Great Wolf Lodge

The kids had a week off school last week ("winter break") and we went on a little trip to Southern California.  Our first stop was the Great Wolf Lodge in Garden Grove (just a short distance from Disneyland). We have been to the flagship Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells but this was our first time visiting the newish one in Anaheim.  Great Wolf Lodge is a hotel aimed at kids with a large indoor waterpark and various other kid activities.  It's a fun place.  We got a room for one night but you are allowed to swim the day you check in starting at 1pm and the day you check out until the waterpark closes (8pm or so).  Only hotel guests can use the waterpark.  Here we are checking in.  The kids all got wolf ears.

Checking out the waterpark before we head down there

We got to check into our room a little early and then went to the waterpark for several hours.  Maybe when our kids are older we'll be able to go all day at a water park but I think we only made it 3 1/2 hours this afternoon before some people started getting tired.  I didn't take pictures at the waterpark but it was cool.  They have lots of big slides, a wave pool, a large climbing structure with several slides on it, a lazy river, a large lap sized pool a little kids pool with a few small slides (for Emma's size), a surfing activity and some outdoor water play toys.  We didn't go outside.

After many hours of water play we ordered a pizza from the hotel pizza restaurant and ate it in our room while watching the Lego movie.  Then we explored the hotel a little bit.  They have a kids game there called MagiQuest.  We played it at the one in Wisconsin too and Matthew was hooked!  You have a wand that interacts with different things throughout the hotel and you go on different quests through the hotel.  There are several different ones.  Each game costs money and takes 6 to 8 hours to complete.  Matthew brought his old wand to use and he and Grant played the game.  Some of the other kids accompanied them on some of the quests but got scared or bored after a short time.   Here are Grant and John looking at a dragon that they will fight later.  Grant and Matthew played MagiQuest for several hours that first night.

Anna checking out the sleeping arrangements in our room

Blurry John on one of the kids beds

After dinner we got some ice cream

Matthew and Grant back on their MagiQuest adventure.

They got about half their game completed the first night.

Here we are the next morning ready to hit the water park!

There was a little kids show going on.  Very Disney.

We played in the water park for another 4 hours or so before people started getting tired.

Then Matthew finished his MagiQuest game (with Grant's help)

Here he is fighting the dragon

While they finished their game the rest of us played tiny bowling at this bowling alley in the hotel

The small bowling balls were a good size for the kids

Scott got a midair shot of Emma

Emma, John and Anna all did a great job.  I think they all got strikes at one point.  Way to go!

After bowling Matthew got to participate in the MagiQuest knighting ceremony because he finished the game.

Grant helped him so he got to participate a little bit

We said goodbye to Great Wolf Lodge and headed south the Carlsbad so we could visit Legoland.

Carlsbad is about halfway between Anaheim and San Diego and its one of my favorite places in California.  Sigh.  We made good time getting to Carlsbad and had dinner at Ruby's (a 1950s themed diner).  Then we headed to our hotel for the night.  

We stayed in Grand Pacific Palisades right next to Legoland.  The hotel was great!  I definitely recommend it.  And it was only a short walk to Legoland.  This is the hotel lobby.

Pinewood Derby

The pinewood derby was a little early this year which means Matthew got to do it one more time before turning 11.  It works out 'cause with all the moving he had only done one other pinewood derby before moving here.  Then he got to do one last April and one this year just before turning 11.  The Webelos leaders helped the boys make the car which was nice.  Here's Matthew with his car.

Scott and I waiting for the races to begin.

The pack committee went all out.  They had fancy decorations and quite a nice cake!

Everyone was excited about cake.

Matthew with his Webelos leader post race.  After the races Matthew got to race all three of his cars from the past years.  We found out last years car was the fastest.  :)  And now we are off the hook for pinewood derby races until Grant turns 8.  He'll be 7 in April.

And here are a few bonus pics of recent adventures.

Emma practicing her two wheel bike.

John scraped his knee and his face running home from the mail box one day.  Poor John.

Emma and Scott having time together.  We've started a new thing a few months ago where one week of the month is Dad's week and one is Mom's week.  Each day of the week one kid gets to spend 20 minutes extra with mom or dad (depending on who's week it is) doing whatever they want, within reason.  Most kids choose to play video games or watch you tube videos.  The kids get really excited when its their day.  Since we have five kids Matthew goes on Monday, Anna on Tuesday all the way through Emma on Friday.  That's also how we decide who says the prayer at dinner each night.  Scott does Sunday and special occasions and I do Saturday.  This extra time seemed like a good idea at the time but as a result I have played a lot video games with the kids lately at their request.  And I have to endure such comments from them as, "hey mom, you didn't come in last this time!"  I'm not a big gamer.  :). But I'm trying to not worry about that and enjoy the time together learning about something they are interested in.

Scott and I have spent lots of time cleaning the house lately.  Cleaning up the office was a big task.

Here is the after.  Still kinda cluttered but much better.

Scott and the kids work on puzzles sometimes on Sunday afternoon.  We have church at 9am now which I am happy about.  Better than 1pm.  Scott and I are still teaching the Sunbeams (3 year old kids) and we have Emma in our class this year.  We have about 4 other kids and Emma is pretty well behaved most of the time.  More adventures to come...

Local Exploration

A few Fridays ago the kids had the day off school.  Scott was working from home that day so the kids and I went out in the afternoon for a picnic so Scott could have some quiet work time.  It was an ambitious undertaking 'cause we went by foot to the park which is 1.5 miles away from our house.  Matthew and Anna rode bikes and the younger three walked.  I also brought the double jogger stroller for rides and to carry our picnic supplies.  Grant and Emma found a snail to look at here.  Getting to the park was slow going for the walkers but we made it.  The kids alternated getting rides and walking.

Here we are at the park enjoying our lunch.  The kids were sorry when the ice cream man showed up and I didn't have money with me for ice cream.  Matthew insisted that we use our picnic basket even though it was bulky and I had to bungee it to the stroller to get it to stay put.  He thought the picnic would be more authentic if we used a real picnic basket.

We ate our lunch and played on the toys for a little while then we went down by the creek.

The creek runs right by our house and there is a bike path along it that we followed to the park and that I run on several days a week.  There's a wide place near the park.  We threw rocks in and explored a little bit.

Where the road goes over the creek - Silva's Crossing.  This road flooded last winter when we got so much rain.  No danger of flooding this year.

Exploring among the eucalyptus.  

We had fun exploring then started home.  1 1/2 miles go by quickly when running.  When corralling five kids it is somewhat slower.  Here are Grant and John taking a break on the way home.  There was a lot of rock collecting and running mixed with being very tired.  We eventually made it home.  

Before I took the kids to the park on foot I had already gone for a six mile run in the morning, so I got lots of steps that day.  Phew!  A normal running day I might get around 14,000 steps.  A non-running day maybe 6000.  As a rough estimate I figure 2000 steps is about a mile.  The kids were tired that night.

Somewhere during our picnic Matthew went off road and came home with a whole family of spiky thorns stuck in his bike tires.  Big poky ones.  Next time he wanted to go riding we noticed them all and saw that both his tires were flat.  We removed all the pokers (not the scientific name) and I got some new tubes a few days later.  I endeavored to change his tires a few days later.  I only had a little trouble getting the front brakes to work right again.  I haven't changed many bike tires with gears on them I guess.  I got through it.  I have gotten several flat tires on the jogger stroller from those poky spike things.

I tried to look them up (here's a picture) and I think they might be called goat head thorns 

(aka puncture vine).  They are a nasty business.  No more bike off roading there.

Another day the kids and I went on an off road exploration (without bikes) of the creek.  Matthew went down in the creek bed last year with his school class.  There are lots of winding paths to explore.  Anna had a school project and stayed home with Scott and the other kids went on a walkabout. We walked on the bike path a little until we got to the offroad part.

Matthew was our pathfinder.  We didn't even encounter too much mud.

It has been really warm.  I think it was in the high 70s on this day.  It was a Sunday afternoon and lots of people were out barbecuing.  Pretty nice for January.

In one part we went down by the creek which is very small these days.

Here's our exploration crew!  It's nice to have such fun things to explore so close to home.  Getting home didn't take too long - we were less than a mile from home.  It was fun.