Thursday, June 18, 2015

Visiting Great Wolf Lodge (and staying organized with Mabel's Labels)

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Mabel’s Labels
I received a voucher to facilitate my review as well as a promotional item 
to thank me for my participation.


This past weekend we spent 3 days at Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, WA. It's an indoor water park resort that is truly geared towards fun for all members of the family, at all developmental levels and ages. It was a big gift from Nana to her grandbabies - all 6 of them. We, as their parents, were so lucky to get to tag along! ;) So count this - 6 grand babies (between the ages of 1-12) and 8 adults piled into two suites and we spent 3 days of family fun at the park.  



Words can't describe how wonderful it was to be with so many family members for a few days of fun, relaxation and a break from the hum-drum every day. We made a ton of memories that will last a life time and most importantly spent it with those whom we love. 


A few memories from the trip...
  • Margarita night for the ladies. It was awesome.
  • Nearly falling out of the inner tube while going down The Tornado (!!)
  • Watching Ruby overcome her anxiousness around the water and eventually hear her squeals of excitement while she "swam" through the water like a frog.
  • At every meal, Penny would ask the auntie or uncle closest to her and make sure that they were enjoying their meal and saying "that makes me glad." We've been focusing on empathy lately and it's been paying off!
If you've got a big-group Great Wolf trip planned for the future, here are a few tips of what {I think} we did right:
  • Coordinate meals. We were there for almost three whole days, so between 3 families we split who would be taking care of meals for that day. 
  • Collaborative naps. We came up with a cuddle puddle of toddler aged nap time where they all snuggled in together for a nap on the pull out, while Ruby (the only infant) slept quietly in a separate room. One or two parents stuck around to keep an eye on things (aka also take a nap). The two "Bigs" went on a Magiquest while the rest of the adults got to have some non-kid fun time at the water park! 
  • Collaborative bed-time. Pretty much the same thing happened as it did at nap time, except we let the kids wind down with a movie while the grown ups played games or chatted.
  • Mabel's Labels made it easy to quickly see who's stuff belonged to whom. 

Can you imagine the amount of stuff we had? All of the moms started out with the best of intentions by sectioning off our family's things into our respective areas and kept it nice and tidy. That was the first part of day one. Then the morning's swim session was over and everyone hurriedly stripped off their wet swim suits in preparation for lunch and naps. As you can imagine, there was A LOT of kid stuff floating around between those two suites. Keeping track of all that was a job and a nightmare in itself.

Thankfully a few of the kids' items were accounted for and easily identified thanks to Mabel's Labels. Mabel's Labels are super durable sticker labels that you can use to identify your kids' items, such as shoes, jackets, toys, water bottles, backbacks and more. They are laundry,  dishwasher and microwave-safe! Because of their waterproof quality, I knew they'd be perfect for our trip to Great Wolf!
note: identifying information was omitted by using photo editing. Your order from Mabel's Labels will not have blocked out text like the labels do above.
I've heard about Mabel's Labels for the last few years, I knew that they were popular and had won awards...but now I am totally hooked! The quality of the sticker and printing is awesome and they are really robust. I wasn't worried about the sticker wearing off the bottom of the sandal (we wore them in the water too!) or falling off. 

We tried out the Limited Edition Camp Label Pack - for $39.95 you get a variety of 64 labels that include:
  • 10 Personalized Name Stickers: 70mm x 16mm (2-3/4" x 5/8")
  • 24 Mini Custom Name Stickers: 38mm x 8mm (1-1/2" x 5/16")
  • 8 Custom Shoe Stickers: 33mm (1.3")
  • 50 Tag Mates™ Stick On Clothing Labels: 21mm x 10mm (13/16" x 3/8")
  • 2 Personalized Bag Tags: 57mm x 32mm (2-1/4" x 1-1/4")
What a deal, right? There were so many tags included that we have use for them on items down the road.



You can order your stickers. I also used promocode RETAILMENOT and got an additional discount!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. 

3 comments:

  1. Looks like you guys had a lot of fun

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  2. Looks like a great trip! I'd say labeling was a lifesaver for sure.

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  3. Fun labels! I'm lucky enough that our day care is really small, so I don't even have to write names on LO's stuff. We may not always get it back that night, but we eventually get it back. Once school starts though, we'll be all about labels!

    ReplyDelete