A Howling Great Time

It's without question the funnest gymnastics meet of the year! We've been looking forward to our return visit since last year's Great Wolf Lodge meet. The lodge is very Disney-esque in its attention to detail, cleaniness and kid-friendly atmosphere. It's currently all decked out in Winterfest decor.


Even the garbage cans are cute.


We pulled the kids out of school early so we could make the most of our one-night stay. We arrived at about 1:00 and were able to check into our room. The kids couldn't wait to get into the waterpark.

The Howling Tornado quickly became the family favorite. What a thrill!

With virtually no lines, the kids went over and over again.


The basketball hoops will always be a favorite for Caleb.

At about 4:00, I left my family playing in the water while I hurriedly got ready to coach my level 4's in their gymnastics meet. The meets are held right in the lodge in large conference rooms.

My team did so well, smoking all the competition to earn a big 1st place finish.

When I met up with the family again at about 9:00 p.m., they had just finished watching the little clock tower show complete with storytime. The girls were holding their wands and just getting ready to start MagiQuest. It's a really fun, interactive, adventure game which involves using a wand to activate objects throughout the lodge, each a step to the final quest which involves slaying the dragon.


Here's Alyssa and friend, Hailey, on their quest:

The game is turned off at 10:00 p.m. (which I think is just so smart) so Alyssa only got about half-way through. Jon and I put the kids to bed and then hit the arcade for a bit. Nothing like a little skee ball and friendly, spousal competition. Jon won.

We slept in the next morning, filled up at the breakfast buffet and then headed back to the waterpark for more sliding. Such fun!

At about noon, I pulled Alyssa out of the water to get her ready for her level 6 competition.

I was a bit worried about her being worn out after all this fun, but she did great at her meet! She got third on beam and bars and finished third all-around with a score of 35.55.

It was a really long meet but Alyssa wanted to slay that dragon before we left.

Here's Natalie working on her quest (and wearing her wolf ears):

Here's Alyssa activating the telescope with her wand:

At last the dragon had been slain and we couldn't have been more worn out. (The MagiQuest is a lot of running around--up and down flights of stairs all over the massive lodge. But it was such a great kind of tired. Fun memories for the whole family!