August 2023 - Great Wolf Lodge, 1st Day of School

We stayed busy in August, even on the days that we weren't away from the house for vacations or visiting family.  Karina went to her friend Saarah's birthday party at a local place that has a big ropes course through the trees.  She enjoyed this activity, though perhaps not as much as Lydia enjoyed the ropes course on the cruise ship. 

Here's the birthday group.  From left to right: Sophie, Karina, Riley, Saarah, Sasha, Ainoor, Maizy.

Tanja and the kids went to the cheap family movie to watch Puss and Boots.  Derek thought going to a movie was fancy and so he wanted to dress up in "fancy clothes" to go to the theater.  I'm not sure about a pirate bandana being particularly fancy, but he is wearing a lot of rings on his fingers, so I guess excessive jewelry qualifies as fancy.

We went and spent the night at a Great Wolf Lodge about an hour away from us that had recently opened.  Great Wolf Lodge is a resort chain that features an indoor water park with lots of water slides, a wave pool, a lazy river, and other water-themed activities (along with other add-ons like mini golf, ropes course, etc.)  We decided it seemed like a fun place to spend some time for one last activity before school started.  Here are the kids outside the hotel with the howling wolf statue.

Floating and running through the lazy river.

Lydia and Derek coming out of one of the water slides that you can ride on a tube with another person.

One of the slides had mats and you could race down it against others.  I bumped my head against the side of the slide and decided this one wasn't for me, but the kids liked it.

I think we liked Great Wolf Lodge and now that Derek is more comfortable and capable in a swimming pool, I think we will end up going again at some point.

One weekend, I was in the house with the kids and Tanja was coming home from the store.  She excitedly called me on the phone as she was coming in to the driveway that there were deer in our front yard - this picture was taken from the car.  There was a doe and three younger deer (I feel they were too old to be called fawns).

The deer got skittish when we opened the door and stepped out on to the front porch.  We managed to get this picture of Lydia with them at least.

With August comes the first day of school.  Karina started 7th grade.

Lydia started 5th grade and Derek started 2nd grade.

It was the end of a wonderful summer full of travel and excitement, but school brings routines and a little more normalcy.