AROOOOOOOO!!!!!

This past weekend we took a family vacation to Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos.  If you haven't heard of it, this place is a giant indoor waterpark, with enormous slides, a crazy fort with an insanely large bucket that dumps a 10,000 gallon waterfall every 10 minutes, and a huge kiddie pool that is 18" deep and is perfect for kids of all sizes.


We don't have a ton of photos because, frankly, we were much too busy having fun!  Instead here are a few highlights:

• As we neared the resort, Ryan started singing a song, all on his own.  It went something like this (with a little embellishment from mom toward the end):
  We're going to the water-park.
  We're going to the water-park!
  We're going to the water-park...
  At the Great Wolf Lodge today!
  It was our mantra and Ryan sang it randomly throughout the remainder of the trip.
• Hari went all out and got us a Kiddie Kabin which included a mini "tent" in our room where the kids had bunk beds and their own TV.  They immediately clambered up when we arrived, and ate the snack Hari gave them from their respective beds, Colin on top and Ryan on bottom.  But when it was time to go to bed Colin quickly climbed down and joined Ryan on the bottom bunk, telling me "I like my up-bed for snack, but I don't want to sleep by myself."  (Please excuse the seemingly nudie-picture... the boys were in the midst of changing into pajamas and peeked out their window - I couldn't resist!)
• Colin's first waterslide... he shot down the plume and (as expected) my little adrenaline junkie loved it.
• Ryan was utterly obsessed with playing basketball in the kiddie pool.  He would get very serious, and talking mostly to himself say "I put the basketball in the basket." and then slam dunk it.  Eventually Hari tried to get him to do it only from the water, and pretended to get "mad" if Ryan went to walk out and dunk it, so Ryan would look at him, hold out a pointy finger, and tell him "Daddy, don't you get mad at me!  Don't you get mad at me!"
• Hari and I traded off grabbing Colin to go on the big waterslides.
• Walking down the hallways Ryan would point out the animals in the carpet pattern, and would stop and make the noises for them.
• Wolf - AROOOOO! (done with exaggerated pursed lips, head tilted up in true wolf-fashion!)
• Bear - RAAAAWR!
• Moose - NAAAAAR! (this one is kinda hard to explain or imitate, but was very believable)
• Hari and Colin had a little too much fun using the water guns, buckets, and other paraphernalia to dump water on unsuspecting passers-by.
• Crabby hands!  I would hold my hands up like giant lobster claws, and tell Ryan that I was going to get him with crabby hands.  He would run away squealing... sometimes.  Other times he would sit down, and then admonish me, very seriously, "Mommy, NO crabby hands" and I would have to hold my hands up to show him that I wasn't doing it.
• Story time... both boys just loved the animatronic show (trees and forest animals coming to life singing about not being afraid of nature), followed by story time.  There had to be a hundred little kids there, sitting on the floor of the lobby, some in pajamas and others in swimsuits, all raptly watching the show and then joyously participating in the STOMP-STOMP-CLAP-CLAP-AROOOOOO!!!!
• Forget a high five, gimme a high-paw!
• Hari and Ryan floating along the lazy-river innertube ride, going around at least 4-5 times as Colin and I screamed at the top of our lungs trying to get them to look up at us (we were on the stairs waiting to go on Coyote Canyon (a 40-foot drop in pitch dark, then you shoot out and swirl around the "toilet bowl" a few times).  They never heard us.
• Colin practicing and finally truly swimming.  He was completely underwater, with his hands together (like Aquaman!) flailing his little legs and swimming a few feet.  The kid earned his goggles, and now insists that he doesn't need his floaties any more and I can give them away.
• Ryan, preparing to take another basketball shot, and I distracted him with crabby hands.  He stopped, looked at me with an extremely stern expression, and said "Mommy, you better run away."  I thought I was hearing things.  "I better run away???"  He continued, "Yes, you better run away from here."  Me: Why?!?  Ryan, "Because I'm so mad at you."  Then he turned away and went back to shooting baskets.  I kid you not!
• It took me 90-minutes (NO EXAGGERATION) of sitting on the corner of the hard wooden bunk bed to get Colin to sleep the first night, as he kept insisting that I needed to lie down and that he needed my hair.  Ryan, on the other hand, was asleep within moments.  Half way through the night, as expected, Colin was standing next to my side of the bed, quietly crying.  An hour or so later Ryan was standing in the middle of the room, sobbing at top volume, scared from waking up alone in a pitch dark room in a strange place.  I had both boys piled on top of me, so Hari grabbed his pillow and the next thing I heard was the creak as he climbed onto the top bunk and turned on the TV to watch ESPN.  The second night Hari gave up and the boys slept in the bed with me from the start while he spent a rather uncomfortable night in a kids bunk bed.
• Colin's obsession with the treasure chests and wizard wands from the "Magic Quest" - and his intense frustration that we didn't give in and buy him a wand so he could do it.
• Ryan's initial fear of even the kiddie water slides... then his obsession with the little blue one, and eventually his love of the slightly faster orange water slide.  And yes, Hari taught him to do a wolf-howl every time he went down - they should have filmed it.  That would be their million-dollar commercial!

And while it was an expensive and certainly exhausting weekend, I have to say that for me the very best part was that the family spent a whole weekend together.  That sounds corny, I know, but we don't have a lot of time when we're all together.  An hour a day, maybe, on weekdays.  Sundays are family days, but are broken up as I go to the gym in the morning, or we split up and take turns working out and playing with the boys at the gym.  This weekend I had three days of complete non-stop greedy-time with my boys, and every moment was exquisitely precious... even when the three of them were being brats!

Thanks Hari, this was a wonderful surprise and I believe a truly memorable weekend for us all.