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Travel

Hawaii 2022

Do you remember the big thing that happened in March 2020? It was HORRIBLE. Our vacation got canceled! (Also, there was a global pandemic.) We had a trip to Hawaii planned and up until a day or two before we left, we didn’t know if we were going or not. The world decided for us and air travel was pretty much shut down. Our flights were canceled and eventually they decided to give us credit for them. Those credits were set to expire this spring so before Christmas, we somewhat randomly pointed to a calendar and rebooked figuring that either we’d cancel again and just forfeit our credits or things would get better and we’d go. Instead of the hotel/resort we had planned before, we booked a condo instead so that we could comfortably eat indoors even if COVID was raging. Days after we booked, Omicron hit but luckily for us, it peaked and by the time our trip rolled around, vaccinations were going well and states were rolling back mask mandates. We were able to take our trip during a very low risk time period just before the mask mandates ended and before the Safe Hawaii (vaccination or testing required) program ended. It was pretty much perfect timing! Ok, I think that’s enough COVID backstory, let’s get to the vacation!

Our direct flight landed on Oahu on Thursday afternoon. The day had started around 4am so Tyla and I were ready to find some food and crash in the condo, but Elijah didn’t want to just SEE the beach, he wanted to swim! So we dug out his swimsuit and he got his first taste of swimming in the ocean, or at least in a sunny, warm ocean.

I won’t give a day by day recap, but each day involved some combination of swimming at the ocean and swimming in the condo pool. The condo was about a block off the ocean so it was a good mix of price and convenience. It came stocked with a beach umbrella, beach chairs, sand toys, boogie boards, and lots of other beach goodies.

We purposely picked this condo because of its location so that we wouldn’t need to rent a car, but a couple weeks before we left, I found a great deal through work. The condo came with a free parking spot (amazing!) so we pivoted and rented the car. That gave us a little extra mobility which helped immediately on our first night because I was able to go to Safeway and stock up on breakfast, lunch, and snack foods. For dinner, we tried various food trucks (Munchwagon and Five Star Poke were our favorites) as well as takeout from some restaurants.

Our condo had a good view of Diamond Head Crater and we since we were still on Seattle time, we decided to get there right around sunrise (6:30am) and hike up before it got hot. Silly us. The lot opens at 6:00am and the lot fills up at 6:00am. The lot attendant suggested that we come back around 7:30-8:00 when the first batch of hikers come back down, so we drove around randomly until then. We randomly ended up at Kawaikui Beach Park and walked down to the beach just as the sun was peaking over a hill! The parking lot had quite a few cars but most of them must have been surfers because there were only a handful of people along the beach.

It was a beautiful quiet spot to hang out until we headed back to Diamond Head. Thankfully the tip was correct and we got a spot. The hike up wasn’t too bad physically, but it was packed. I know I say some trails around here are busy but this was solid people the whole way. We didn’t linger long at the top viewpoints because it was just a mass of hot, sweaty people. But despite all that, we were all glad that we did it and Elijah was really proud of himself for making it to the top. When we got back down, we hit the obligatory treat truck to get a fresh fruit bowl served in half a pineapple and a shaved ice. On our way back, we drove around a bit looking for some place to buy fresh, local fruit. We ended up at Whole Foods which had a decent selection, but you have to be careful to actually find stuff grown in Hawaii and not imported from Mexico or South America.

Another day, we walked over to the Honolulu Zoo. It’s not huge, but it was just about the perfect size. As we finished seeing most of the exhibits, we were all ready to get out of the sun for a bit. The animals were fun to see and Elijah learned about a new species of penguin, but my favorite part might have been the amazing trees!

Other activities included a visit to Leonard’s bakery, boogie boarding in some waves, finding our annual ornament at the Waikiki Christmas Store, geocaching, a second trip to Kawaikui Beach Park, and checking out the Koi pond in the lobby. Our condo was on the 29th floor and our balcony had a nice view of the sunset. I suspect that in a couple weeks, the sunset view would be blocked behind another building, but the timing worked out well for us.

We had four complete days there with a travel day on each end. On our final day, we got packed up and had an extra hour or so to kill so we drove to Pearl Harbor Nation Memorial. It has free parking and free entry. Thankfully we got lucky and found a parking spot so we were able to walk around the grounds. The boat ride to the Arizona is free too but you have to book weeks in advance. I knew that going in and our plan was to just see the area but skip all the various museums and things that required tickets and entry fees. While I’d love to spend more time exploring the museums, I’m very thankful that we got to stop there so I can have a memory of that area. The historical accounts feel even more real when you can remember standing in the spot.

Our flights both ways were smooth and uneventful. We were tired when we got home but we were so thankful to have had the opportunity to take the trip and to get there and back safely and in good health. Aloha!

benmartens March 10, 2022 Family, Travel

Anacortes Whale Watching Review

There are plenty of whale watching opportunities in the Pacific Northwest, but we’ve never taken one as a family out here. A few weeks back, Ken went and not only recommended Island Adventures, but the coupon he gave us pushed me over the edge to book the trip. Unfortunately a couple days before we were scheduled to go, their big boat had mechanical issues but we were able to use a smaller boat instead. I think it actually ended up being a nicer experience in some ways.

We were out on the water for about five hours but the time went pretty quickly. The company posts a summary of every trip so I’ll copy their summary of our outing here because it’s better than I could do:

We headed out into the Salish Sea once again with beautiful weather settling in over the area. Starting the day off, we headed down Rosario Strait and began to see many harbor porpoise popping up all over the place as we made our way down to Colville Island. When we got to the island, we found a few nice bobs of harbor seals before making our way back to the east with reports of animals inside Whidbey Island. After a fun cruise through Deception pass, we headed south and our sharp eyed first mate Brittany found the T37A’s just east of Polnell Point. We had an amazing time with these orcas and got a spectacular show from them as they continued eastbound and up Saratoga Passage. After a great time, we waved goodbye to the orcas and headed for the Swinomish Slough where we took a nice slow cruise through La Conner. We spotted all sorts of harbor seals and great blue herons as we traveled along the channel to the north end. Soon we rounded the March Point refineries and made our way into Cap Sante Anacortes.

http://blog.island-adventures.com/2021/09/september-11-2021.html

It was fun to go under the Deception Pass bridge and then back up the slough past La Conner. They implied that both were uncommon so maybe it’s because we were in a smaller boat?

We didn’t know if Elijah would get seasick or bored but neither were a problem. Even with the cold and wind, he was in good spirits all day and seemed to enjoy seeing the whales. It was fun being the first boat to spot the whales too because we got some time to ourselves before the rest of the boats showed up to check it out. (All the tours are in communication about where the whales are.)

The only downside was the small interior. With it being so windy and cold, it would have been nice to spend more time in the warmth but it was so packed on the smaller boat that we tried to stay outside as much as possible figuring that 30-40 mph winds are better COVID protection.

That blog post linked above has the photos from the tour guides but here a couple that we took:

benmartens October 4, 2021 Family, Travel

Day Trip to Kingston

One of our go-to family adventures is taking the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston, having lunch, and then coming back. We can easily walk onto the ferry so there’s no need to plan ahead or worry about the lines. I’ve shared this with quite a few people individually and realized that I should just have it on my website so I don’t have to hunt for the info every time. So if you’re looking for you own fun lunch, here’s what we’ve learned.

  • You can park close to the Edmonds terminal, but you have to pay ~$15. If you look at a map, find 6th street. If you park east of 6th street, there is no fee and no time limit. West of that you are limited to 3 hours. You MIGHT make it back in three hours but I don’t like to have that hanging over my head. We’re rule followers so we just park east of 6th and make the ~5-10 minute walk to the ferry.
  • Walking on the ferry is $8 for adults and $4 for kids. You can buy the tickets right in the terminal but to buy the kids tickets you have to go to the actual ticket booth and not the automated kiosks.
  • The ferry ride is 30 minutes.
  • When you get off the ferry, start walking straight up the hill. There are a number of good places to stop:
    • The Kingston Ale House – This is a table-service restaurant with lots of craft beer on tap.
    • J’aime  les Crepes – You could probably eat a full lunch here but we’ve only gotten crepes and ice cream to go. There’s no real indoor seating.
    • Mora Iced Creamery – Delicious hipster ice cream.
    • The Grub Hut – This is a bit farther up the hill but we really liked it! You order at the counter and then go sit down. They had a lot of options on the menu.
    • There are a lot of other places within walking distance and that strip of restaurants does change. Yelp is your friend.
  • There’s no ticket booth on the way back. You travel east for free.
  • If you end up with a bit of a wait for the next ferry back to Edmonds, there is a big grassy park right by the terminal and sometimes they have a little farmers market/craft fair. There’s often a farmers market on the Edmonds side too.
  • The whole trip usually takes us 4-5 hours including the drive to/from Edmonds.
benmartens August 16, 2021 Family, Travel

Indiana 2021

We’re back from our first trip since COVID hit! We flew out to Indiana for a week in the sun at Dad and Mom’s house. It was a little weird being in the middle of so many people in the airport but I’m glad we went when we did. I think we have a long way to go before we’re really “post pandemic”.

On our first day, we drove up to the Grand Rapids, MI area to see Luke, Rachel, and David’s new home. After that we spent most of our days swimming in the pool or in the yard playing croquet. The temps were in the mid to upper 80s with plenty of humidity (the dew point was 74 one day!) so the water felt great!

I took my drone along on the trip and had fun exploring the area around the house. It was neat to grow up thinking about what it would be like to fly around our house and then actual get to do it.

As always, a big thanks goes to Dad and Mom for hosting us all. It’s a lot of work having that many people in your house!

I hadn’t planned to make a video, but then I thought about how much we enjoy looking back at the older ones so I collected everyone’s footage and put something quick together. It’s not anything super special right now, but I’m sure I’ll be glad I did it down the road.

benmartens August 2, 2021 Family, Travel, Video

Israel Travel Thoughts

My recent trip to Israel was not my first time off of the continent but it was my first time on a continent other than North America. (I’ve been to Hawaii which is not on any continent. Also, continents are weird and somewhere ambiguous.) I’ve sort of been out of the country if you count driving into Canada or stepping off a cruise ship in the Caribbean, but I felt like this was my first legit trip to another country and it’s one of the reasons I signed up for it.

I now have a much better appreciation for people who make long trips like this. It’s a 10 hour difference and I’ve never experienced jet lag like that before. I work with so many people from other countries and it’s amazing that they do this frequently. I’d say that coming back home (west) was easier than going there but both ways had a pretty big impact.

Sunset at the beach in Herzliya

The most common question I get about the trip is whether or not I felt safe. That’s always a hot area of the world, and while this is a relatively peaceful period in its history, President Trump’s peace plan was still shaking things up a bit. Since I knew very little about what it was actually going to be like, I took advantage of a variety of tools. My company has a team devoted to keeping employees safe abroad so I had an app on my phone that gave me alerts from them. I also signed up for alerts from the US State Department. And finally I installed an Israeli app which gives you a notification if there’s a missile launch. We were staying all the way on the west side of the country in Herzliya so that warning would give me about 90 seconds to get to a safe zone. Upon arrival, the only recommendations were to stay out of the West Bank. Towards the end of our trip, they also recommended that we stay out of Jerusalem, but thankfully we had done that tour at the beginning of our trip instead of the end.

Speaking of getting to a safe zone, the office buildings had a steel column in running up the middle and that space was generally used for conference rooms, but it doubled as an area that should be able to withstand a missile attack. In the back of the room there was a ladder that went all the way down to the ground floor. It’s sad that it’s necessary but it was comforting to know it was there.

All that being said, I felt safer walking around in Israel than I do in Seattle. Maybe it was naivety, but people were generally friendly or at least ambivalent. Granted we were staying in a high tech, wealthier area of the country, but even walking around Jerusalem felt pretty safe. Walking around Seattle, I’m always on the lookout for someone who’s a little too desperate for their next drug hit or in need of medication to keep them stable, but there was none of that in Israel. I was all ready to come back and say that I never saw a homeless person in Israel but on the very last morning I spotted one guy sleeping on the street.

Security in the other airports felt much more useful and effective than in the US. Tel Aviv was very impressive. When we flew in from Paris, they made an announcement that within X miles of the airport, nobody was allowed to get out of their seat and the window shades needed to be up. Somebody did try to get up and boy did that get stopped quickly.

Flying out of Tel Aviv was even more impressive. Driving into the airport, everyone stops at a security checkpoint where they take a look inside your car and decide if you need additional inspection. Then before you can even get to the security area, they check your passport and boarding pass. And it’s not just a cursory glance. I had more of a beard than I do in my passport photo and he looked back and forth between my passport and me at least five times. He also took both of our passports and disappeared for a few minutes. I still don’t know what that was about. Then you get to the actual security screening. You don’t just put your bags on the conveyer belt and pull the toothpaste out of your bag. You set your bag on a table and unzip everything. They probably spent 2 minutes per person going through everything and touching everything in the bags with the residue detector. Then there’s the conveyer belt and metal detector plus another check with the residue detector on your shoes. But that’s not all. When you are boarding the plane, they check your bags all over again and scan your passport again. Upon takeoff, the same rules about staying seated applied. Again, it’s sad that it’s necessary, but they do it right. It felt like everyone in security there was doing it because they believed that they were protecting their home and their country as well as the people on the plane. Walking through JFK felt like people were counting the minutes until they were done with their shift and maybe trying to avoid getting a slap on the wrist if they missed something.

Sabich

Another common question is about the food. We ate breakfast in the hotel every morning and boy do the Israelis take breakfast seriously! I’ve never seen a spread like that or as many different kinds of foods available. We had some good lunches and dinners too. Some of my favorites were Greco and Zozobra, but my favorite was a local place that a couple guys from work took us too called הסביח של עובד. I never would have successfully ordered without their help but my traditional Israeli sabich was great.

As for beer, I tried most of the common brands and even did a sampler at a brewery, but it was… not good. I don’t know if our tastes are that different or if they just don’t have good beer, but of the 10 or so different kinds that I tried, there weren’t any that I wanted to have again.

So all in all, it was a good trip. I’m very thankful for the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and experience another culture, even if only for a week.

benmartens February 10, 2020 Travel

Jerusalem Tour

I spend a lot of my time at work collaborating with a team located in Israel. So when the opportunity arose to have the company send me over there for a week, I did the opposite of what I normally do for travel opportunities: I said yes.

There’s a 10 hour difference between home and Israel, so when we finally got to the hotel on Friday evening (local time) about 25 hours after leaving home, I didn’t really want to do much more than lay around for a day and recover. My co-worker convinced me that we should get outside to help get adjusted to the new timezone so we signed up for a tour of Jerusalem. There are a lot of things to see in Israel, but as a Christian, seeing Jerusalem and the surrounding area is pretty high on my list.

We’re staying at a nice hotel so we basically just asked the concierge what she recommended and asked her to sign us up for it. A bus picked us up from our hotel in Herzliya around 7am and after stopping at a couple other hotels and meeting up with some other groups, our group of around 40 people was on a bus headed from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That’s about a one hour drive and we stopped along the way at a rest area for coffee and a bathroom break. (The rest area was Elvis themed. This is not a joke.)

We had a great tour guide, and along the way, he filled us in on a lot of useful local customs information (you generally pay to use bathrooms, always tip 10% or risk being chased into the street, etc). We learned about local agriculture (olives and grapes), why Israeli wine is better than Italian wine (drink too much Italian wine you get drunk, too much Israeli wine and you’re holy), and generally enjoyed seeing the terrain. I’m probably showing my ignorance here, but it was so much greener than I expected. The guide said that Israeli’s plant a tree every time a baby is born and that they are the only country who entered this century with more trees than the start of the previous one. that seems hard to prove but it’s hard to deny that they’re basically terraforming their country.

Our first stop was at a vantage point near Hebrew University northeast of the city [map]. I was immediately struck by the scale of the area. For example, when I read about Jesus walking from the city to the Mount of Olives, I think of that as a decent sized hike. Nope. It’s down through a valley (the Kidron Valley) and up the other side. If you told me you could run it in a minute I might not bet against you. Or how about the distance from Jerusalem to the Jordan River? It’s less than 20 miles! Most of the Biblical area of Israel would fit between West Seattle and Snoqualmie Pass, Puyallup and Bellingham. It raised some new questions for me such as when Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and was tempted, why weren’t there other people around him? You could probably have sat on a hill and watched him for most of it. Anyway, from this great vantage point, we could Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho and the tip of the Dead Sea.

View of the city from a hill near Hewbrew University
Looking out towards Jericho and the Jordan River

From there we hopped back into the bus and drove to a spot near the bottom of the Kidron Valley looking up at the eastern wall of the city. To the east of us was the Garden of Gethsemane. We spent some time there looking at the ancient olive trees and visiting the Church of All Nations. Olive trees can live well over 1000 years and it’s not impossible (but realistically unlikely) that some of the trees were around when Jesus was there. The church was built most recently in the early 1900s after previous versions had been destroyed but there were still some well-protected sections of the mosaic floor that date back to around 300 AD. There is a rock in the front near the altar that is supposed to be the rock where Jesus prayed before he was betrayed.

From the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley up to the eastern wall of the city
Garden of Gethsemane

At the next stop, we got off the bus and started the walking part of our tour. We entered the city from the west side of the via the Jaffa Gate. My first impression of the city was “Hmm… it’s weird that I’ve never thought about what this place looks like in real life.” Up until that point, the images in my head of Jerusalem were whatever was in various Bible story books. So many civilizations have destroyed and rebuilt the city over the years that it’s hard to know how much of today’s city matches what it looked like in Jesus’s time, but it’s probably not that far off. (The last time the walls were built was in the 1500s by the Ottomans.) The whole city has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times that it’s much higher than before but supposedly many of the holy sites are still in the same spot. The city is currently divided into four quarters for the Christians, Armenians, Muslims and Jews. You can generally flow pretty freely between the quarters.

City wall near Jaffa Gate
Narrow streets

From Jaffa gate, we wound our way through the narrow streets with limestone buildings rising up on each side. The first major stopping point was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This church is now inside the city walls but during Jesus’s time, it was outside the city and it’s where he was crucified, his body was anointed and where he was buried. There are a lot of things in this church that were supposedly touched by Jesus many people wait in long lines to touch them, make their items holy relics, etc.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Next stop: lunch! Doing that on my own would have felt intimidating but our guide had it all planned out. We ate lunch on the roof of a cafe with a great view of the city and my falafel pita sandwich was good too.

View from our lunch spot

After lunch, we continued our walk down the Via Dolarosa which is the path that Jesus took to his crucifixion. There are 14 stations along the way and we covered the final ones at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Going backwards is not the common way to travel it but it means you get to walk downhill and you also don’t have to follow the crowds of people walking the “proper” way up the path. This was the busiest and most crowded area of our whole tour. We took brief stops at some of the stations but mostly tried to keep moving and keep the group together.

Via Dolorosa

Around station 5 where Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry his cross, we broke off the Via Dolarosa and headed into the temple mount area. This is where the temple was and today this is where you find the famous “western wall”. I had been under the impression that this was the last remaining part of Solomon’s temple, but that’s not quite right. The wall we see now was finished around the time of Herod (~4 BCE). It was a retaining wall built around the area where the temple had been and we can only see the top half of the wall. The reason why Jews go to pray here is that the Holy of Holies from the original temple was on the other side of that wall. So this is the closest that we can get to the most holy place of Solomon’s temple. The most famous part of the western wall is in the Jewish quarter but it extends a long way into the Muslim quarter as well. I don’t have a great photo because this was one area where they really didn’t want you using technology on the Sabbath.

Western Wall

From the western wall, we walked along the top of the city wall and exited the city through Zion gate. Our next stop was Mt. Zion where we saw the room where Jesus had the Last Supper with his disciples and David’s tomb. Our guide noted that neither of these locations can be proven by archaeology, but they are likely very close to the correct area of the city.

Last Supper and David’s Tomb

The final part of our tour took us along the outside of the wall and back to our bus near the Jaffa gate. The bus ride back to Tel Aviv took about an hour and then our guide had taxis lined up to take us back to our various hotels.

Exterior wall on the walk back to the bus

Someone in our group said that we covered about 5 miles on foot and I believe it. It was a lot of walking and a long day, but it flew by in a blur. I took a ton of pictures along the way, not necessarily with the intent of capturing great photos (the internet is full of those), but to remember where we had been.

Overall I give this tour two thumbs up. Specifically, this was the “Jerusalem Old and New” full day tour by Ben Harim tours and our guide was Itamar. He did a great job of explaining all the locations while keeping our group together and answering questions along the way. He also stuck to the facts about the realities of having so many faiths together in one location rather than getting into the politics.

Many of the churches and holy sites kind of blended together for me because the appearance of those locations has changed so much since Jesus was there. Plus, it’s hard to know how much of the relics and artifacts are legit and even if they are, they don’t make a difference to my faith. I’m going to heaven because Jesus died for my sins, not because I touched a rock that he touched too. However, seeing the architecture and landscape while understanding the distances and relative locations of sites filled my head with a lot of visuals that I’ll draw on for the rest of my life. I’m so thankful for this opportunity!

benmartens February 3, 2020 Travel

Christmas 2019 In Indiana

This year we made the trek back to my parents house in Indiana for Christmas. While we didn’t get to enjoy sledding and playing the snow, we did enjoy easier travel with unusually warm weather.

We had a nice time playing lots of games, doing a puzzle, taking walks through the woods, hunting for golf balls on the golf course, lunch at the Studebaker brewery, buying treats at the South Bend Chocolate company, canoeing and taking a tour of the Oliver mansion with my grade school teacher.

As always, my parents deserve a huge thank you for putting up with six extra people in their house. They always make us feel welcome … and full. Yum!

benmartens January 3, 2020 Family, Travel

Indiana Vacation

I posted earlier about our trip to Maine but that was only the first half of our summer vacation. From Maine, we drove back to Boston and then flew to Midway where Dad picked us up and took us back to Indiana.We spent just over a week there and had incredible weather! We went in the pool every day (often twice a day), visited the dunes, played putt putt, rode tractors and generally filled our time with lots of smiles and good food.

One big difference on this trip was that Don joined us for the second half of our time there. It was fun to finally show him where I grew up and Elijah loved having both Grandpa’s at the house at the same time!

I put together a video for this part of the trip as well and there are a couple family photos below.

benmartens August 27, 2019 Family, Travel

Camp Ticawa 2019

If you search this blog for posts about “Camp Ticawa”, you’ll find a lot of entries. When I lived on the east coast, I frequently had the pleasure of hanging out with the Abendroth family at their place on Long Lake near Harrison, Maine.

Since moving to Washington, the trips have become a lot less frequently. Tyla and I made it out there in 2011 and this year, we decided it was time to go back. Luckily the Abendroth clan was cool with us inviting ourselves out to invade their family vacation!

Getting to rural Maine from Woodinville with a 6 year old in tow isn’t easy. There weren’t any great options, but I think we ended up with a good one. Don was kind enough to get us to the airport by about 4:30am for a very early flight out of Seattle all the way to Boston. There we rented a car and made the ~3.5 hour drive up to camp. After factoring in the time change, we arrived around sunset.

We were blessed with beautiful weather all three days that we were there and we spent it floating down the Saco River, tooling around the lake on the pontoon boat, and relaxing around camp. It was great to catch up with old friends and meet a couple new faces as well. I can’t say enough thank you’s to the entire Abendroth family for letting us crash their family time! You all made us feel so welcome and we will cherish those memories forever!

Apparently, Jay had been passing around the old videos I made of camp and I was immediately asked by a number of the kids to make another one. So here we go! It’s the 2019 Camp Ticawa montage video:

benmartens August 19, 2019 Family, Travel

Great Wolf Lodge

A couple weekends ago, Tyla, Elijah and I headed to Great Wolf Lodge for the second time. It was quite a bit different from our first trip because we were already familiar with the layout so there wasn’t a feeling of discovery and we were more careful/cheap with our time there. Instead of staying two nights, we stayed one night and made use of the water park on the day we arrived and the day we left. They’re quite generous with those policies so it worked out well. Another difference is that Don, Logan and Megan came along and I think they had a reasonably good time.

When we were at Disney, I had specifically picked a hotel with good water slides. He was afraid to try them until almost literally the last minute. He finally got the nerve to try one and LOVED it but we had to leave immediately to make some dinner reservations. That was our last chance at the pool. He was pretty sad but I think it taught him a good lesson. When we got to the pool this time he looked up and said, “Daddy, which slide is good for me?” Yes! I was very proud. We started on the yellow and red slides in the middle and he loved them. After doing those a few times, he was ready for even bigger challenges, He went down three of the bigger slides and loved them all too. The only one he didn’t do was the Howlin’ Tornado and he wasn’t tall enough for that. I was incredibly proud of him for his great attitude and willingness to try those slides!

It was neat seeing him so confident in the water too. He’s progressing quite well in his swim lessons. One I watched him get knocked off a play structure and land in the water. He immediately rolled onto his back and started floating and motoring to the side. I think he’s going to have a great time when we visit my parents this summer and spend hours in their pool.

So even though Great Wolf Lodge is a mess of screaming kids and thinly veiled attempts to vacuum money from your wallet, it was a good trip. Thanks for organizing it Tyla!

 

benmartens June 11, 2019 Family, Travel