To celebrate their 50 wedding anniversary in December, Jason's parents wanted to do something special with the whole family. They graciously offered to take the entire Schleicher crew to Great Wolf Lodge in Dallas for parts of 4 days. Our family had never visited a Great Wolf Lodge before but had heard wonderful things about the resort. We absolutely loved our time there!
Each morning the kids played at the indoor water park-- going down slides, swimming, playing water basketball. What a treat to swim in December! During the afternoons and evenings, we did activities from the "Wolf Pass" that we purchased for our children. We were amazed at all the "extras" Great Wolf Lodge had to offer. On the first day (the best outdoor weather day), the kids, plus Chelsea and Jason, climbed on the Howlers Peak ropes course. The course even included a zip line.
Included in the pass was also one animal from the onsite Build-a-Bear workshop. All of the kids, even the oldest ones, loved stuffing their own animal. Our kids used some of their Christmas money from Grandpa and Grandma to purchase an outfit for their stuffed animal.
Adley created her animal on a different day from her brothers and cousins, but she was just as excited to receive a stuffed dragon!
One evening, we attended a read-aloud storytime in the hotel lobby.
The activity on the Wolf Pass that I found most impressive was the MagiQuest, an indoor treasure hunt that took kids to all 7 levels of the hotel. Our first step was selecting a wand from the MagiQuest shop and getting it activated.
Then, the kids used their MagiQuest booklet to follow clues up and down the hotel stairways (over and over again for some fabulous exercise!!), in search of treasure chests, magical trees, talking tree stumps, light-up stars, dragons, and much more. The kids would flick their magic wand at various objects around the hotel, and if the object was indeed part of the quest, it would light up, make noise, or give the kids a clue.
All of the questing took the kids several hours. Once they completed the entire MagiQuest and collected all of their runes, the kids could attend a special ceremony where they were made into a Master Magi. The kids were so proud to do this. Reaching the end of the quest was quite an accomplishment!
While many of us adults were helping the older kids search for MagiQuest clues, Grandma and Grandpa kindly offered to watch the youngest kids in their hotel room. Adley, Noah, and Micah enjoyed doing puzzles, playing games, and reading books together.
Another day, the kids visited Oliver's Mining Company. They each received a bag of paydirt to pan and sift through, uncovering various gemstones and minerals.
One of the last activities on the Wolf Pass was picking out a cup of gummies and jelly beans at the candy store. Yum!
This place was certainly full of constant fun for our kids. They loved each moment, and were completley wiped out by all the excitement, as evidenced by the photo below taken on our trip home. We all agreed that Great Wolf Lodge was a fantastic place!
Many, many thanks go to Grandpa and Grandma for planning and paying for this amazing vacation. We were humbled that they chose to spend their 50th wedding anniversary celebration with us! What wonderful memories for the whole family!
