Photo-A-Day #4116

Today was our full day at the Great Wolf Lodge waterpark. We started off with another ride down the Canyon River Run. When we got to the bottom Eva and I went up to the Howlin’ Tornado. I also took my phone and the XShot with me. I was holding it to film Eva who was directly across from me on the raft. I ended up going down backwards because I was the heaviest person on our raft. I was on with Eva and to kids. We went down the tube and then dropped down into the huge drain. When you do that you go down one side and up the other. I kept having the problem that when water splashed the phone it shut off the recording. I got a fairly good shot of Eva seeing the giant drop for the first time. Some great expressions on her face for that. It is in the vlog for today.

After the Howlin’ Tornado. Eva and I were a bit shaken. It was scary but fun. We got our nerves back by hanging out in the wave pool for a while.Once we were relaxed we went across the way to the other waterpark and played in the Fort Mackenzie area for a while then Allison and Eva did the lazy river and Andrew and I kept playing in Fort Mackenzie. While in there my glasses got blasted off my face and I didn’t realize it. Then I stepped on those glasses and scratched them all up. I hope that I am still covered by the Crizal warranty. There are plenty of scratches on them now. Later on Andrew would lose his Frogglez.

We had lunch by the Lazy River and then the kids tried crossing the Big Foot Pass. They both did a great job on it.

We hadn’t been back to Great Wolf Lodge since the grand opening two years ago. At that time the kids were younger and so we didn’t do any of the slides. One thing that Allison noticed when we were there the first time was the training we saw in all the lifeguards. They were awesome, always moving, always scanning the pools, hand signals to the other guards. This could have been a sort of “everyone on their toes because the boss is there” sort of thing but it wasn’t. We saw that same level of training and care from the lifeguards this time around. In fact everyone we came into contact with was friendly and warm and so good to the kids.

It was time to tackle the slides on this side of the waterpark. Andrew was all about the Otter Run, which is a slide that you go down on your back with your arms and legs crossed. He had to be pushed each time but he loved it and did it a bunch of times. I tried one of the Alberta Falls slides in a tube and went down on the tube the wrong way and so got spun around and I jolted my right shoulder. I was a bit gunshy about going down the light tunnel so I figured out the right way to use the tube and went down the dark tunnel over and over. Eva however, loved the light tunnel and did that a bunch of times.

Today we also got the kids their Clubhouse kids stuffed animals. We did this in the morning before we did the waterpark. We did the little adventure and the kids got their Mike and Ike candy, and their personalized leather bracelets. We also did more of the MagiQuest quests. Eva was all about MAgiQuest. She’s so into Harry Potter that MagiQuest was perfect for her. I enjoyed doing it with her. Andrew enjoyed it was well but he just liked waving his wand around over and over.

Tonight we picked up Grandma Eva and went to Grandpa Bob and Grandma Jackie’s for dinner. We had a nice dinner of pizza and salad on the screened in 3 season room. The weather was so mild, too. Not the hot and humid days of July that I was expecting.

We got back to the room around 8pm and did some more MagiQuest then down to the lobby to see the nighttime show. Allison took Andrew back tot he room early and then I took Eva outside to see the Howlin’ Tornado lit up. It was the least I could do with her being so brave ad riding it today.