Grapevine REC with friends

Rebekah:

I love my friends at school but I don't get to see them much during non-school times.  Today was an exception and a great one at that.  We met at the REC during their preschool water park time and we had so much fun (non-residents are allowed for $5/person).  At first, I must admit, I was pretty scared to go up the steps.  There was water spraying everywhere and we all know how I feel about that.  Mommy finally carried me up and I got sprayed a lot, but somehow I made it down the slide and LOVED IT!  It took a lot longer for Hannah to feel okay about the spraying water everywhere, but eventually Mom was able to sit down, relax, and take these awesome pictures and videos.

Here we are just playing together.  You can see at the end of the video where 8 gazillion gallons of water falls from this wheel thingy up above by the slide.  We always timed our trips up the slide to start right AFTER this dumpy.

When Hannah tried doing the slide by herself, it was still really scary.  Mommy carried her over the "mushroom" numerous times, but then friends started helping.  Here is when Ansley helped her all the way to the top.  Ansley is such a great friend to us!

After a while, Hannah was brave enough to do it all by herself, including the mushroom!!

Speaking of this "mushroom" here it is.  I won't tell you how long it took to get me here!!

Great Wolf Lodge - First Family Vacation

Rebekah:

Did you know that we have never had a family vacation?  Hannah and I have never slept anywhere at night except our own beds (well, I slept one night elsewhere when I was 13 months but I obviously don't remember it).  Mommy and Daddy spent 2 years deciding to take us to spend the night at the Great Wolf Lodge for our first family vacation.  You know what?  It was awesome!

But first, Mommy and Daddy picked us up from school.  They had been talking a lot about the Great Wolf Lodge and showing us pictures of hotel rooms and such, but we thought we were just headed home.  As we sat in the parking lot, they told us what we were going to do:

First, we had no idea what a hotel was prior to that morning.  That whole concept of sleeping in a bed in a giant building was really abstract for me.  When we checked in, we were given wolf ears.  And I could see the water park.  Both were really good at getting me excited.

We quickly went to our room and changed our clothes.  Did you know that our room had a bathroom in it?  How crazy is that!?  After we had our swimsuits on, we headed to the waterpark.  Fortunately, I am juuuust barely tall enough to cross the 42" mark and ride some of the really cool slides that Hannah can't ride yet.  We started out with the easy stuff.

We found this itty bitty teeny weeny little green slide that Mom thought was fun.  I didn't like the spraying water in my face.  That was a theme that popped up a lot during our time at the water park.

I was scared to go down this little yellow slide at first so Mommy caught me to make sure I was safe.

After that, I was a pro.  Look at me now!

Then there was the blue slide.  Hannah went for it pretty quickly, but it took me quite a while before I was willing to give it a try.  Mommy told me I would love it, but it was just a little scary looking.  Sure enough Mom was right.

Hannah liked going down on her belly.

After that we went to check out the wave pool.

Then Mommy somehow convinced me to go on one of the really big slides - the orange one.  It was a double inner tube slide where Mommy rode behind me and wrapped her legs around me to keep me so safe.

Then we did the yellow slide.  I thought it was fun for a while until I got sprayed with water.  I definitely did not like that.  I didn't ride the yellow slide again but we did the orange slide many times.

Then there was this really giant circular inner tube slide that we rode, but again we only did it once because I didn't really like it.

After that, we had a good feel for the water park and we got to go back a few more times.  We spent a ton of time on the little blue and yellow slides, but the wave pool was always a hit too.

Sometimes Mommy would stop us for a little interview:

This picture below is cool because they had a hot tub that also went outside.  Like, it was inside AND outside at the same time.  Seriously.  We were swimming outside in the dark with the cool breeze on our faces and the warm water below.  How cool.

This is wave pool fun!!

Here is a cute Mommy Hannah interview.  I can hardly hear them but did you see the smile on Hannah's face?  She totally had the time of her life.

 

Mommy went down the little slides with us a few times and that was probably my favorite part.  I love playing with her.

They also had a big bucket dumpy that was way too scary for me to get anywhere close to, but Daddy wanted to show us that the bucket dumpy wasn't scary at all.

In addition to our water play, we did a few other things.  We ate pizza in our hotel room.  Mommy was trying to explain that the very couch we were sitting on was going to turn into a bed.  I was so confused.

We eventually tried to sleep on that couch-bed thingy.  I have never slept in the same bed as my sister and Hannah has never slept in a big bed before, so I guess the cuteness and innocence of it left pretty quickly after this picture:

Let's just say the night didn't go so well.  There was some giggling, some crying.  Okay fine there was a lot of both of those in no particular order, but we all survived.

In the morning, we went and ate breakfast at a buffet.  Again, my parents tried to explain this whole buffet concept.  There were so many new things on this trip and my mind has been totally blown!  I love this little interview Mommy did with us in our room that morning.

We also saw a little Clock Tower show where the pretend animals and people moved and sang and talked.

Here are some pictures of the water park before it opened in the morning.  It was so serene.

Here is some cuteness for you.

When we got home, we ate some lunch and then put Hannah down for her nap.  She went to sleep really fast!  I went to my room for my regular quiet time, but somehow this happened:

That's the first time I've taken in nap in years.  Literally years.  Like, 2.5 years!!  Even Mommy went and took a nap and she only naps if she has a fever!

Hannah slept so long Mommy had to go and wake her up. She was super asleep.

All in all, we had a fantastic family vacation.  Yes, it was only 1 night and only 15 minutes from home, but it was a trip of a lifetime.  We still need to figure out the whole sleeping/not crying thing, but hey, at least we had a great time!