Fall Break Fun

Even though this week is really feeling like fall, our school's fall break was 2 weeks ago.  It was still pretty warm during all of our break.  Since the kids were out of school Wednesday-Friday, I was ready to have some fun with them.  Kelly and I were back and forth on what we wanted to do, but we settled on taking the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, NC.  We always love getting back to N.C.!   We used to live just 5 minutes from the Great Wolf so its fun to see everything again. I still miss it all.   The girls love going there and this summer they filled their reward jars and told us they wanted to go to Great Wolf Lodge again as their reward.  Since we didn't finalize our stay until that Tuesday at lunch the girls were clueless that we were going.  I mean we barely knew ourselves!  We love being spontaneous and love surprises so this was right up our alley.  We made our reservation while Kelly was in for lunch and then afterwards I started packing for me and all the kids.  We decided not to tell them, to just pack it up and then surprise them.  Kelly had a meeting that evening so the girls came home and we just hung out at home.  Kate actually fell asleep early.  They never even paid attention to me hurrying around and taking things to the car.  When Kelly got home we loaded them into the car and said we were heading on an adventure.  I think Cohen was caught off guard and was a little scared.  She said, "I don't think I want to go anywhere if we have to leave so late."  We assured her it would be fine and then told her where we were going.  She was excited but still hesitant about leaving so late.  It was getting close to 10:00.  She ended up falling asleep pretty quick which was another reason we liked going at night.  They all 3 slept the whole trip and even though we woke them up when we arrived there, they had no trouble falling back to sleep in the hotel room.  It was a fun little surprise for them.
They all woke up Wednesday morning excited and ready to go!  They loved putting on their wolf ears and howling.  We had breakfast and made our way to the water park.  We stayed there all afternoon only stopping for a quick lunch break.  They all LOVED it!  Cohen rode every slide multiple times, Kate could ride everything but one, and Bryce was limited to a few slides but he loved the ones he could ride.  It was such a fun day.  Kelly and I love slides too and we would take turns riding with Cohen and Kate and playing with Bryce.

Later that afternoon after we had finished at the waterpark, the girls were begging to get the magic wands and play the quest games around the hotel.  If you haven't been to the Great Wolf Lodge I highly recommend it.  The waterpark is great but they have so many other fun things too.  The quest games you can play are very neat.  Its almost like a big scavenger hunt for kids to play.  They get a book with their wands then get started.  The game is played on the 2, 3, and 4th floors of the hotel and you are given hints on where to go until the quest is complete.  Several quests make up a book and your progress is saved forever so even if you don't finish on this one trip you can pick back up on your next visit.  A good way to keep you coming back!  The girls definitely didn't finish but we were up late doing it and then up early before leaving again on Thursday.  It was fun for them.  I loved that the hotel was all decorated for Halloween.  I love Halloween and all the fun that comes with it.  The kids even had a trick-or-treat at the hotel.  It was just all a lot of fun and perfect for our little fall break getaway!
When we go to N.C. we have to see some friends.  We all met for Japanese, another favorite for the girls, and it was so yummy.  This used to be a frequent lunch spot for me and my friends when we all worked together.

clearly Bryce was over pictures

After dinner it was more quest games for us...Bryce chose to play on all the decorations which included knocking this witch's pot over...wonk wonk.

Thursday we had to pack up and leave.  We decided to do some fall activities and head to our favorite apple orchard.  Sug, Pop, Aunt Sara, Savannah, and Addison met us there.  I was sad to see that the U-pick for the season was over but this place has so many fun things to do that we still had a blast.  And the donuts...hello!  That is really why I go.  Between those and the apple cider slushies I am in heaven.  I refuse to miss this fall tradition.  Kelly and I started going to Sky Top before we ever had kids!  It is crazy to think how many years we have been going.  I love it love it!

 After the orchard we headed over to our other favorite spot nearby, Elijah Mountain Gem Mine.  The girls specifically ask to do this each year and they seem to still enjoy it now as much as they did the first time we did it.

Friday of our break was spent celebrating Bryce and having his 3rd birthday party.  You can read all about it here.
Saturday Cohen performed at the Royston fall festival.  She did a great job!  Later we headed to Athens for Georgia's game against Missouri.  It was another Dawg win!!! 7-0 and we are having a ball!

Sunday we celebrated Uncle Adam's birthday.  We do a lot of birthday celebrating in October :)

Sunday night we had our first Halloween party of the year!  So much fun!  Cohen had asked me a few weeks earlier when Nat would have her Halloween party.  She said, "I look forward to that like I look forward to Christmas!"  Pretty big deal I would say.  The girls were excited to get all dressed up too.  We had some Halloween switch ups to our costumes.  Cohen had been set on being Jojo Siwa for Halloween and we even ordered a costume back in August!  Well here we sat mid October with no costume and after several calls along the way I had the order canceled because ridiculous wasn't even the word to began to describe that.  So on to plan B.  Cohen was now Little Red Riding Hood.  Kate had wanted to be a wolf all along but a scary wolf.  Well I never found a good costume for that so we settled on a butterfly.  Well when Cohen switched to Little Red riding Hood we searched for Kate a wolf costume in our own stash and came up with something that worked.  It all worked out and the kids had a blast all night.  They ate, painted pumpkins and played.  Bryce sported his tractor costume that I had worked hard on and he even won best costume.  HE was proud of that little ribbon too!  Such a fun time with our friends.  I'm like Cohen, I look forward to that each year too.   Every month/season has so much fun for us to look forward to.  I would say we had a very fun break!

Super proud of his ribbon!

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