Another Big Weekend

Whew! What a weekend. JerBear and I took the kids to the Twin Cities. We stayed at the Grand Lodge - yes, the hotel with the indoor water park. We've wanted to do that since it opened, but we knew it would be better to do when the weather turned cool, but before winter hit and the place became crazy. Guess what? We were off on both thoughts.

The weather forecast said rainy and 60 degrees all weekend. I forced Lauren to take all of her tank tops and shorts (except one pair) out of her suitcase and replace them with pants and long sleeves. I packed one tank top and pair of shorts (for my training session with Brad) and wore a short sleeved shirt Friday. Everything else I packed was long-sleeved and legged. The boys packed pants and short-sleeved shirts. The weather was 90 degrees and humid as Hades. Do you know when it cooled off? When we were 40 minutes from George - TODAY (Sunday)!!!!!!!!!

We hit the waterpark Saturday afternoon after my training with Brad and lunch. (See the posting below for details on the training.) This is where we were wrong for the second time. The place was crazy busy. After a couple hours, things slowed down, so we decided to try out the family tube slide. There was a girl in line without a family to ride with, so we said she could ride with us. When we climbed into the tube, the lifeguard told us the tube was limited to four people. Jerry tried to get out to take Conner on the next tube. The tube started moving. The 110 pound lifeguard was knocked over by the tube, which is starting its descent. Jerry is half out the tube; the lifeguard is frantically trying to climb in; the tube is going Mach I down the slide. Lauren is in the bottom of the tube screaming her head off. The little girl with us is the closest to Lauren, so she hangs on to Lauren, keeping her from falling out. A tube that 15 seconds ago could only have four passengers, now has six. Not fun! We survived, but we were a little shaken up. Jerry and I went back up and rode again and found out it is actually fun when you're not taken off guard. After supper, we coaxed the kids to go again, which they did, and they found out it was fun too.

Jerry and I were on a mission this weekend to find a vodka we had tasted and loved at last week's vodka tasting at the Club. We stopped at every liquor store we passed on Saturday trying to find Van Gogh espresso infused vodka. We found out that no one in the Cities stocks it, except for maybe a store by the U of M. We can buy it at the liquor store in Milford, but not a single store in the Twin Cities. WTF??? Crazy!!!

Today we took the kids to Underwater World in the MOA. We also did the Behind the Scenes tour. That was pretty cool. We got to see the aquarium from the top and see the fish, turtles, and stingrays up close. The aquarium is actually smaller than I thought it was. The kids had a great time with that.

All in all, the weekend was a hit. It was definitely exciting, and we created some fantastic memories. Now I'm ready to stay home for a few weekends.