Roughing it in the Wilderness

Last weekend we had Mark's mom's Christmas at the Wilderness Territory in the Wisconsin Dells. Mark had a football coaches' meeting up there, and when that was over we congregated in adjacent 3-bedroom suites for a fun 24 (more or less) hours!
As you can see, the Wilderness is a pretty rough place...

Filled with lots of crazy animals!!


You will notice there are no pictures of the waterparks. WaterPARKS PLURAL. There were FOUR indoor waterparks inside the Wilderness Territory, and you needed a compass or GPS to find them. It was a good workout, walking to all of those places. Once I saw the massive amounts of people at each one of the parks, I didn't bother taking the camera out of my bag. Too very crazy. Let me just sum up the waterpark experience with a little report card.
Wild West....C-....TOO DARN COLD !!
Water Dome with Tidal Wave...B...would have received an A except that 2 of my kids nearly drowned in the wave. Okay, I'm being a bit dramatic, but that tidal wave is relentless and doesn't care if your kid starts gagging on a big gulp of water and can't get to the "beach"!!
Klondike Kavern...A....something for every age, including the very scary (so I'm told, too chicken to find out myself) Hurricane and my personal favorite, the Lazy River. (Notice the word "Lazy" in there. Any correlation to Slacker Mom, hmmm?)
Other waterpark ....no grade because we didn't take the shuttle bus to get there.
Overall waterpark experience...B...again, this is my opinion, but the place is too darn GIGANTIC to really be practical. And you know how much I like to be practical. I mean, it shouldn't take you 30 minutes to walk to the lobby or waterpark from your room. In a FREEZING hallway with a wet swimsuit on. Live and learn: bring everyone a bathrobe or cover-up !! And don't get me started on the signage (or lack thereof). This place was the size of a small state, I kid you not.
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Siegert gatherings are known for their overabundance of food. I should have taken a picture of the taco bar on Saturday night. Eleven pounds of taco meat for 11 adults and 12 kids (2 under the age of one). HELLO!! But as always, the food was de-lish. Grandma Jan cooked up this wonderful breakfast on Sunday morning...

...topped off with Marin's 2-ton chocolate tray. (You can interpret the tonnage into the size of the chocolate tray AND/OR the size of the person who can't stop eating them!!)

I made my goddaughter Mady a matching game and used magnetic spray paint to cover this lap board to store the magnets. I turned family pics into magnets for her to play with on long car rides. It didn't turn out as slick as I had hoped, but I hope she gets some use out of it!

You never know what a child is going to get the biggest kick out of when opening presents. The little notepad I put into a crayon roll seemed to win out!

Warning: Cute Baby Alert! Cute Baby Alert!
Tage will be one in early February...

...and Lauren will join him six days later! This little girl can sit contentedly for over an hour on someone's lap. (Why didn't MY kids get this gene? It must be their mother's fault!!)

Now that our kids are out of the have-to-watch-them-24-7 stage, it is fun to sit back and watch the younger parents sweat it out. Uncle Mark couldn't resist teasing his godson (and Tage's poor daddy!) with a plate of butter right in arm's reach!

All in all, it was a very fun weekend and great to spend time with family. Special thanks to our football team family who made our own personal reservation possible!
That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God.--Ecclesiastes 3:13