Great Wolf Lodge 2018

We had a great time going to Great Wolf Lodge for the first time last week!  We were able to save some money with Groupon and had a nice big room with 3 queen beds and a pull-out couch to sleep all eight of us.  The room had a fridge and a microwave so I brought stuff for breakfast and lunch and we went out for dinner.  The kids had Pizza Hut (They ate 2 large pizzas by themselves!) and Chris and I had Qdoba.  We haven't been to a hotel since before Mabel was born and the kids had a great time.  

Lots of bear and wolf decor.  

My stair steps!  Another one coming soon.  :-)

I mostly sat around watching Luke and Mabel go down the kiddie water slides a million times with the occasional turn down the lazy river.  Oh, and taking Mabel to the bathroom every 20 minutes!  Chris liked to take the kids under the huge bucket that dumped about every 5 minutes.  He had the littles stand underneath him so he took the brunt of the force.  The older kids, including Aaron, enjoyed the water slides.  They also really liked the pool with the floating snake, but that unfortunately got shut down on our last visit to the pool area.

Joel wants blue grandpa to go with next time so he has someone to go down the scary slides with!

On our way out of Traverse City, we drove down the Mission peninsula to see the bay and the lighthouse at the end.  It was a bit chilly so we didn't last long.

Unwilling posers.  They wanted to get back in the warm car!

Everyone was a bit tired on the way home!  And I thought I had brought way too many snacks, but they ate most of them!

Some Great Wolf Lodge tips for families:

*There are lots of places to eat inside the lodge, including a pizza place, grill, and Dunkin' Donuts, but they are really pricey.  Bring your own food if you don't want to spend a lot on eating out.  Each room has a good sized fridge and microwave.  I made breakfast sandwiches and we warmed them up in the microwave in the morning and ate them with yogurt and fruit. 

*Bring a few extra blankets or good pajamas for the kids.  It was warm in the loft area where Chris and I slept, but the main level seemed a bit chilly and we had trouble using the thermostat.

*If possible, bring 2 sets of bathing suits for each person or you will be putting on cold, wet suits when you want to go back to the water park.  Ask us how we know.  :-)

*My kids don't like to stay for hours and hours in the water park so try find things to do to break up the time.  You can stay at the water park until closing on the day you check out.  We left around noon, but if we could have broken it up a bit, we probably would have stayed longer. 

*Bring flip flops and crocs to wear in the pool area.

*The pool area is busy so if you have little ones, don't expect to be able to sit on a chair and read a book while they play.  I'm glad our older kids had each other so they could go off to the slides together while we watched the younger ones. 

*Great Wolf had puddle jumpers and life jackets that you can use for free.

*You aren't supposed to bring any outside food and drink into the pool area, but I did bring some water bottles in.  Try to get to the pool area early to claim a table or they will get snatched up.  

Fall Orchard Trip

The best Michigan field trip is hands down a fall trip to an apple orchard.  We went to Sietsma Orchard this morning with some homeschool friends.  I took all 6 kids and it actually went pretty well!  Good thing it was only an hour tour that included donuts.  :-)

Here's the whole crew:

After a hay ride through the orchard and a short tour of their apple storage and cider making, we all had delicious, fresh donuts and cider.


Aaron and Luke were pretty happy about this part of the field trip.


After cider and donuts, we went back into the orchard and each of the kids got to pick an apple.  Luke was able to eat about half of his, seeds and all!

 
It was a beautiful fall day!


J liked the donuts, apples, and seeing his friends!

 
Ok, let's watch Mabel closely in this picture and the next two.  This one turned out pretty well, all heads are turned toward the camera.


Mabel hears a clucking sound behind her and turns to see what it is...


a dreaded chicken!  Shrieks of terror ensued.  Another animal that Mabel does not like.

Quick weekend trip

We went to visit my Aunt Ev in Ontario this past weekend.  It was a bit of a long trip because our van has no air conditioning, but at least there was no wait at the border.

Mabel enjoying a french fry at Burger King on the way there.  Luke played with a straw wrapper the whole time and then ate his lunch in the van.

Enjoying Aunt Ev's pool and the beautiful weather.  The boys loved having a pool right outside the back door to jump into.  The boys ate most of their meals outside.  I'm looking forward to that at our own house when our deck goes up soon!

On the way home, we stopped at the Potter Park Zoo in Lansing.  We were able to get into the zoo free with our JBZ membership.  We ended up renting a stroller for Luke and Mabel.

 

Mabel loved her ride!  Notice her white pants.  This is the first and last time I will buy her white pants.  She promptly filled her diaper which overflowed onto her pants right after this pic.  Changing a baby's diaper gets more looks than the rhinos.

Noah was thrilled to go to the zoo!  He really did enjoy it.

It was a really pretty little zoo.  We didn't stay more than an hour or so because we wanted to get home and it started thundering (we made it to the car just as the clouds opened), but we really enjoyed the zoo.  They had quite a variety of animals, including a few that our zoo doesn't have, like the rhinos (a black and white rhino) and a red panda (that doesn't look anything like you'd expect a panda to look like).  What I liked better about this zoo is all the information they have posted outside the exhibits.  JBZ's info is a lot of environmentalism and multiculturalism while the PPZ had a lot of good information about the animals.  Andrew even learned some new words like the word 'prehensile.'

 

There were multiple peacocks wandering around the zoo. That was another great things about the zoo, you could get pretty close to most of the animals. We even had good views of the lions and tiger.  I would definitely visit this zoo again.  It looks like they are slowly redoing the exhibits.  A new moose exhibit is opening next summer and a new home for the red panda is being built right now.

2015 Homeschool Track and Field

The boys were super excited to participate in another track and field day this year.  It wasn't very warm, but it was nice and sunny.  Sunny enough that Luke's cheeks got a little red.

Here is Joel running the 50 yard dash.  He didn't place but he said he kept someone behind him.  :-)

 

 Joel got first place in the soccer kick!

Here's Andrew running the 200 meter.  He said it was a bit long, but he had a nice smile and wave for the camera!

 

Andrew had a great time and got a ribbon for participation.

Andrew's group~The kids are split into small groups of 5 or 6 according to age and gender.  A volunteer leads them around to each event.

 Here's Noah's 50 meter run.

Noah, the athlete of our family.  He got first place in the 50 meter, the soccer kick, and the tennis ball throw.  He received a 2nd place ribbon for the 100 meter after doing a tie breaker run with another boy who beat him.  He said his favorite event was running!

This is our 6th year participating in track and field (Check out 2010, 2011, and 2013).  The year that Aaron turned three was super rainy and Aaron was petrified of the starting gun.  You can hear him sobbing hysterically in the videos I took that year.  Last year was his first year of participating and we thought he was over being frightened by the gun.  I guess not!  No ribbons for Aaron this year, not even participation!  He held his ears and whimpered for an hour.  I really don't think it hurt his ears because its not that loud and I moved him to the far side of the field so that we weren't even close to it.  Hoping he gets over it again by next year!  And next year, Luke gets to join in the fun!

Andrew's day out

Blue grandpa and grandma took Andrew for a day this week to celebrate his birthday.  He had a GREAT time alone with his grandparents!

After a hearty McDonald's breakfast, they went for a walk in the snow.

 

And they did a special project with Andrew.  He helped screw this bench together and paint the legs.  He also got to take some lego men home that Grandpa found in some furniture.  Andrew really enjoyed this project and now we have a beautiful bench on our front porch.

When I was growing up, I would sometimes leave notes written in chalk around my dad's shop.  He says he kept finding them years later.  Andrew left some notes too.  This one says, "Satisfaction Guaranteed!"

Sledding!

Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma, for a great birthday gift!

Double digits!

Andrew turned 10 YEARS OLD on December 26!  Chris took the day off from work and we all went to the museum together. 

Andrew is really into lego so he was excited when I made a lego cake topper for him.  He has a huge lego city built in his room that he plays with every day.  He also loves to read.  Mysteries are probably his first choice, but he likes history and science books.  His favorite series is the Chronicles of Narnia, which he's read 2-3x.  He loved The Hobbit, too.  You can often find him drawing pictures which usually involve some kind of super hero character.

Andrew has proven to be a big help to me, especially with a newborn in the house right now.  He loves little kids and is usually willing to play with Luke or hold Mabel if I'm busy with something else.  He can be tad forgetful, but he is very diligent in doing his school.  He just finished his 4th grade math book and is starting 5th grade math.   

 

His favorite gift?  A spy kit I found at Meijer for 50 cents!  His first target was Noah.

We love you, Andrew!

The father of a righteous child has great joy; a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him.

Proverbs 23:24

Fall 2014 pics

We performed an amazing feat a couple of weeks ago.  We took pictures of  6 kids!

Check out 2012 and 2013.

 

 

Luke, 20 months.

 

 Aaron, 4 years

 Joel, 6 years

 Andrew, almost 10

 Noah, 7 1/2 years

Andrew

 

Haha!  This is so Andrew.

Train trip to Chicago

Yesterday we went to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.  We traveled by commuter train from Michigan City, IN, to Chicago and went to the museum for the day.  Here's our whole group minus Karsten.  Still happy at the end of the day!  And play "Where's Andrew?"  He's hiding.

Family picture

Taken December 27, 2013~opening gifts with my family.

A Quiet Activity!

I recently discovered that the boys really enjoy listening to audiobooks.  On the way home from Canada, they spent about 3 hours listening to a Hardy boys book.

 

After lunch today, they spent almost an hour listening to "Little House in the Big Woods" while they colored pictures.