Fun in the Dells

This past weekend we went to Wisconsin Dells to the Wilderness with two other families.  We also had my nephew Keith with us.  He was brave enough to hang out with our crazy crew and enjoy all that cramming 7 people into a hotel room has to offer.  Between the 3 families we had 6 adults and 10 kids (ages 2-junior high).  We conquered 4 water parks and a giant indoor playground.  There were fun talks, laughing, a bit of crying (my littles didn't want to go to bed), swimming, eating and a little bit of sleep.

Goofballs and good friends.

Most of the time if we go somewhere we drive and stay in our RV.  Since we didn't need somewhere to stay I thought we could just take our car.  While there are downsides to not having the RV like less space and no bathroom; there were upsides like everyone can see the DVD players from their car seats and I get to sit and talk to Brad instead of being up and tending to the kids' needs in the RV.  The kids couldn't even comprehend that we were driving the car.  C said "but Mommy I thought you said we were staying overnight at the waterpark?  Where are we going to sleep?"  Because we never stay in hotels, the kids were quite excited when we arrived.  J got in the room and said "it's like we are in New York City or something!"  The kids jumped from bed to bed and thought that having 100's of tv channels was amazing.  They didn't want to leave.

Humoring his aunt :)

On the way to Wisconsin Dells C rode with the our good friends, they had extra room in their car and they left  a couple hours before us.  C was so excited to beat us there. We had to pick Keith up from school, then V and J then we were dropping the dogs off at the Crawford's house.  They were kind enough to watch the dogs for the weekend.  Our car was packed!  We had just enough room in the back for the dogs and kids.  There was no spare room.  Pete decided he had to be by his people so on the hour drive he weaseled his way onto V's lap in the 3rd row. Then he managed to get onto Keith's lap in the middle row.  Keith was able to keep him from coming up front!  Once we dropped off the dogs we had a lot more room!  On the return trip we had C with us and made Bristol sit on the floor in front of D's feet and Pete sat on my lap up front.  He isn't small.  Sitting still is a challenge for him.  J kept trying to call Pete to the middle row.  C and D were yelling "no Pete!"  They didn't want Pete sitting on them.

On our way!

I don't know what they were looking at but Dean seemed to think it was funny.

V was tall enough for all the rides and enjoyed hanging out with the older kids.  J hated wave pools and water slides this summer.  But this weekend he loved the wave pool and he went with Brad and the big kids on almost every water slide and loved it!  C was tall enough for a couple bigger water slides and was nervous on the way up but ended up loving the waterslides.  D likes to say everything is "too cary" (too scary), he went on a couple bigger waterslides with Brad.  I guess he would tell Brad he had fun when they got to the bottom.  When I would ask how it was when I would get to the bottom after them, he would say they were scary.  There was one heated indoor/outdoor pool and he loved swimming to the outside part.  They all loved the massive indoor playground and Brad and I enjoyed it too.  Some of the slides were really fast and fun! 

Relaxing after a hard day of having fun

We are truly blessed that we have several good friends that would do anything for us, that enjoy being around our circus and love our family for who we really are.  It is amazing!  To have friends that love your kids, take time to get to know and interact with and love your kids is a true blessing.  Our kids may not realize it now but they are blessed to have so many loving, kind, Christian adults involved in their lives.  And we are blessed to have the opportunity to be involved in our friends' kids' lives. 

Our 5 kids for the weekend.

There were so many different cute pictures I could have taken all weekend, but there was water and I didn't want to worry about my phone or camera.