road trip - YEAH!!

Almost everyone in Oklahoma knows that when there's nothing do to, you drive to Texas. From Norman, a drive to Dallas can be made in under three hours (well, at least depending on who's driving and where exactly you're headed!)  During our time at josh's parents house, the boys had a three-day Fall Break...so the planner extraordinare Gigi planned a great trip to a place we'd never heard of - Great Wolf Lodge.

Great Wolf Lodge is an indoor waterpark and resort all in one.  It has restaurants, an arcade, a kids spa, and several other activities in addition to all the waterpark business.  The waterpark itself had some seriously scary tube rides, a specialized kids play area, a lazy river, and a wave pool.  Plus, it was a nice toasty 84 degrees, so it didn't matter that it was a little chilly outside.  

Of course, as we all loaded up on Thursday, we didn't know very much about the Great Wolf Lodge, but we were all excited to take a road trip together.  Emma, Samantha, Gigi and I rode down in one car, and all the boys, Josh and his dad rode in the Tahoe (which emma named "The Big Black Taxi").  Thanks to a portable DVD player and an assortment of snacks (I love America!!!), our car was pretty peaceful and there was a surprising amount of adult converstation, under the circumstances that there were two preschoolers in the car!

I tend to have a spotty history when it comes to remembering everything for big trips.  In fact, I've come to expect that I will usually forget something fairly important every time we go somewhere (not a good quality considering how much we travel!).  I won't go into gory details of things I've forgotten in the past, but this time...let's just say, I forgot....my camera!  HOW CAN YOU FORGET YOUR CAMERA ON A BIG TRIP!?!?  I can still picture it sitting on the chair in the garage....

Anyway, fortunately, I remembered my video camera which also has the capability to take still pictures...not particularly GOOD still pictures...but pictures nonetheless.  So after the horrible discovery that I forgot the camera,  I pulled out the substitute and snapped these pics at the Texas Visitors Center that served as a much-needed bathroom stop for prego mama.  

Emma, Dallas, Samantha, Nick, and Jason:

Then add in Josh and his parents:Ok, so we finally arrive at the Great Wolf Lodge after a satisfying lunch at Chick-fil-A. Yo, I was impressed at the place.  It was really super nice, the water park was a great size, and the accomodation was first-rate.  They had lots of special activities - like 8:00pm bedtime story hour - for the kids.  There was tons of stuff to do.  

Emma and Samantha mostly stayed in the toddlers pool, which was abundantly supplied with fun things.  They most loved these pipsqueak-sized jet skis that shoot out water...probably because Dallas was such a great sport and kept walking in front of the water, pretending to be shot down.  Over and over and over...to the incessant delight of my kids!

We personally kept encouraging them to  go down these waterslides...and they did, but not with tons of enthusiasm.  They spent a lot of time at the top of the waterslides!
I'm sorry I have so few pictures, because we had such a great time there.  It was great fun for our kids, who don't often get the chance to do cool waterpark stuff like that.

The Lodge was also conveniently located two minutes from Grapevine Mills Mall, a huge outlet mall in Texas.   One evening during our trip, we ate dinner at Rainforest Cafe, and then Debbie and I ditched all the kids with josh and his dad and we did some serious damage at the mall.  I think we barely made it out of there before we closed the place.   



After a fun weekend at the waterpark, Josh and I drove back by ourselves (leaving his parents with all five kids - that sounds like a great three-hour drive, don't you think?!) so we could go to the OU/Kansas game on Saturday.  --More pictures from that to come --