Sunday Tyler and I went to Ward Council and then we quickly loaded up the kids and headed to Traverse City for our stay in Great Wolf Lodge. On the drive there we did no electronics so we listened to "Robin Hood." It was a dramatized version so I thought it might captivate them but I don't really think that they knew what was going on. Regardless they mostly behaved themselves and it was a fairly easy drive there. Before we got to GWL I thought we should stop and see the world's 3rd largest cherry pie pan. Unfortunately there was nowhere to stop and take pics and when Penny saw it she said, "That's it!? That's stupid." They were all underwhelmed at my random stop and disappointed that there was no pie in it.
After arriving and checking in, we quickly changed and headed to the waterpark. We had some fun in the pool- the kids liked climbing on the snake and we played some basketball too. I tried to shoot a basket backwards and almost hit a lifeguard. That would've been embarrassing. We swam in the pool, the kids did the lily pads over and over again, Penny went under the giant water bucket with Tyler (and got knocked down), we floated on the lazy river (me avoiding being sprayed by water and the girls trying to get sprayed) and we had all kinds of fun until the kids (and us parents) got too hungry. So we walked through the frigid hallways to our room, changed and headed to Chili's for dinner. The kids literally attacked the chips when it came to the table so apparently they were ravenous.
After dinner I wanted to go miniature golfing and everyone complied. The weather was nice and we had the course to ourselves so we could take our time without worrying about someone waiting on us. It ended up being a really nice time, with minimal fighting and a friendly competition between Tyler and I. Tyler won by 5 and then the competition became less friendly ;)
After mini golfing we had to take the traditional picture of all the kids in their wolf ears before going to bed. The kids had a bit of a hard time falling asleep because they were all looking forward to more good times at the GWL. Plus the hallways were pretty noisy and our sink kept making this crazy vibrating sound.
The next day the kids spent the first couple hours of the morning "wanding" aka doing the Magiquest. This was not my favorite thing. It meant traipsing up and down the stairs to find all the things while wearing a mask (because Covid).
Even though I work out, I apparently don't work out enough. I was really struggling to breathe by the end of it and finally coaxed the kids away from wanding with doughnuts. We took the doughnuts back to our room to change and headed to the waterpark. Whereas before only the older kids had done the waterslides and lily pads, this time Penny got brave and went on both a waterslide and the lily pads. The kids absolutely love the lily pads and it was fun to watch them go on them over and over again. It's like a live version of Wipe Out.
Eventually the kids got hungry again so it was back to our room to eat some lunch. When we finished lunch they decided to do some more of the wanding. I felt blah so I wimped out early on and made Tyler take over. Then we squeezed in another trip to the waterpark before we went to the lobby to play BINGO. Tyler and Ben won the first two rounds of BINGO so when Ben was about to win the third round, we told him not to say anything so another family could have a chance. The sweet boy kept quiet and a couple other families had the chance to win some prizes. Unfortunately Penny was not game with other families winning and was really upset that he didn't howl a BINGO and give her a prize. Lucky for this poor loser they gave everyone a prize in the end.
When BINGO ended it was dinner time so went to a place called The Little Fleet. It intrigued me because it had a few yummy sounding food trucks to choose from. It was a nice atmosphere and a beautiful day to be outside but quite honestly I was not super impressed with the food, especially for the price. The chicken nuggets Penny got looked like frozen ones from a store, the lemonade was watery and did not have enough sugar in it and my pulled pork sandwich was not super flavorful. BUT it was a super trendy/hipster place so I am sure it totally upped our cool factor.
For dessert we decided to go to Moomers because it had been recommended to me by a friend. I got a super delicious cow pie! Really it was 2 sugar cookies with cinnamon ice cream in the middle and I am such a sucker for cookies and ice cream. The ice cream place is right next to the dairy farm where they get there milk. Thankfully they do a good job hiding the cow smell which just left us with a really pretty views of a field, a farm and a herd of cows. We even got to watch the farmer feed his cows right before we headed out.
Our last adventure of the day was storytime at GWL. This is always my least favorite thing because you have to sit on the hard floor and listen to the story of "how the GWL was created" which is the same story each time we go. But at the end one of the characters comes out to take pictures and since we have to get our traditional picture, I bear through it. They were told they could take off their masks for the picture if they wanted but only Lucy heard those directions so everyone else remained mask. Although Steven never wears his correctly because it fogs up his glasses.
For our last morning at Great Wolf Lodge the kids finished their quests for Magiquest. The girls and Ben finished earlier and started to get bored so we went back to the room and rotted our brains with Teen Titans Go for a bit while Steven worked on finishing his quest. But soon we had to check out of our room so we went to find Steven and in doing so discovered one of the characters out and about to take pictures with.
As they were waiting on Steven and the boredom was growing, I decided to cave into one of Penny's earlier wishes and took her to build-a-bear. Earlier she had complained that everyone had a build-a-bear but her. This is mostly true- Steven doesn't have one but he has never wanted one. Her pure joy in making and getting one made it totally worth the cost. Plus it entertained her the whole drive home which was a definite bonus. She chose the girl wolf and named it Violet Fuzzy Hatch. And when asked to put a wish in it, she wished that her and Lucy could ride a unicorn.
When she finished making Violet, Steven was done with his quest so it was time for us to leave the Great Wolf Lodge. Usually when we go to the GWL it's winter and freezing outside so we never have gotten a chance to properly explore the city in it is in, Traverse City- which is a popular tourist destination. We decided to remedy that and went on a little hike to the Hippie Trees. The Hippie Trees are basically a collapsed Willow Tree that has been heavily graffitied. People graffiti it because they believe that it's roots are the portal to Hell and the graffiti is like an offering to it!? People are weird. It's near an abandoned mental hospital and I think that was sort of the origins of all the lore around it. For us it was just fun to see all the colorful painting and the kids really enjoyed climbing on the fallen limbs. Hopefully we didn't bring back any negative mojo from it ;)
I had Tyler pose by the limb that someone spray painted Trump's name on. Apparently they were trying to send him to Hell.
Steven stepped on a snake and so of course Tyler had to pick it up to make sure it was ok.
Afterwards we picked up lunch and ate it by the beach. It was super windy and all the kids were mad at me for making them eat outside because their food was blowing away. Then I did another mean thing and made them pose in the sand by the lake which meant now they had sand in their shoes. Goodness life is hard. We did discover a large dead fish in the water so that was fun. Tyler also had some fun skipping stones so not everyone had an awful time. Too bad the water was too cold or they might have enjoyed it more.
Our last destination was at The Cherry Republic and the was a poor choice because I now have a new addiction- Cherry Chocolate Covered Pretzels. Oh. My. Gosh. They were so amazing. I finished the bag in 3 days and that was with me exercising self control. The kids also got some yummy cherry licorice and cherry gummy bears and Tyler got a ton of different kinds of cherry soda. Everything was so expensive, otherwise I might have picked up some cherry salsa and pancake mix and other intriguing things. Maybe next time.
We hit one more store up in the downtown and the girls loved checking all the things out but the boys, not so much. So after that we took a picture at this awesome wall and considered our exploring done. I think honestly everyone was just ready to go home. It had been a good trip but they were all beat.
The rest of our week was just trying to catch up on our homeschooling, while the kids worked hard on teaching me patience. There are never any perfect homeschooling days. With 4 kids someone always seems to be having a rough day but we are chugging along. I worry often about my curriculum and if they are learning it or if they are getting all the things they need to. I just don't want them to get behind. But I am a worrier and I don't think I will ever not worry.
Our school days also seemed to be longer this week and it could've been because we were squeezing a 5 day work week into 3 days but it could also be because I'm needing to take more time with the boys to work on their math. There was also Steven's orthodontist appointment at lunchtime Thursday which stretched out the day- they want to do another round of braces for $6000. We're going to pass for now. And then Friday I had my dentist appointment where they yelled at me to floss again (I DO!) and stabbed my gums to death. These things kept our week busy and we didn't have any time to do extra fun things or hang with friends. But hopefully next week we can squeeze in a visit to the apple orchard for the start of Fall.
Also Lucy finished the newest Dog Man book this week and both her and Ben were inspired to make all the Dog Man characters from the book. They spent a couple hours on their creations so I figure that was good art for the week.
Funny/sad note was Lucy got mad at Penny this week for drawing eyelashes on her Melvin character and wrote "Penny is Fat" next to the eyelashes with a drawing of angry eyes. Sisters.
Lucy also created a bunch of papers that said "You're hired" and her and Penny were trying to hand them out to us so they could hire us to clean their room. They were really disappointed when no one wanted to be hired.
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