Great Wolf Lodge

Tuesday morning, after family worship, Mom and Dad announced that we were going on a surprise vacation for the next two days to Great Wolf Lodge. We were given 90 minutes to get packed and ready to go. My first thoughts were about school - do I have enough of a grip on my school to take two days out of my week? However, Mom assured me she had taken care of that.

Then, as I was feeding Joy Anna breakfast an hour later, Dad came in from loading the car and said, "Danielle, go outside and greet your guest for the trip." I couldn't help but think "What?!"

When I went outside, there was my friend Molly. I was absolutely stoked. Until an hour before, I had absolutely no idea that we were going anywhere, and now we were going to a very fun water park with one of my good friends.

When we got to the water park, we found out some more of our good friends were there too. It turns out, it was home-school day at Great Wolf Lodge, so we saw a bunch of people we recognized.

Another thing we found out was that Dad purposely had us leave early (and get there before anyone else) so we could eat lunch at Five Guys. That would be dad. :-D

At Great Wolf Lodge, there were many different water slides and pools for different ages and heights. I suddenly felt a little nervous, hearing that one of the slides had a drop (!), so I started with the "easy" slides. One of them had double tubes so two people could ride at the same time.

Nathan and Promise coming off the tube water slide

 Nathan tried to encourage Molly and I to try out the "Howlin' Tornado" water slide, the one with the drop, but I decided to build up to it. I wasn't sure how to deal with a drop. Finally, after trying all the other slides, I agreed to ride the Tornado.

In reality, I was so scared, I could scarcely breath. Wild adventure is not usually my thing. The tube for the Tornado held four people, so Nathan, Molly, Grace, and I rode it together. Then the life guard purposely flipped the tube so I rode backwards. Thanks a lot, dude. There were many twists then suddenly the enclosed slide got dark. There was a light up ahead, which I could barely see because I was having to look over my shoulder.

Then suddenly we were dropping. I'd guess the drop was about five feet. I started screaming, "I'm going to die!" When the drop ended, we ended in an open area where the tube flew up the sides. I was certain we were going to fall out so I continued to scream, "I'm going to die!" Then as suddenly as the excitement started, it ended. And I was still alive.

And would you believe it? The Howlin' Tornado became my favorite ride! Though every time I rode it, I still screamed like there was no tomorrow on the drop. The funniest part about the ride was when I rode it with Isaac and his friend Luke. Luke can seems very calm and steady, not the type of person who would scream on a water slide. But I was wrong. The moment the slide started moving, he started screaming like a girl. I was laughing so hard, I almost forgot to scream. :-D

Another funny part was Grace. She didn't have her "ears" on, so she could hear nothing. Whenever we went down a water slide with her, she'd cackle like a maniac. It was hilarious. But she was a big dare devil (surprise, surprise) and her favorite ride was the Tornado also. Actually, she drove the life guards crazy because she wouldn't respond when they blew the whistle at her... Haha!

And now here's some pictures from our mini-vacation.

Decoration on the wall of the hotel room. I thought it was pretty cool.

Some creepy animatronic creatures in the lobby who put on a show...

Stuffed wolf.

I wanted to get a picture of the front of the Lodge, since it was really cool with a wolf on either side, but it was raining so I had to content myself with standing under the portico getting side profiles.

The kiddy fort. Joshua loved it! The bucket on the top would fill with water then dump everywhere. I stood under it once with about five other people, only to be surprised at how hard the water came down. Seriously? They could knock someone out with it! Ok, maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration... :-D

My little friend, Sophie. :-D