Our city has seen quite a bit of water in the past couple of weeks. 9 inches overnight, kind of water. Ordinarily I love rain. Love, love, love it. But this was too much, even for me. Thankfully our house escaped any sort of flood damage. Our basement was humid but dry.

Our garden, however, was not so lucky.


Look at that. Everything was washed away except for two sad little tomato plants. This weekend will be spent adding soil, re-planting seeds, and hoping they grow.

It was fascinating to drive around parts of town and see where the water had accumulated. There were lakes where no lakes were supposed to be. We saw a baseball field so far underwater that the fences were almost totally submerged. But as much fun as the water in our yards, streets, and nearby creeks was to look at, we couldn't swim in any of it. Instead we spent a night at the Great Wolf Lodge and exhausted ourselves at their indoor waterpark.

We've never stayed at a Great Wolf Lodge, but someone had forwarded a coupon with such an amazing deal we could not pass it up! Last month we reserved our room, and Monday we checked in for a family mini-break.

The room was wonderful, and the atmosphere of the hotel was a mini-resort decorated in a Pacific Northwest Woods theme. I won't bore you with too many details; you can look at their website for the nitty-gritty. But I will tell you that we loved the craft activities planned for kids during the daytime hours. Brogan spent an hour making a Mother's Day gift and listening to stories. At bedtime, the animatronic display in the lobby presents a 10 minute musical, and then someone on the hotel staff reads a bedtime story to the kids. We felt spoiled.

The real reason we went was the indoor waterpark. Here is the 3 story play structure for smaller children. It had ramps and ropes and dripping buckets and two waterslides for smallish children to ride. The boys played here for a long time!




At the top of the play structure is a giant bucket that slowly fills with water. Every few minutes, a bell rings which signals the imminent tipping of the bucket. Below you can see the water from the bucket drenching children underneath.



The water was warm. Bathtub warm. There was no slow, easing into the water. You could just jump right in. It was glorious!

Behind the play structure you can sort of see the water slides. There were 3 water slide/ tube rides that went both inside and outside of the building, so you got a great ride!

We went swimming twice on Monday afternoon and evening, and then again Tuesday morning before we checked out.

Brogan was fearless. He rode down anything we put him on, and by the end of our stay he would ride down the slides in a single tube by himself, instead of a two-person tube. Here's Colson watching M., Braden, and Brogan come out of the scary, scary three-person tube slide.


Colson rode down slides with M. He was a little tricky, because he has basically no body mass. One little bump in the slide would send him flying out of the tube, so we had to hang onto him when we rode. On the first ride, Colson flew off the tube and went sliding down on his bottom. Knowing there was deep water at the end, M. ditched the tube and was able to catch up to Colson just before they submerged. No tears from Colson though. I think he thought that was supposed to happen.

Colson went down every slide, even the ones that made me nervous. Here he is after the scary green slide, telling the lifeguard all about it.