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. 

Squirt earns his keep

Yesterday we visited our favorite local hike, Wallace Falls, to take advantage of the gorgeous pretty-much-summer weather. It was 90 degrees. In Washington. In May.

The last time we did this hike we (in February) did about 1/3 of the total trip. It was a good day for a hike (considering), but still a little cool and muddy. This time around we did the whole thing. With baby in tow.

Two of our main goals as parents is to keep doing what we loved to do before having a baby (within reason - no ATVing is in our immediate future) and to share our love and appreciation for the outdoors with our children.  Which means until Penny is old enough to get herself up that mountain, mama and daddy are going to schlep her up ourselves. Luckily she looooves to be worn and is not that heavy (at 14 months she weighs in just under 20 lbs...).



One of the ways we made it easier on ourselves was to give everyone a "job." Penny's job - if you can really call it that - was to be cute and happy in her Ergo. Nailed it.



Mama's job (to start with) was to be the water carrier. I pulled out my CamelBak that I've had since college, which alleviated carrying around a water bottle and opened up both of my hands to either tend to Squirty or Penny.


Daddy's job was to carry Penny. He had her on his back 90% of the way up to the top, but we ended up switching off because Penny got over being covered in Dad's sweat and needed some Mama time :) So Adam took over carrying the water.




Finally, Squirt's job. Our backs were full - which left no where to pack our lunch. And thus, the best invention known to hiking-kind. The dog pack!


Squirt is wearing a Ruffwear Approach pack.  We're in the process of running this pack through it's paces (keep an eye out for a full review soon!) but so far we are really pleased with it. It has two large pockets plus two small ones, with several high quality bells and whistles to boot. We packed our snacks, lunch, Squirt's food and a few miscellaneous items for Penny and he carried it all comfortably without needing to readjust the pack during the 4 hour hike.

Yesterday's weather will probably be one of the top 5 most beautiful days in Washington this year. Even though this hike is an extremely popular one (the parking lot was full by 10a), the trail itself was not terribly crowded. The viewpoints and lunching area were clogged up, but we bypassed most of them and opted to view them on the way back.

There were so many great photo opportunities and it's a shame that the noon day sun was right above us (for the non-photographers out there that means pretty much everything gets washed out in all the brightness!). But you didn't just hear this Washington girl complain about there being too much sun. Nope, not me.

Family Hike

This weekend we embarked on our first hike of the year!

While we lived in Washougal, our favorite hike nearby was Beacon Rock - the core of a dead volcano that was ~20 minutes from us. We loved that hike because it was close, had great views and a good work out during the week. So naturally when we moved, I set out to find our next family hiking area.

Wallace Falls has some of the best reviews for hikes in our county so I set it aside and waited for a good weekend to come up for us to venture out. We were a little worried at first because we heard that it might still have some snow - so we bundled everyone up.

Once we arrived we found the parking lot FULL of hiking groups - at least 2 large groups of high schoolers, several families and couples. So we knew that the terrain wouldn't be too bad.

The entire hike is 11 miles round trip with 1,200 ft in elevation gain to visit the lower and upper falls, but we decided only to make it up to the lower falls. which made it about a 5 mile round trip. We definitely could have made it all the way but wanted to have some relaxing time when we got home.

A few minutes into the hike we realized that this would be our new family hike that we could hit several times during the month. It starts along a power line trail and gently amps up the incline over a mile or so. You hike along a river and through misty old growth. Even though it was a busy day with lots of hikers and dogs, the sounds of the forest weren't overpowered. The river, birds and occasional small woodland creature could be heard scurrying through the pine needles.

Oh, and Squirt accompanied us as well.  Several times throughout the hike we stopped at a spring or along the river to let him have a drink. His response? Running full force into the water.. and I was reminded that in his heart he is a river dog. We used to go to the river by our old house almost every afternoon, and he loved diving for rocks.  

BTW: Our two favorite outdoor accessories: the Ergo carrier and our Keen shoes. I've had a pair of Keen sandals that I've worn for the last 5+ years, and this winter I scored these sweet Hoodoo boots  on sale. They're supposed to be primarily for the snow, but worked perfectly for our muddy hike. No break in period either. *Love*

Is there anything hotter than a babywearin' daddy?? // New Keen boots!

One last jaunt down Highway 14

It was one of our last weekends at our house in the Portland area, and we decided to take advantage of the beautiful scenery of the Columbia River Gorge on last time. If you ever find yourself in the Gorge - always take Highway 14 on the Washington side. I-84 (on the Oregon side) runs parallel across the river, but it's just a boring straight interstate.

The first summer that Adam and I were together, he took an internship outside of Hood River, Oregon and I drove down a few times to visit him. We took tons of drives all up and down Highway 14 and just fell in love with the twists and turns of the road, cliffs that fall into the Columbia River (of course, so much geological history as well!), plethora of waterfalls, did several hikes and simply enjoyed being two college kids in love.

Now, 5 years later, we took our last drive out there as residents of the area and visited Maryhill Winery. It was a destination that we had been meaning to visit for the last few years, but the renovation always got in the way on the weekends. On a whim, we decided to visit and spent a good part of an afternoon and the start of sunset out there.

Wine tasting is one of our favorite things to do when we travel, but we haven't gotten to do it too much between my pregnancy and the early part of nursing.  Now six months in, I feel a lot more comfortable with how much I can drink and how to time it with nursing.

Penny was a little superstar in the tasting room - her boisterous squeals and now almost constant babble kept us, our server and neighbors entertained.  The website did say that the winery was dog and family friendly, but I wasn't sure how people would react to a happy (yet loud) baby.

We tasted some wine, were happy with the season's Riesling and bought a couple bottles. We had also packed a small lunch in our super cute picnic basket so we sat out and enjoyed the sunset on the lawn.

Afterwards, we pulled over for a short hike to a waterfall on our way home to cool off. It was my first time wearing Penny on my back in the Ergo - normally I wear her in front, but she wants so badly to see everything! Now I can usually get away with wearing her on my front when we're out and about and she could use a nap.

Oh, and we're totally a Keen (shoes) family. I've had my pair for 5 years- they go with me on all of my travels and have withstood everything I've put them through. They've gone hiking, to the beach, boating, river rafting, and my favorite - waterfall climbing in the Dominican Republic on our honeymoon. I've also been wearing them as an everyday shoe all summer when I get bored of flip flops. Zulily finally had them on sale so I picked up a set for Adam and Penny. I tried to practice some forethought and bought her a pair in a youth size, but I have no idea how big those shoes are. The day comes when they arrive.. and apparently youth size 7 is pretty equivalent to women's 8. So, mama got a new pairs of keens, in tangerine orange ;) Hey, I won't complain about new shoes!

It was a wonderful spur of the moment family trip that was exactly what we needed.. the last few months have been go-go-go with finishing the house, working with our agent and buyer on the sale, looking for a new home, all the while continuing to make an effort to be present in the rest of our family's lives. Sometimes, going off the grid and ignoring our phones for a few hours is just what the doctor ordered.