Great Wolf Lodge

We (together with our friends and their 2 kids) went to Great Wolf Lodge last week for 3 days and it was absolutely amazing!

It's a lot of money but so worth it and we're definitely going back next year!

We had booked a Wolf Den room, which means the kids had a room with 2 bunk beds and a tv, all decorated as a Wolf Den. The room was big and a lot of fun for both parents and kids.

When we arrived on Wednesday our room wasn't ready (which we knew ahead of time as you can only check into your room at 4) so we went into the waterpark and had a blast! There's something for everybody to enjoy. Abby went in the toddler pool and went down the slide like a 100 times (I stopped counting).

Lisa and Jamie went in the big slides and wave pool for a couple of hours with their friends.

They have this huge slide called the howling tornado and OMG, I screamed the whole way down. I'm not kidding, you sit in this huge inflatable thing, you get pushed down the tunnel and after a while it makes a (near vertical) drop into this huge other tunnel. And then once you're done going back and forth, it goes down another tunnel till you come out at the other end of the tunnel. I went in it 3 times and hurt my neck on the second go (although that didn't stop me from going again). I think the hardest part is going up all those stairs to get to the slide (yep, that's how good my physique is).

Look at the picture below (yellow), that's how huge part of the tunnel is. It's insane but oh so much fun!

I was super impressed with the lifeguards! I've never seen lifeguards check out all the pools as I have over there. They saw everything, checked everything, they were just super lifeguards!

After checking out the rooms, I took Abby down to storytime where for about 10 minutes you can listen to this story being told by an owl, trees, a moose,...it was a lot of fun!

The other kids went on a MagiQuest game. The kids had wands they could use around the hotel (you have to buy the wands & the game but they are very magical and cool) to solve magical challenges to gain powers and move on to higher levels of the game. I have to say whoever came up with this game is a genius, very, very clever game!

There's plenty more things to do at Great Wolf Lodge, like an arcade, tween disco room, a cub club for smaller kids, etc. but we just went for the water and the MagiQuest and had a blast!

We had an unfortunate event happen to us that added 10 years to my life but I will talk to you about it tomorrow as there's a giveaway linked to it for 2 of my readers!

See you tomorrow!

You go See Kai Run!

See Kai Run ® wins iParenting Outstanding Product Award for 2009.

Seattle, WA (August 2009): See Kai Run, popular manufacturer of the perfect first shoe for new walkers, has been chosen as one of the outstanding products for 2009 by iParenting. The iParenting Awards, part of the Disney Interactive Media Group, is the leading family products evaluation program that is committed to helping parents make informed decisions as they choose products for their families.

The iParenting Awards’ method for testing and evaluating products requires review by leading experts, parents and childcare providers, and each product is evaluated on numerous attributes such as quality, durability, age-appropriateness and play value, among many others.

The award-winning product tested and honored in the 2009 Awards is the Cameron Sky sandal, which represents See Kai Run’s first walker line for kids 6 months to 3 years old. Features include:

· Quality construction for healthy development of children’s feet – flexible soles, padded collars, wide toe box.

· The use of quality, safe materials – butter soft leather which meets the most stringent U.S. and international guidelines available.

· Creative, fun, styling that appeal to children and their parents.

iParenting Awards, a Disney Interactive Media Group property, is part of the Disney Online Mom and Family Portfolio, which includes Disney Family.com, FamilyFun.com, PregnancyToday.com and BabiesToday.com.

About See Kai Run

See Kai Run and Smaller promote healthy development of babies' and children's feet with their ultra-flexible soles, butter-soft leather and wide toe box. Our footwear meets the American Podiatric Medical Association's rigorous standards for foot health and functionality and has been awarded the APMA's prestigious Seal of Acceptance. Retail prices starts at $32.

See Kai Run is a family-owned and operated business located outside of Seattle, Washington. The idea was born when owner Cause Haun was on a quest for the perfect first pair of shoes for her son, Kai. Unable to find shoes in fun styles that still promoted the healthy development of little feet, Cause and her husband created their own line of shoes that satisfied all of these needs. In almost 5 years, See Kai Run has seen sales expand from a few boutiques, mostly in the Seattle area, to stores all around the country and worldwide. Please visit www.seekairun.com for additional information.

Wordless Wednesday

What I learned yesterday

So we had our first ever garage sale yesterday.

What did I learn?

* Sunday is not the best day for a garage sale

* we originally had the time from 9-12 but extended it to 2

* the kids expected to have lots of money at the end of the day.....

* I didn't realize how much work the pricing, organizing was

end result...

$18,80

Can you believe it?

The next garage sale will be at our friends house. She lives next to a busy street and people already stop when she unloads things from her garage.

All in all, we had good weather and I finished my book.

Wordless Wednesday

Yes, you're seeing this right!

Peter Vanderkaay, Megan Jendrik and my Lisa at the Fitter & Faster tour in Portland last weekend.

Wordless Wednesday

a chair and chopsticks is all you need for a concert, really....

more reviews/giveaways to come...

I know you all have been waiting for more reviews and giveaways to come and I just haven't had the time to fully concentrate on writing the posts.

With going on vacation, going camping and swim meets, there's just not been enough time to write, clean my house, keep up with my washing, taking the kids to their sports and then still spend time with just my hubby.

On top of all this, my granddad passed away last Sunday and I'm struggling with the fact I'm over here and not in Belgium where I can hug my grandma.

With all this in mind, I've made the decision not to stress anymore over being behind on writing my reviews/giveaways and pick up where I left off as soon as the school starts again.

I love writing reviews but it's just not happening at the moment. I need to keep this in mind for next Summer and plan my reviews/giveaways accordingly.

To all my sponsors, I need to apologize for the delay but I want to spend enough time on writing these reviews and not rush them.

This is a big load of my mind and I probably should have made this decision earlier but I thought I could handle it all, and I have to admit, something had to give and in this case it's my blog. I will keep on adding pictures and keep you updated on how we're doing as a family, but reviews/giveaways have to wait.

Talk to you soon,

Never enough pacifiers...

I guess you can never have enough pacifiers, right?

I just took these pictures after our lunch and the kids told me we had to put these on our blog. They really are funny...

And she did it again...

overall a big success!

Just amazing

A little fish in the water...

One of the things we discovered in San Diego in the hotel swimming pool is that Abby has absolutely no fear of the water!

Whether there was a person ready to catch her or not, she would jump in anyway. Very scary actually, so as soon as we got back home we signed her up for a waterbabies class (where mom and babies swim together) and she has moved up to Tiny tots where she swims with the teacher and the mom sits on the side.

Lisa and Jamie took some pictures of Abby swimming. Did I tell you already she LOVES it?

She swims under water on her own towards the teacher, goes underwater to catch the rings,...

I think we might have another swimmer in the family!

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If you're looking for a great swimming program in the West Linn, Lake Oswego area (Oregon) then look no further.

Swimming Lessons @ www.swimforfun.com

Swim Team @ www.cascadiaswimming.com

AND our new Swim Team has been featured in our local newspaper, see here!!!

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San Diego: some pictures

As promised, here are some pictures from San Diego. I'm going to split them up as we went to Seaworld, Legoland and the Zoo. We were staying in the Hyatt on Mission Bay and I can only tell you it was fantastic, more pictures to follow on the hotel and the super slides they have.

Here's some pictures from Seaworld, I have to say this was our favorite and we ended up going for 2 days!

We had lunch with Shamu which was the hightlight of our trip. We've never been so close to a whale before and the food was excellent, definitely worth the money!