On Tuesday December 3, we went to a dinosaur-themed class at Olbrich. It was so fun; we all loved it! Kate got to "excavate" a dinosaur in a "rock," do a relief painting with a fossil, play with dinosaur figures, and do a scavenger hunt in the conservatory.
So as usual I've been behind in my blogging, and am now sitting down to hammer out some posts, so expect quite a few scheduled over the next week!
We've been having a wonderful Christmas season. We loved that my mom was here for Thanksgiving, and we had a perfect holiday weekend. Lots of good food, laughter, and relaxing. We also fit in a lot of movies; on Wednesday night my mom watched the kids so Dan and I could go to dinner and see Delivery Man, which was so good. On Saturday, we saw Frozen, which was also very good, and Dan took Kate to see Free Birds on Friday while my mom, Owen and I went over to Tracy's to play games and watch movies.
Dan and I realized that we hardly ever take vacations just as our family; we've gone away just the two of us of course, and we've done things as a family along with extended family, but we've never gone anywhere just our immediate family. I'm not complaining, of course; I love traveling with family, and we always have a blast in Disney World with my mom, or up at the Dells for our annual summer trip with my mom, Tracy, et. all, etc. but we decided it was time to go somewhere with just our little group. So since the Boys' and Girls' Club of Dane County was offering passes to the Great Wolf Lodge waterpark for only $13 each (and all proceeds benefited the club) we decided to make a weekend of it. We drove up Friday evening and ate dinner at Sprechers before checking into our lakeside room at Sunset Bay. It was just your standard, relatively inexpensive hotel room, but it clearly was a treat to Kate! We had fun vegging out in bed, eating junk food and watching cable (which we do not have!)
On Saturday we spent the day at the Great Wolf Lodge waterpark; Kate and I had a blast going down the "fastest tube slide in the world" (as she calls it), and Owen really enjoyed his first time in the water (yes, it was his first time, the kid is two months old and we still hadn't given him a bath prior to our trip, although of course we have now, to wash off the chlorine. And no, we're not neglectful parents, we just don't want to dry out his delicate skin, and it's not like he's working construction and getting sweaty, so....) That night we ordered pizza and watched Ice Age, which Kate loved.
Sunday, we went to the Kalahari indoor theme park, since we got free passes from our hotel. It was a lot of fun; I don't think I would have paid the $29 for an adult ticket, but for free, it was definitely a fun time. Kate's favorite was the go-karts (which she technically wasn't supposed to ride, but the guy wasn't paying attention and let her on anyway--I didn't realize until after the fact that she was too short for it!) She had a blast. Then we went to lunch at Buffalo Phil's, which had mediocre food, but it was delivered on a train, so in Kate's eyes, it was a win. We then swam at Great Wolf from 3-7, with Dan and me taking turns on who had Kate and who had Owen. It was such a fun weekend! We are already planning on going back in February to beat the winter blahs, but we will then probably stay on site at one of the resorts (either Kalahari or Great Wolf) since Owen will probably be on a more structured nap schedule (instead of just sleeping all day like now :)) so it'd be nice to be on site so we can go up to the room easily.
