This year we decided to skip Thanksgiving.
And by we I mean me.
Oh, everyone was on board with it; it just took a little convincing. (Josh is very much a traditionalist. Unless it comes to water slides - then tradition goes flying out the window!)
Not that I find anything wrong with Thanksgiving. It's a wonderful holiday, full of tradition and yummy food. But it's one day. Actually, it's one meal. One meal that takes a whole lotta money and prep and work, and quite frankly my children would probably turn their noses up at 95% of it. And I didn't want to deal with that. And our holiday buddies, the Souths, had moved. And my cousin was going to his sister's house. And we never really went on vacation over the summer.
So I decided Thanksgiving would be the perfect time to take a trip. I had been considering a trip up to Wisconsin Dells for quite some time, but it wasn't until I had talked to some of my Young Women at church when I decided this would be our destination. I had done a little research of the resorts in the area, but both girls agreed that the Wilderness Territory was where we should go.
So I did some more research. I had originally thought we'd all cram into one hotel room; we'd done it before, we'd survive. But Lance and I got to talking and decided it would be well worth the extra money to book a suite. Plus, it would have a kitchen, which meant we could save money by having breakfast and lunch there. (No, I did not cook dinner - I was on vacation!) I bit the bullet and booked a deluxe suite at the Glacier Canyon Lodge (part of the Wilderness Territory Resort).
The day before Thanksgiving I packed and cleaned and got everything ready to go. Tess had to be consoled several times; she thought we were leaving her again! She finally believed me and let go of my legs and then got into everything I was working on. Two year olds are fun. (Especially when modeling swim goggles.)
We jumped into the car soon after the boys got home from school. We had warned the kiddos that the 5+ hour car ride would be long, but there was still a chorus of "Are we there yet? throughout. (Starting with Cole, who asked if were were there while we were still in Lafayette.)
It was a long drive, but we survived. The kids were all pretty tired by the time we got to the resort, but perked right up once we opened the door to our suite. I'll admit that I was a little nervous, mainly because you never quite know what you're getting when you book a room; how the pictures look and how the room actually is can be two quite different things! Fortunately, the rooms were great! The kids ran around like crazy banshees while we settled in. After about 45 minutes everyone was ready for bed - except Tess. She was sharing a bed with Spencer and she was NOT happy about. (Not about Spencer - just not happy about not being in her own room.) It took a while but I finally got her to sleep.
The next morning the kids were all happy campers, chomping at the bit to go swimming. But first I made them take a picture for the grandparents. (This is the only picture where all were holding still and looking at the camera!)
Since the water parks don't open until 9am I took a few minutes to snap a few poor pictures of our suite. (If you look at the pictures here, they are exactly what our suite looked like before our kids destroyed it.)
The living area, where Tess and Spencer slept on the Murphy bed. The gas fireplace was a big hit.
Josh is almost always willing to pose for a picture. Except when he's not.
Looking in the other direction. The master bedroom and the kids' room are on the right.
The half bathroom.
The little kitchen. (With nicer counters than I have!) ((This is not hard. My counters are awful.))
Cole, of course slept on the top bunk. Josh insisted on making his bed. He does not do this at home.
They even had their own TV, which they thought was pretty cool. Spongebob could be heard in the wee hours of the morning.
The full bathroom.
The master bedroom. Not the nicest room I've ever stayed in (that was here), but it was still pretty great.
There was a master light switch by the front door that turned off every single light in the suite. You can imagine how fun that was with our kids. Every minute or so you'd hear a chorus of "Turn the light back on!" or "Quite flicking the lights!" Later it turned to "LEAVE THOSE LIGHTS ALONE OR SO HELP ME!!!!!" It was kinda like that for the gas fireplace, too, which had a conveniently toddler-height switch.
Finally, it was time to go swim! The resort has 4 indoor water parks, although the fourth was only for little kids so we never went there. We decided to start with the Wild Waterdome, which boasts America's largest indoor wave pool.
But first we had to walk there.
Guys, seriously. It took forever. The resort is HUGE! You could get there without going outside; lots of covered skyways and walking through loooonng halls. But we didn't think to bring a stroller, so you can imagine how fast we were with four kids. We carried Tess 90% of the time, but it still took a good 15-20 minutes to get anywhere. Sheesh!
We finally made it to the pool! The boys were more than willing to jump right in, but Tess didn't want anything to do with it. In fact, she was pretty much a pill the entire trip, the stinker. Sometimes I'd force her to swim or sit on my lap while we floated on a tube, but most of the time Lance and I would just trade off dealing with her.
Lance during some "Tess-free" time. I'm pretty sure that's Cole's head splashing next to him.
Joshie in the waves.
Tess the pill. We'd only been there for an hour and she was begging to get out and dry off.
This place was pretty huge. It also had a fun tube slide that up to 4 people could go on. The slide was pitch black most of the way, and I thought for sure Cole would freak out on it, but he proved me wrong!
After a while we moseyed on over to Klondike cavern. It had a fun kid's section and lots of slides for those 48" and up. Lance and I took turns going on the big slides with Spencer and Josh. The best was the Hurricane. You sit on this 4 person tube and get into a giant tube slide that has thunder and lightening effects. Then you go straight down and then into a huge halfpipe-like thing where you slide up and down these HUGE walls. On the first go Spencer was directly above me and I could see him flying out of his seat. I pretty much thought that was the end of us, but to his credit he held on tight to those handles and we lived to tell the tale. It was a pretty great slide.
After a while both Tess and Cole were hungry and tired. Lance was on the slides with the boys, so I tried to distract Cole by letting him take some pictures. Lovely.
We went back to our suite for lunch and then I tried (rather unsuccessfully) to get Cole and Tess to take a nap while Lance and the boys played lazor tag. Since no one but mom and dad wanted to take naps, it was back to the water park. This time we went to the Wild West park, which is the biggest on the resort. It was a fantastic kid's area, with long body slides just perfect for kids. Cole must've gone down to things a good 50 times, not exaggerating. We took turns with the older boys on the bigger slides. The best was the Black Hole. This one was a single person tube slide. You'd go down a dark tube slide and then drop into this huge bowl, where you'd slide around and around it until you got sucked through a hole in the middle. I loved it. Seriously, so fun.
Towards the end of our time there Tess finally fell asleep - in Lance's arms. Rather than wake her up and face her wrath I got to go on the Black Hole again, while Lance sat with Tess and felt his arm go to sleep. Lance is a good sport.
That night our options for dinner were limited since it was Thanksgiving. However, one of the places I really wanted to go was open: Buffalo Phil's Pizza and Grille.
The place was huge but there was still a 30 minute wait. No worries - we Madsens know how to entertain ourselves! Like with toddler selfies.
And stranger toddler photobombs. (Yes, that is a stuffed buffalo in the background. And yes, those are cowhide benches.)
The reason I wanted to come to Buffalo Phil's was because they have little trains that ride around the restaurant, some of which even deliver your food! (This one was on a track up in the air.)
We finally got a table and ordered our Thanksgiving feast. We also got to admire all of the decor. It was actually a pretty nice restaurant, but with a rather irreverent sense of humor. Lots of antlers and logs and old timey pictures. And lots and lots of taxidermied animals, many of which were posed in humorous ways. (Like the raccoon holding a beer can. Or the rear end of a bear, rather than the head.) It was very entertaining; almost Disney-esque in the attention to detail.
We waited and waited for that train to bring our drinks and food! (It didn't really take that long - it just felt longer because we wanted that train!)
Miss Tess was a pill, as per usual.
Coley actually behaved himself quite well. I was impressed.
Spencer was snarky - I swear he's 9 going on 15. Sheesh.
Josh refused to be photographed. But my handsome husband was willing!
De train! De train! It was very exciting.
Buffalo Phil's makes their own rootbeer, which we all had. It was alright, but not carbonated enough for my tastes. I liked the mason jar mugs, though!
The kids all got their own Buffalo Phil's hats. At first Tess wouldn't wear hers. But then she saw Lance wearing it and changed her mind.
And then she discovered it was too big. (This picture cracks me up.)
Finally a picture of Mr. Josh! (You'll have to excuse my pictures. It was fairly dark and the flash on my phone literally blinds people, so it's not worth using close up.)
One happy momma who didn't have to cook Thanksgiving dinner!
Lance had a BBQ pizza with all sorts of meat on it. It was DELICIOUS.
I had a steak salad that looked fantastic, but just didn't taste as great as I was hoping. I mean, it was good, but no bacon pizza. Oh well.
The kids all had mac and cheese and fries. There was a lot of food and they devoured lots of it. Swimming makes for hungry kids! (Hey, more drinks coming to our table!)
That night everyone was exhausted and fell asleep pretty easily. I remember thinking about how when I was 16 a day like this wouldn't have phased me at all. At 26? I would have been a little tired, but fine. At (almost) 36? Exhausted. Beaten. Worn out. I'm a gettin' old.
The next day was a lot like the first. Lost of swimming, lots of slides, lots of Tess being a pill. She wouldn't even get in the water. By that afternoon we were all done with swimming. We decided to go to this really cool play area for kids. The boys loved it; Tess did not. She begged me to let her take a nap. So I told Lance I would take one for the team and take her back to the room. (Seriously, the area was fun for kids and adults.) But when we started walking back Tess started freaking out. She didn't want to walk. She didn't want to be carried. She didn't want to STOP FREAKING OUT. So I scooped her up and put her on my shoulders, which she loved. I walked a good 15 minutes with that 30lb Butterball turkey on my shoulders. Halfway through she started dancing to some music she heard; I thought I was gonna die. We finally got back to the room, where she refused to sleep.
Fine. You little punk. So we watched TV and found some good Black Friday deals online.
Eventually the boys got back and it was time for dinner. Lance had found online a restaurant that specialized in gourmet macaroni and cheese - we instantly knew that was the place for us! (It's called Mac's, in case you're wondering.)
It was a good 10 minute drive from the resort and was smack dab in the middle of the very touristy section of Wisconsin Dells. This was the part of town my uncle Teryl associates with the Dells, which is why he thought we were crazy for going. I could see how in the summer it would not be much fun - crowded, kitschy, touristy, and hot. But it was 20 degrees that night and no one else was around, so it wasn't all that bad.
The place was actually pretty nice and smelled like macaroni and cheese heaven. Hey, any restaurant wiht a cow on the wall is okay in my book.
Oh. My. Gosh. The food. THE FOOD!!! I had ranch chicken bacon mac and cheese and it was divine. They're baked in a hot skillet and served with yummy garlic bread. Our bishop (a Wisconsin native) keeps telling us that Wisconsin is "God's country" or "the promised land", and for that meal I agreed with him.
Our children, however, had other ideas. No one would eat their mac and cheese!! They wanted the boxed stuff! Pathetic. How could these children have come from my loins? Oh well... that just meant lots of leftovers for Lance and I. (And those were delicious, too.)
Here's Tess crawling around under the tables. I thought you'd appreciated that, Dad.
On the way back from dinner we had to stop and get gas. It's not every day your gas station is home to a large dinosaur.
On Saturday it was sadly time to go home. Actually, not that sadly. Two full days was perfect for us. By the morning of the third day everyone was grouchy and misbehaving. We packed up the car and decided to go to the play area one more time since we weren't expected in Madison until lunch time.
First we stopped in the Christmas lobby. I wanted a picture with all four kids. This is what I got. Yes, that is a bear in a cape in the background.
Spencer tried to take a picture of Lance and I.
The play place was still awesome. This isn't like a yucky old McDonald's playplace: this was four stories of slides and climbing areas and tubes and padded things and balls - thousands of foam balls! It was really fun.
Here's Josh with the 'magic' floating balls. (He really liked this area.)
Tess still wasn't too fond of it, but she managed to have a little fun. That big log in front of them? A giant foam ball canon!
They had all these fiberglass air pressure guns in the shape of animals all over the place. You'd put the ball in, press a button, and the ball would shoot wherever you aimed it. It was super fun.
Most of the balls came out of the animals' mouth - but no this one! (That's the south end of a north bound beaver.)
The slides on this thing were crazy. Seriously - 4 stories up! The best was this black slide that shot straight down. Spencer and Josh went down first.
Then I decided to video me going down. Yes, I holler. It was really fast!
Much like the water park slides, Cole would go up and down them a ton of times in a row. He couldn't get enough.
There was this one basket at the very top that you could fill. Once it got full enough it would dump all of the foam balls on you.
So we spent a while getting all the balls into the pot belly stove-shaped vacuum.
And then the balls finally dropped!
Tess did not want Josh standing on her snake. She eventually pushed him off.
So very deceptively sweet and angelic.
The outside of the play area.
Finally it was time to go. We had a lunch date with our old friends the Roylances in Madison. (The Roylances used to be in our ward here in Lafayette, but had to transfer to UW because John's graduate professor moved there. )
It was so great to see them and to catch up. They're the type of friends where you might not see each other for 18 months but then you get together and it doesn't feel like any time has passed. We had a yummy lunch and chatted and the kids played. We even got to have some pumpkin pie, which everyone knows is the best part of Thanksgiving. We meant to only stay and hour or two, but three hours later we were still there! Totally worth it. (My only regret is that we didn't get any pictures.)
It was a long, "are we there yet" filled ride home. But, once again, we survived.
It was a really great trip. Do I regret skipping Thanksgiving? Not at all. Will we do it every year? I don't know. I kinda feel like we should have a traditional Thanksgiving every once in a while, just so our kids know what it is. Plus, even though we got a great deal, 2.5 days and 3 nights at a resort with 6 people is not exactly cheap.
Maybe we'll do something like this every other year. Now that's something to be thankful for.
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