So, it started out with a bang, with Tim and Kurt puking.. and the rest? Well, lets just say our last name was "Griswold" for the week! We took off Wednesday morning, not really knowing what we were getting into - if anyone else would get sick or not, and the good news is that we girls were just fine. God Bless Clorox! Poor Tim, I made him scrub himself and clean every time he puked, and that was a lot! I offered to clean but after the first 3 times, he just did it himself. Anyway, we take off to the Dells and find out along the way that Tim's Uncle Tom (Harry's sisters husband, they live in Lincoln) had passed away the day before suddenly. So sad for us, he was an awesome guy! We find out that the funeral isn't until Saturday so we stayed in the Dells.
We go to check in and are asked if we went to the "Welcome Center"???? You see, we had booked this trip under the obligation of going through, what we thought was going to be, a 90 minute sales pitch tour for Christmas Mountain. Nobody told us we needed to go to the welcome center but off we went, across town to get our information. After our tour we are supposed to get 2 $25 Visa cards and that will take our fee to $50 for our stay, good deal - right? It was almost 3pm at the time and we were told our room wouldn't be ready til 4pm anyway. By the time we get back, we figure out that they had told 500 other families to come at 4pm as well! We were in line out the door! Luckily, (aka - God!) someone walked by and whispered that there were 3 open lines to the right that nobody could see so about a dozen of us hussled over there! Here I find out we owe another $66 for our stay! I knew it! I knew we couldn't get away with $50 for 2 nights! But I pay, because what else can I do? 45 minutes later we trudge up to our room to find families lined up all down the hallway - all waiting for the cleaning crew to clean the rooms. You have bouncing children saying, "Hurry up, hurry up!!" and the parents all trying to hush them because we really don't want them rushing to clean!
So, by 6pm we are headed to the theme park/water park and really did have a fun time. The kids played and enjoyed themselves. I sit next to a lady who tells me she paid $720 for 3 nights here and was not happy at all with the service - I can imagine! I was already irritated with $116 for 2 nights! We hang out for a couple of hours and go back and order Domino's and watch the result show for Idol and finally all fall asleep, whew!
We awake at 5:30am hearing what appears to be a circus out in the hallway. I got up to -
address the situation - to find that its our neighbors next door, in their room with at least 50 kids in there (ok, probably only 2 or 3 but it was loud! and it was so early) and they weren't doing anything wrong other than being alive at that hour, but still. So we get up and get ready for our tour, oh, everybody is so excited! Tim is feeling ill still - probably form Domino's the night before on a tender tummy, but we go because if you don't go they charge you for the rooms and we're not paying that kind of money!
We arrive to meet our tour guide, Ty Pennington Jr. - only hyper! He had to have been on something, the poor kid could not sit or stand still for 2 seconds. He takes us out to the table to talk and he's on the chair sitting on his feet! Our 90 minute tour turns into 2 hours and we're thankful because everybody else we walked in with was still in their "meeting". Tim made it pretty clear we weren't buying! I go to the desk and ask for our gift cards and she tells me they gave them to us yesterday at the Welcome Center... no they didn't. She says yes, here's the numbers from the cards they say they gave you yesterday. I say, no they didn't... and end up having to go back across town to the Welcome Center again! The only good thing about it was right behind us was a family saying they didn't get theirs either! I guess when I got out of the car Lindsey said, "I bet she comes out with bloody knuckles!" After they tell me that their inventory came out fine, and everything says we got them... I insist we didn't so they did give me - Bass Pro gift cards! And it just made me mad because they made me feel like we were stealing or something. But if we want to go back to the tour center they can exchange them for Visa cards... whatever. So, Tim's excited he gets to buy something for his boundary waters trip in August, and our vacation just cost us another $50.
That was it for the Dells, the rest was a really good time with the kids - and they really weren't subject to any of the drama, stuff we should have realized would happen. Nothing is free! But they had fun at the theme park and water park before we left to travel back home, and that is the goal we were shooting for.
We landed first at my sister's house for an early birthday party for Kurt. She had made lasagna and went to a lot of trouble, as always, to make a cool party for him with a hunting theme! It was a short evening but welcome none the less. Its always good to be with family, and Kurt got a lot of money to put towards his 2 mission trips this summer.
We head to Roseville and get in around 9:30-10pm to find everyone still up there! A relief kind of because the kids were bummed we weren't going to get to see much of the cousins. But the plan was to leave at 7am for Uncle Tom's funeral so we were off to bed. Had a beautiful day really. Sad of course for us, but just a joy to get to see extended family even for a short time. Wish I had thought to take some pics, I know Aunt Penny was - maybe you could send some? The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing, went to church at Tim's home church. Again, fun to see people you haven't seen in awhile and catch up.
And we're back... back to life at its grandest form. Busy as always but not any worse than everybody else! Thanks everybody that was a part of our '08 spring break, love you all! Here are some pics from the trip.
