headed to McClendens, but before heading that way, ran over to grandma Nickie's house. Decker wanted to swing on the rope swing, Mike went and grabbed what he needed from the house and got back into the Tahoe ready to head to the store. About 5 minutes later, about 3 miles down the road, he realized he was alone. He turned around and went back to grandma's house only to find Decker distressed that he had been left behind. Decker had gotten out of the car, unbeknownst to Mike and ran to the swing. When Decker saw Mike driving away, Decker ran after the car until he got to the white fence, yelling dad's name, but Mike didn't hear a thing. Decker said that he went up to Steve's to see if anyone was home and he could call dad. No one was there, so he went back down to grandma's house. He knows where the hidden key is and went inside the house and laid down to wait. He didn't realize that grandma has a landline phone on her kitchen counter in the corner. Now he knows. ;) Mike got back to the house and gave Decker a huge hug with lots of apologies and assurances that he didn't mean to leave him there.

That evening we had a Pokemon birthday with Pikachu the star of the show! I got these little ping pong balls and had the boys decorate their own Pokeballs.