This year we stayed at the Kalahari in Sandusky, OH. We decided on this resort because it had great reviews and was a full 30 minutes closer to us than Wisconsin Dells - hey, that's a full hour less of driving. Worth it.
The drive was only 4.5 hours, but it was dark 90% of the way there, which made it feel so much longer. The kids were excited and wound up by the time we got there, so we stayed up a bit to unpack and unwind. Our suite was huge this time! Lots and lots of space - I never felt like we were cooped up with 4 crazy kids. I don't think the decor was as cozy as the Wilderness Lodge, but in the grand scheme of things that's not really a big deal.
We had two full bathrooms, the one on Lance's and my side had jets. Ooh-la-la!
The living area. Like how we dry our bathing suits? Why in the world do these places not offer those spinner things that get all the water out of bathing suits?
The kitchen. We ate breakfast and lunch in our suite, preparing such fine delicacies as Eggos, breakfast corndogs (sausage with pancakes on a stick), Easy Mac, and chicken tenders. I also offered a variety of fruits and vegetables, which were on the whole ignored. On the first day I decided to have soup instead of macaroni and cheese. The kids were tickled by this (who even knows why?) and for the rest of the trip their mantra was "I like soup". You could hear Cole randomly saying this from other sides of the suite, in the pool, and even on the way down slides. It pretty much became a running joke the whole weekend.
Master bedroom.
Kid bedroom. They weren't fans of sharing beds, but until they start contributing financially to these trips they have no say. 😊
On the first morning we were up well before the water park opened, so we read and talked and watched this fine programming on on the Hallmark Murder Movie channel. Yes, those are kittens in front of a holiday fireplace. Sometimes there were puppies. Sometimes a cat and a dog. We especially liked the cat eating out of a pumpkin. I can't believe how long we watched this channel. The kids were enamored.
The chairs and couches at places like these? They always look nice, but aren't generally very comfortable. At all.
See that bowl of clementines on the table? Underneath the oranges were a bunch of mini candy bars. Guess which got eaten first? (Ha.)
The water park was really big and really awesome. Lots of great big slides and lots of kiddo areas for shorties like Tess. We're reeeeaaallly hoping she does some good growing over the next two years. Lance and I had to take turns watching her while the others got to go on all the fun stuff. It wasn't the worst, but it got pretty boring after a while.
There was actually a pretty great lazy river - it had sorts of decorations, like hyena statues and such. Kinda Disney-esque, only no animatronics. Usually lazy rivers are kinda dull, but this one was fun! (Side note - I lifted all these pictures from the website. I didn't want to bother carrying my phone around to take pictures at the water park!)
Here's the water coaster - part water slide, part roller coaster. It was fun! You'd sit in this little raft thing that got zipped up and down and around so fast. Cole was in love with this ride - that boy loves fast and dangerous.
This funnel slide was super fun, too. You'd go down this slide and then shoot into this huge funnel, eventually falling through the hole down into a deep pool. I went down head first, which is as fun as it sounds. (Read: not very.)
I loved this ride! We nick-named it the toilet bowl. You'd go down and around this big slide and then get shot into this bowl, where you'd make a couple of rotations and then go through the hole. It was the best when I went with my 3 boys - we went so fast!
The wave pool is where we spent the majority of our time, mainly because Tess loved it. It became a good meeting spot. We spent so much time there that I'd still feel like I was in the waves when we got back to our room.
That first afternoon, as we went back to our suite for lunch, I realized I was having an allergic reaction to something. My face and chest were all red and rashy, and my eyelids were slightly swollen. It didn't hurt, but kinda stung and itched - pretty miserable. I showered, because I figured it was something to do with the chlorine. I looked pretty awesome. But I covered up and put some make up on and looked presentable enough to go out in public after lunch. We wandered the resort and looked at the sights. Like this bronze gorilla.
And this Instagram stand in the arcade.
You had to walk through the arcade to get to the water park, which DROVE ME NUTS. It was like herding cats every time we went through there.
Then we played a little miniature golf, which was actually pretty fun, mainly because I had a pretty good game.
More gorilla action.
In Wisconsin we would eat Thanksgiving dinner at Buffalo Pete's, which was just cheesy enough to make it really fun. In Sandusky there are no fun restaurants like that open on Thanksgiving. In fact, there were hardly any restaurants open at all! So we ended up at Ruby Tuesday's, which wasn't bad but was just slightly depressing for some reason.
Well, at least to me. I don't think our kids cared at all.
That night the kids and Lance went swimming again, while I opted to stay in the suite and try to recover. I took another really long shower, which helped a little. I tried to take a picture, but it doesn't really do the rash justice. Earlier that day I had made a quick run to WalMart and picked up some Benedryl and hydracortisone, both of which seemed to help a bit.
The Benedryl made me sleepy if I wasn't moving, so I did things like bake cookies (we brought frozen dough) and put out these Thankful Leaves. Earlier in the month I had cut a bunch of these out on my Cricut and then had the kids write down something they were thankful for.
Some were darling, like this one Tess made.
Others, less so.
Spencer is ALL ABOUT friends now. ('Tis the age, right?)
My dad snuck this one in while he was visiting us the week before.
Josh wrote this one "Having lice and getting treats." Yeah, nope. See, Cole got lice, too. So that was fun. And I ended up buying him some Tic Tacs (per his request) as a reward for being so good with the combings. Tess also got a little toy. Josh's jealousy knows no bounds, no matter how much I try to persuade him that lice is NOT WORTH IT.
Oh, the joys of boys and potty humor. Although I think we can all agree that Ewoks are pretty great.
Friday morning I was up bright and early ordering a new fridge at Black Friday prices. WOO-HOO! But my credit card company thought it was fraud. And Best Buy's website freaked out. And NINETY MINUTES ON THE PHONE LATER I finally told them to just cancel it because I was on freaking vacation and my kids and husband had already left to go swimming. I was actually pretty nice through most of it, but the final 5 minutes I pretty much lost it. GROWL. I mean, seriously, if you have the customer, the store, and the credit card company on a 3 way call WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD IT BE SO HARD TO BUY SOMETHING?! I wanted to buy the fridge. Best Buy wanted to sell it to me. Capital One wanted me to use their card. And yet it did not work.
Until later in the day when I bought the fridge through a different transaction.
(Side note: this morning I woke up to a text telling me that the original fridge had not really been canceled. In fact, it had been purchased and I now had TWO fridges on the way. WHAT THE WHAT?!??! Best Buy got a rather testy call.)
Anyways....
We swam the morning away and spent the afternoon seeing "Moana", which was okay. Not the best movie I've ever seen, but certainly not the worst. I liked that a girl was the main character and there were no love interests. Because you don't have to have a love interest. Also, I really liked the chicken side kick.
That night we decided to make up for the lackluster meal of the night before and went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. We introduced the kids to the Bloomin' Onion. Spencer is now a convert. It was all super yummy and the kids, for the most part, behaved themselves.
We spent several more hours at the water park that evening. I could tell it was time to go when no one was willing to stand in line for even the best slides. Poor Cole had a sobbing melt down on the way back to our suite; he just did not want our vacation to end! Direct quote: "We'll never come back here again and it was so fun!!" and "Why can't we go on trips all year long?" It's hard to reason with and comfort a heartbroken 7 year old boy who could run around a water park for a week and not be tired. Fortunately, some more cookies and some time in bed watching a movie helped heal his heart.
The next morning it was back to reality. We had to pack up and head back to Indiana. But not before I got one self-timed picture in front of this wall in our suite. Going home is always to worst part of a vacation!
As you can see, the kids were all a bit worn out on the way home. That's the sign of a good vacation, right?
I think we'll probably stay home next year. For one thing, Tess has never had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner that she remembers. And for another, Lance and I may be doing some traveling at the beginning of November - we can only spend so much time and money on trips in one year, right?
It might seem weird to skip Thanksgiving. But I know that my kids will remember these trips and our time together as a family far better than any elaborate meal. And quite frankly, so will I.
