I have been absent from here for a few days and I can’t believe it is already 2012!  So, a lot has happened since I last wrote.  It turns out that Santa still comes to our house.  As long as everyone still sees sugarplums dancing in their heads, Santa keeps coming to our house.  So, Santa brought the kids a trip starting the day after Christmas.  I’ll tell you more about that later but it was a big hit.  Aside from that, we had a pretty low-keyed Christmas which was absolutely perfect.

We had family over for a late-ish lunch and did a little napping and otherwise goofed off.  We had to pack of course.  Santa made reservations for the day after Christmas so there was little time to waste.  Ok, so you want to know where we went?  We went to the Great Wolf Lodge near Cincinatta (That’s how we say Cincinnati here in WV).  It’s a huge indoor water park.  At first, I figured it was going to have a few lawn sprinklers and a diaper-seasoned kiddie pool.  I was soooo wrong!  The park had a wave pool and a lazy river and a half-dozen really awesome water slides!  Water slides used to mean you skidded down on your butt and had to wiggle your way down the bottom half…oh no, not at Great Wolf Lodge.  The rides are awesome and you haul butt around the curves and down the tubes.

Abigail was pretty concerned at first but I assured her that we wouldn’t die.  She agreed to go on a ride with me after that (she actually bought the part about not dying.)  I told her they had not lost anyone in a few weeks.  Once she got a few rides under her belt, we could barely keep up with her running to get back in line again.

Isaac was more diverse in his use of the park.  He spent a lot of time dumping buckets of water on unsuspecting people below.  He really made use of the entire place pretty well too.  For some reason, Isaac and Abigail never got cold.  They kept the air temperature at 84 degrees but I swear the water was 60.  Anyhow, they never got cold but my lips turned blue and my nose hairs froze and broke off.

The other cool part of the surprise is that Santa gave my brother and sister-in-law the same gift!  The kids had no idea they were coming so it was a great surprise.  All-in-all, it was a great trip.  We only stayed 2 nights and that was just about right.  Great Wolf is mighty proud of their place so my wallet is glad Santa only sent us for a short time.  We were physically exhausted after two nights anyhow.  I bet we burned a Christmas ham’s worth of calories in three days!

When we checked out, my brother and I were sent out into the cold to load all of our loot into our cars for the trip home.  Living up to our 13-year old mindsets (though possibly not my 40 year old body), we returned the luggage carts in typical pubescent-boy fashion!  I have to give props to my brother for using his ultra-manly muscles to prevent me from turning over.  We were absolutely hauling butt across the parking lot hoping to provide an example to my kids and all of the other kids that got the chance to see how grown-ups are supposed to act!