Family vacation 2011 - Day one

First, let me start at the beginning.  I had been looking at taking a trip to the Wisconsin Dells this winter for fun.  I mean, what is more fun than a waterpark when it is snowing outside?  So, I started looking for deals.  There have been a few bargains, after all, winter is not the busy season for the Dells.  Then a great deal came up.  Buy a $100 giftcard, get a free night's stay.  The giftcard could be used toward anything at the hotel/park, including rooms.  My grandparents gave us some Christmas money that could pay for the giftcard, so I pounced. I bought the giftcard and used it to pay for one night, then used the free night for the second night.  The giftcard also paid for most of the fees and taxes, and the $10 to upgrade our room (more about that later).  The best part is that the room included wristbands to get us into the indoor water and theme parks for three days - check in, our second day, and check out. 

Now, when to go?  Should we go toward the end of winter, when we are soo sick of the cold but it still won't be warm for another month or two?  Should we go near Christmas since it was a Christmas present?  I decided that the third week of the kids' winter break from school would be perfect, since most kids only received 2 weeks off and it would probably be a slow week. 

After a LOT of packing (our car was FULL!)  we set off on the relatively short drive - 1 1/2 hours at most. I should mention that Violet is much better in the car; she only cried for about 15 minutes of the trip. We arrived around 10:30am, even though check-in wasn't until 4pm, because we could get into the waterpark early.  The hotel staff was so nice though and let us have our room right then since it was ready. We loved our room.  Besides being a normal hotel room, it had a half wall that separated out a set of bunkbeds for the kids (that was the upgrade I made).  After exploring the room a little, we ate lunch (with all the food I packed) and changed into our swimsuits.  Violet fell asleep, so I stayed in the room with her while the rest went swimming.  The best part about the hotel is that it is connected via a skywalk to the waterpark, so we didn't have to go outside at all, plus it made it easy for me to just meet up with them later. 

Ellie is our little fish

                                  Rowan wanted to just float on his back all day

     Violet finally went swimming.  She acted like the water was no big deal and she was almost even bored.

After swimming

The rest of our first day was more of the same.  We came back to our room for snacks, then Ellie and I went back to the water park to ride the big slides.  There were only four big slides, but I was right about it being a slow week because we never had to wait in line for the slides.  We came back to the room for dinner - Jason went out and bought some Wendy's.  Bedtime was surprisingly not bad.  I took Violet out to the lobby in her carrier until she fell asleep while Jason put the older kids to bed.  I think everyone was asleep by 9pm, which is not bad for a hotel stay for this family.  The night was a little rough for Violet (and me) and she woke up every 2-3 hours, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  She saved that for the next night...