What My Heart is Made Of...: Family Getaway

Three days before the Fourth of July, Scott called me from work and out of the blue said "Let's go to Great Wolf Lodge on the 3rd!". I paused and responded, "That's this Friday!" "Yup", he said. I hesitated and thought about all the plans I had for the holiday weekend. I told him we were planning to go to the fireworks on Friday, and a cookout at my friend, Mandy's, house on Saturday. He disappointedly said "Ok..." and we hung up. Just seconds later, I started remembering the lesson I had learned just that morning, in my Mom's group curriculum, about Priorities. I agreed, and wrote down, that my Nonnegotiable priorities are my husband and my children. So why wasn't I putting them first, when given the opportunity? We very rarely get to do anything as a family and when the opportunity to do so jumps right in my face, even though I already have plans, and even though it's last minute, why was I not choosing it?? So, I called him back and said "Let's do it! I'm putting my family first! We get rare opportunities to spend time just the SIX of us so all we can do is take advantage of it!"
So, we told the kids we were going on a secret surprise, and headed out Friday morning. The drive there wasn't bad at all. Callie slept most of the way, and the other three were good.

When we got there, 3 out of 4 kids were sleeping, so I asked Emily where we were.

The girls definitely remembered it from when we went last year, after seeing it, and I'm sure Matthew was was excited as they were, just because they were!

We got there around 4:00 in the afternoon, checked in, and spent the next two hours in the water park. After that, there was a magic show and story time (with pizza in between). We thought for sure that all this would tire them out quickly and bedtime would be a breeze! We were wrong...it was pure torture trying to get the three of them to stay in their beds and quiet! The room was a perfect set up for 6 (although I think next time we'll get a suite with separate rooms, so we can shut them in!!). We had two queen beds, one for me and Callie and one for Scott and Matthew, and then a pull-out couch for the older girls. I'm not sure what their deal was, because they sleep together a lot, but for what seemed like a whole hour, the girls were fighting "She's touching me!", "She's pushing me!", "She's on my side!" and Matthew was just laying there with his loud voice "Daddy!" "Daddy!" "Daddy!" It was all beyond frustrating, but eventually everyone fell asleep. The next morning we had Dunkin Donuts in our room and then spent the rest of the day (probably about five and a half hours) in the water park! With a little fibbing on Rosie's height, by piling all her hair on top of her head, Scott was able to take her on all the water slides. Then he switched her band to Emily, so Emily could go on the water slides. They were right at the line of being tall enough!