Fall is in the air! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Fall and so as I feel the temperatures drop and see the leaves start to turn, I get so excited! Before we could launch into to fall, we had to finish up a few summer events. The first, is the harvesting of our garden. My girls decided to do a garden for one of their ten hour Personal Progress projects. They planted six tomato plants in our backyard and we were amazed at the harvest! Even after the first, second and third picking, the plants are still laden with tomatoes. Because we had so many, I taught the girls how to can them. Our food storage shelves are now filled with jars of canned, home grown tomatoes.
The next big event was our Girl's Camp fireside held last Sunday. We were able to reunite with all of our Girl's Camp friends and units. We hardly recognized each other as we were all clean and dressed nicely. We had a few speakers and then a great slide show. This picture is of half of our unit...a few of our girls disappeared right after the slide show. Don't we all look nice and clean?
Lastly, we have been unable to take any family trips this summer (except for our Ward campout and Girl's camp) as Casey is SO busy and rarely has any stress free time. Because this weekend was Labor day and there are not many weddings on Labor day weekend, he was fairly free this last week. We quickly threw together a fun two day get-a-way with just our family.
Here was our destination:
This place was awesome! It is in Grand Mound, Washington (about three hours from where we live). It is a giant indoor waterpark with six big slides, a wavepool, and TONS of children's playgrounds. The rooms are all themed and one night's stay in the hotel gets you unlimited access to the waterpark for two whole days! We had so much fun!
Allison had been to the Great Wolf Lodge the previous summer with a friend (Cassandra) and she has been begging us to take our family someday. She was particularly excited for this trip!
I didn't see much of the older girls (and Casey) for most of the day as they immediately hit the big waterslides. After a while, Lydia decided that she would be brave enough to go on the innertube ones so I too got to experience the waterslides...and the endless stairs that led to the slide. Oh my, we must have hiked those things at least 20 times!
My camera has a "sports" setting on it so i could take these great shots of the family as they emerged from the tubes on their rafts.
This slide was our favorite because the whole family could be on the raft together!
Lydia was my little sidekick all day. She wore her lifejacket the entire time without complaint. I think she felt like she was one of the big girls because they actually let her go on all of the waterslides.
We played in the park from 3:00 until 9:00. Afterwards, we grabbed some dinner and headed back to our "Kid's Cabin" themed room. There were bunkbeds for the kids to sleep in. The girls were asleep the instant their heads hit the pillow. Surprisingly, Casey and I slept really great too. (We usually don't sleep well in hotels.)
The hotel also has a game called "Magic Quest." With magic wands, the kids can roam the hotel, pointing at things that then become animated. There are nine "quests" that they can complete. The Boorens had been to the Wolf Lodge a few months earlier and had purchased one of the wands. We borrowed it and were surprised to see that we just had to re-set it and it worked beautifully. It saved us $30! Thanks Boorens!
The girls spent 3 hours completing all nine quests.
You would think after such a grueling day, we would want to go home and be done right? Oh no! We decided to go to this adorable little amusement park in Portland called "Oaks Amusement Park." It is like a permanent fair right in downtown Portland. The rides were just your typical fair rides but with a $13 bracelet, the girls got to go on everything all day long. Being thrill junkies, they were in heaven!
We have almost reached that stage where all of our kid are over the height requirement to go on the rides! Lydia was just barely too short for a few of them but she was able to get on most everything else!
Here are a few of the rides we went on:
The kiddie coaster. The big girls went on this just one time. Lydia however spent most of her evening doing this coaster over and over.
They got the "Rockin' Tug" all to themselves.
Casey used to be able to spend a whole day at an amusement park and go on everything multiple times. Now that he is older, he can't handle the spinning rides too well. He is feeling his age :)
Lydia was so funny on the Ferris Wheel. She is terrified of heights and she covered her eyes the entire time.
Casey tried really hard to get a good picture of the girls on the Soaring Eagle ride. He stood right underneath the ride as it threw the girls into the air. He was able to get a few decent shots. They loved this ride the very best!
As the sun started to set, we finished our evening with Icees. The kids were so exhausted. So much for a relaxing vacation. We don't really do that very well. With only two short days, we had to pack as much in as we could! All in all, it's been a great summer. We are looking forward to the start of school this week!
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