Great Wolf Lodge

For Christmas Mom and Dad got Matt and I a trip to Great Wolf Lodge. It's an indoor water park/hotel in Ohio. I have lots of friends who have been but we hadn't been yet. So Friday we woke the kids up from nap early and started the trek to Mason, OH. The drive up and back was not bad at all, except for the traffic on the way there. Cincinnati traffic at 4pm on a Friday was miserable. BUT we made it with no issues other than crankiness. We all went to dinner and then Ainsley immediately wanted to go to the water park :) There was a 'kiddie' area that was very toddler friendly for the girls. She started out on the little slides and moved her way up to the ones with a few little twists in them:) She even got to go down the slide with Anna Beth! 

insisted on taking her Belle dress with us 

refused to wear any bathing suit without stripes

That night was a struggle in our hotel room. It was our first hotel experience with two kids, and lets just say it didn't go great and resulted in one of us shushing parker in a dark bathroom at all hours of the morning.  so the next morning philip and I drank LOTS of caffeine and ventured back to the water park:) We all 4 drifted around the lazy river and played in the fountains. we ate lunch in the water park so Ainsley could go back out and play until nap time. 

rachel and I both love target- hence the unplanned bathing suits:) 

Very close to our room was a big arcade, or "play room" as Ainsley liked to call it. She got to go bowling, drive a school bus and win prizes (teddy bears, balls, and little cars) for everyone. She loved the play room and always asked to go back :)

this is when she pushed the button before philip told her to but caught a unicorn- she was SO HAPPY 

Sunday afternoon I made her an appointment at "Scoops Spa", the little-girl spa at the resort. She wanted to get her toenails painted and had a very hard time deciding what color she wanted. She thought she wanted yellow but nanny and I were able to steer her away from that color and she picked out a bright pink with glitter. She got to wear a pink robe and a princess tiara. I have never seen her sit to still or be so polite and reserved. It was seriously cracking us up. But she loved her toes and refused to wear shoes to dinner so she could look at them. 

That night after dinner we took her back to the water park with just philip and I. This was probably one of the best parts of the trip for us. We were able to just spend time with her and take her on the "big girl"slides. She said the first was one was "a little scary" but the second time we did it she said "it wasn't scary at all!". She laughed and smiled the entire time we were in there and it made our hearts just about burst to see her having so much fun.  One of her favorite parts of the weekend was calling nanny and pop in their hotel room. she would say 'whatcha doin?" when they answered. she even called the front desk once and said " I would like two pink diet cokes please".  Parker refused to sleep all 3 nights, despite our best efforts to keep him awake during the day. The hardest part was us trying to keep him quiet to prevent waking ainsley up all night. So one morning he woke up at 530 and was clearly not going back to sleep. I ended up taking him for a drive, getting coffee and doughnuts and then just hanging out in the car until everyone else woke up:)  so the last night Ainsley spent the night in nanny pop's room and parker *may have* slept in the pack n play in the shower lol. He still didn't sleep but we didn't have to jump up to keep him quiet at least. Good news is that he was happy all day long and rarely got fussy. Too hard to be upset with a baby who just grins and laughs at you:)

This weekend could not have been designed any better for Ainsley. She seriously had the best time of her little life and was the happiest she has been in a long time. She was completely in her element and loved 'going for a little walks' in the hallways with Pop, waking up and getting to run down the hall to nanny pops room, playing arcade games, getting ice cream at night and just being with her family :)  Thanks Mom and Dad for the trip! We had such a good time!!! 

what daddy got her with his winning tickets 

my two favorite boys