Great Wolf Lodge

We went on a mini vacation this week to Cincinnati and the Great Wolf Lodge. We planned it months ago, knowing that our little water baby would love it. Imagine our surprise when 2 weeks before we left, he decided he hated pools. He didn't want to go near them, which was surprising because he still loved the sprinkler pad and loved water.

To our relief, he started to warm back up to pools shortly before we left and while we were there he starting jumping back in again. Whew!

After the 2 hour drive (which was great for a nap!) we stopped to eat lunch.


We started by eating at the Rootbeer Stand. I'd heard Anne talking about it and knew that we would have to stop there. It was kind of a hole in the wall type place, but was so good and we loved eating outside.




Then we went to IKEA - yay! And we (er, Santa) did some early Christmas shopping for Luke. No pictures of the shopping trip, but Jason also bought Luke a little train set that he loved playing with in the hotel room.


Finally, at Great Wolf Lodge!


We had so much fun playing in the water park! There was a whole toddler area with some toddler slides - Luke went down a few times, but had a hard time staying in a sitting position. His favorite was the whole Fort MacKenzie area - a huge fort with all sorts of splashes.






There was also a wave pool and a lazy river - both where he had to wear a life vest. He hated it at first, but got used to it and was happy to put it on when he realized he could go do other things with it on.




There was also a fun outdoor area - as you can see, our waterbaby is back!


We did some fun things away from the resort as well. The waterpark itself didn't open until 10am, so on Thursday morning we went to a nearby park. Luke loved the ducks!


Other highlights were a trip to an outlet mall, and dinner at Frish's Big Boy!



Back at the lodge, we also played in an area called Cub Club that had some arts and crafts and lots of toddler toys. There was also a fun game called Magiquest that older kids could play - you had a wand and went on an adventure throughout the lodge - Jason and I almost wanted to sign up!



One of Luke's favorite things were the pictures of dogs (aka wolves) that were on every single door. Every.single.time we walked down the hallway he would point them out. And yes, that is how he says dog. (Although I'm happy to report that just today he started saying it the right way! Well, almost ...)


At night they have a little show at the clock tower and then read a bedtime story. The kids show up in their pjs - and if you're Luke and especially when it's an hour after your bedtime, you also show up with your paci and blankie.


Poor little guy was worn out!


We had such a great time on our very first family-of-3 vacation!