I had promised a post sharing the tips I had learned for a trip to an indoor waterpark.  Unfortunately, I was sidelined by the plague, but I am feeling better now so here it goes. Two weeks ago, we took the Small Town Ladies to Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos.  Apparently, they have them all over the country (including one in Canada for my favorite Canadians).  The Pocono Mountains resort is the closest to us.  You can check out Great Wolf Lodge to find the one closest to you.  So now that you have decided to go, here are some tips to make it even better.

1. Don’t touch anything:  Not really, but I came home with the plague.  Anyplace you go that has that many people in an enclosed space is bound to have its share of germs.  You really can’t avoid it.  Since no one else in the family got sick, it was well worth it.

2. Go during the week:  It is worth it to take a couple of days off of work for your trip.  We stayed for 3 nights, the last of which was a Friday.  Along with weekdays being cheaper, the quality of the food and service went dramatically downhill that last night.

3. Ask for a discount: Rather than booking online, call the 800 number (if you have already booked online, call anyway).  When you are booking your stay, ask for a discount.  I asked for the “I’m a really swell person” discount.  They weren’t offering that, but they did offer us another discount that saved us 10%.  It is better than a kick in the head.

4. If there is anyplace else to eat around there, check it out:  The food at Great Wolf Lodge was not horrible, but, in general, anyplace that serves a buffet probably has mediocre food.  These types of places seem to be big on quantity not so into quality.

5. Stock your fridge:  If the place offers a refrigerator, stock it with water, breakfast food and snacks.  You can bring your own or chance the local grocery store.  We probably saved more than $100 on drinks, breakfasts and snacks alone during our 3-day stay.  Food and drinks at resorts are expensive.

6. Start your day early: Arrive when the place opens.  Things get more crowded as the day progresses.  On our last day, we arrived at the water park when it opened.  Even though it was a Saturday, the place was empty.  The kids were able to do everything they wanted to (as many times as they wanted) before the crowds arrived.

7. Bring your patience: Yes, there will be badly-behaved children there.  Suck it up and get over it.  Some people don’t teach their kids manners, some people don’t watch their kids and some people actually model rude behavior (yes, I am talking about you, rude guy who shoved my kid out of the way in the lazy river).

8. Sign up for MagiQuest: If you go to Great Wolf Lodge, bite the bullet, and get the kids the wands for MagiQuest (don’t bother with the wand toppers).  The wands are well worth it.  MagiQuest is a giant scavenger hunt throughout the public areas of the hotel.  The wands make various decorations do cool things and MagiQuest kept both kids entertained for the entire stay.  We actually had to leave before they finished the whole thing.

9. Check out the Cub Club: This tip is again Great Wolf Lodge specific, but other resorts probably have kids’ clubs as well.  If you have small kids, check out the Cub Club.  They may not tell you, but in addition to the paid crafts, they offer paper, markers, paints and crayons for free.  Pass on the camp program.  It comes out to $15 per hour, per kid.  If you have more than one kid, that is just insane.  You could get Mary Poppins for less.

10. Relax and have fun: This is your vacation too.  Maybe check out the spa or take some time to yourself to read a book, take a nap or just relax.  Maybe your partner can watch the kids for an hour or so.  If not, let them watch a little TV.  It never killed anyone.

Have fun!

You know what today is and you know what that means.  What?  You don’t?  That means you must be new here.  Welcome!  Pull up a chair and stay a while.  Would you like some iced tea?  How about a piece of leftover birthday cake?  If you want to find out what today means, you can read about it here or here or here or just stay and enjoy the surprise.

Please remain seated and keep hands and arms inside the cart at all times.  Here we gooooooo!

I took the ladies strawberry picking on Saturday.  I love picking fruit and use it to make jam and many delicious baked goods.  The girls, while they enjoy the jam and other delicious baked goods, don’t enjoy the picking too much.  They start out great, but about 15 minutes into it, they start to get bored.  Then the whining starts.  “I’m hot, I’m tired, I’m thirsty.”  I don’t know why I keep taking them, but I do.  Probably because I don’t want to go all by myself.

I feel bad about Michael Jackson, I really do, but please, please, please, stop talking about him on the news.  Yes, we know… He is dead.  He had kids.  He had an estate.  Is it really news that he might have had a will and it might be read someday?  Move on already, people.  Nothing to see here.  Leave his poor kids alone with their grief already.

The mosquitoes are driving me insane.   I will admit, I am the mosquitoes’ favorite dish.  My husband always jokes that when we have a party, he wants to set me away in a corner to keep the mosquitoes away from the guests.  We had rain for what felt like a month and the mosquitoes are now going berserk.  I am covered with bites and itching like crazy.  Let me tell you, there is nothing as attractive as constant scratching.  Look out supermodels, here I come.  If anyone has any solutions to getting rid of mosquitoes or mosquito bites, please share below.  I would love to hear them.  Also, if you live in one of those places that don’t have mosquitoes, there is no need to rub it in.  I am feeling badly enough already about the constant scratching.

Last night, we had dinner with friends and we came home very late.  Driving home was like an amusement park ride.  I was trying to rush so the girls could get to bed.  Wildlife kept jumping out in front of my car.  First a deer.  Then a raccoon.  Then some small, furry brown thing that was really very cute (but I believe he eats gardens).  I had to keep trying to avoid wild animals.  Nothing like driving through the Small Town safari (no animals were harmed in the drive through the Small Town).

That is it for this week’s Random Tuesday Thoughts.  I hope you enjoyed it.  If so, tell your friends.  If not, keep it to yourself.  Don’t forget to check out Keely, the Un-Mom, the queen of all things random.

This weekend, we finally had Libby’s birthday party with her friends.  Yes, I know, it feels like her birthday has lasted for eons, and it really has.  Since she had mono, we had to postpone the original party and this was the first Saturday we had free.  We decided to have a mystery party.  They had to figure out who was the victim and who was the killer.  I didn’t write the mystery (I don’t have that kind of motivation time).  I downloaded it from the Birthday Party Games Lady.  Overall, I recommend it.  Some of the supplies she recommends were very difficult to find, but I was able to make due with some creative substitutions.  The Lady has really put a lot of thought into making it work and once I figured it out, it was very easy.

The kids seemed to enjoy it.  There was a lot of running through the house, searching for clues.  Some of the clues were a little too subtle for our kids.  Everytime a clue said that what they were looking for was NOT someplace, some kid would insist on looking in that place.

We were here with 11 screaming 10 year olds.  Luckily, Libby’s friends are very nice for the most part, although 1 of them seems to have a very loose definition of stealing.  But, as long as you lock up the valuables, it’s all good.

At the end of the party, the kids all went outside to play flashlight tag.  Everyone was running around screaming… then the fireworks started.  Yes, I really did say fireworks and no, I had nothing to do with them (I do occasionally overindulge my children, but fireworks seems like a bit much, even for me).  One of our neighbors started setting off fireworks so the girls all ran up the street to watch them.  Fortunately, we didn’t lose any of the kids in the dark and they all ended up at their respective homes.

You are probably wondering where was Joanna during the festivities (ok, maybe you weren’t, but Joanna would want you to).  We shipped her off sent her to my in-laws.  Libby didn’t want her at the party and we thought it would be more fun for Joanna if she were to go stay with grandma.  Joanna likes attention and we wanted Libby to have the chance to be the center of attention for once (it doesn’t happen very often).

I got no discount or free benefits for using the Birthday Party Games Lady, and I recommend her anyway.  The game really got the kids involved and, except for the hour I had to spend printing and organizing (she greatly underestimates the time required), it was very easy.  I used the basic party package and designed my own fingerprint card (the kids were all shocked that I had “stolen” the cards from the local police).

One change I did make is that the Lady recommends using yourself as the murder.  I thought the kids would have more fun if one of them was the murderer.  I had everyone give me a fingerprint when they first arrived and used one of theirs as the murder evidence.  They enjoyed trying to figure out who was the murderer (and they all got it wrong).  I did check with the mom of the murderer to make sure she wouldn’t be upset with being the murderer, but I didn’t think she would be.  Most of the kids at our party would love the attention.  Libby loved her party and I am glad that her 10th birthday was able to be something special for her.

I was planning to explain the difficulties with my most recent appliance breakdown.  But I was taken down by the plague.  On Tuesday, Soccer Mom made me feel guilty pointed out that she was waiting to hear the story.  Since I needed a prize for the winner, I carted my poor, coughing, hacking carcass out to Bed, Bath and Beyond to find a prize (coughing on anyone who came near me).  So here is my appliance story…

We invited some of Frank’s family over to celebrate Libby’s birthday.  It was a small party, but as usual, it kind of grew as the date got closer.  We ended up with about 20 people, not a huge crowd, but enough to fill my kitchen.

As everyone was standing around my kitchen gossiping chit chatting, my refrigerator suddenly started shooting out ice cubes at people like shrapnel.  No one was touching it, but it was shooting ice at people anyway.  We tried to make it stop.  It wouldn’t.  We switched to the water dispenser.  It then started peeing water on people (shooting out in a dramatic arc).

We finally figured out how to make the ice dispenser stop shooting things at our guests, but the refrigerator continued to get hot.  So we had to empty out everything and turn off the fuse that controls the fridge.

Luckily, the repairman came the next day.  He claimed that the malfunction was my fault (liar).  Apparently I am supposed to blow out the controls of the refrigerator every year (what the hell is that).  I had no idea (it would help if someone had informed me).  He used a giant wet vac (with reversible suction).  Since he has fixed it, it is working fine (although I am still waiting for it to start spewing something at me as I walk by).  And no, he is still not big and beefy.

So to the giveaway.  The winner was picked out of a hat by Joanna.  It was done with random numbers. 

Dishwasher was the most common guess (although wrong).  I asked for a dramatic appliance story and I included those entries that contained a dramatic appliance story, even if they were incorrect stories.  Lisa and frogmama are the 2 who actually guessed correctly.  Yay ladies!  Besides being good guessers, both ladies are very funny.  But they didn’t win.  The actual winner isn’t human.  Since I didn’t limit the contest to humans, I have to allow it, but I am not sure what she is going to do with the prize.  The winner is Pricilla.  Now Pricilla is a mommy so I guess that makes her a mommy blogger, but, she is also a goat.

Now, for the prize.  Since it was my refrigerator that died, of course, the prize is refrigerator magnets. 
 
Bed Bath and Beyond does not have a large selection of refrigerator magnets (try none), but I thought these were cute.  I was going to get something to allow the winner to hang pretzels from their refrigerator, but that didn’t seem practical.  Pricilla can use these to hang photos of her kids and grandkids around the goat pen.

Thank you to everyone who participated.  I enjoyed your stories.  I am looking into a real giveaway coming soon and if I am able to move ahead with it, I hope you will participate.

Also, I am going to the doctor today to see if they can do anything about the plague.  I haven’t slept through the night in a week, it is bringing back the hallucinations bad memories from when Joanna was a baby and refused to sleep.

Today is Tuesday, which means it is time for Random Tuesday Thoughts.  Apparently this is a whole movement.  It was started by Keely from the UnMom as a chance to ramble put together a bunch of incoherent thoughts that are only tied together by the fact that they are unrelated.  Imagine how important she must feel every Tuesday with all these people following her.

I mentioned yesterday that I have the plague.  Unfortunately for one of the families I work with, I had a meeting last night that couldn’t be postponed.  After I had a huge coughing fit in their living room, they pretty much pushed me out the door.  Of course, no one shook my hand before I left.

This week, both girls are out of school and Joanna has not started camp yet.  It is putting a major damper on lounging around and napping working.  I find it hard to believe that someone as small as Joanna can be so demanding.  I really believe she aspires to be a dictator of a banana republic somewhere.

The TV is becoming my new best friend.  Luckily, she likes the reruns of John and Kate Plus 8 (they are new to us).  I have Tivo’ed about 18 of them so we should be good for a while.  Next week, everyone goes to camp and I can go back to dancing naked like Tom Cruise in Risky Business napping working for most of the day.

Speaking of Jon and Kate, I have heard they are getting a divorce.  A lot of people have claimed it was because of their TV show.  I don’t agree.  I think it is because they are both somewhat unpleasant people.  I think they would be that way with or without the TV show, it is just that no one would care.

I was invited to have coffee with Margaret Cho and some other actress I have never heard of.  Does this mean I have arrived?  Probably not, but I would really like to go.  I love Margaret Cho.  I was one of probably 15 people who watched her reality show last summer.  I was all full of myself and how important I must be until Frank pointed out that it would probably consist of me and about 1000 of my closest friends.  I might get to see Margaret Cho from across the room, but would I really recognize her from that far away?

Hopefully, tomorrow will bring the secrets I will share for how to survive a trip to an indoor water park.  Meanwhile, stop by the UnMom to read everything Keely.  She is shopping for baby gifts that will give you nightmares because that is how she rolls.