Water Park! AKA Avalanche Bay

Hi All,
Tax season is finally over! As a little celebration for all of us for surviving yet another one, we headed up to Avalanche Bay, which is the indoor water park attached to Boyne Mountain. The kids had a blast. Apparently, you can't go wrong with a water park at this age. On our last day, Bree was yelling "water park, water park!" as we left the park area for home, in an all out attempt to summon us back.
Now that I've been to two indoor water parks in the past few months, surely I'm an expert! Maybe not, but I do have some critiques and comparisons of Great Wolf in Traverse City and Avalanche Bay at Boyne.

First, since we have two year olds, we spent almost all our time in the kiddie area. Avalanche had a "splash area" which opened up to a wading type pool with a few basketball hoops. The kiddie area seemed smaller to me at Avalanche that Great Wolf. There was only one slide for kids this age (vs. I think three or four at GW). The wading pool was nice, but we didn't spend much time there, as there were too many four to six"ish" year olds pelting basketballs all over the place. This brings me to another issue, which was purely circumstantial. We went to AB on a Saturday, and it was insanely busy. On a less busy day, we may have been more comfortable exploring the wading pool. Since we didn't, I felt a little confined to the splash area. It didn't help matters that Drew and Bree did not take a liking to the one slide that was available there. Nonetheless, Drew and Bree loved it.

The kiddie area, where we spent 99% of our time

Waterworks at the kiddie pool

One happy girl

Next issue at AB, associated with the "crazy busy" issue, all the crazy, impolite kids seemed to be out and looking to steal balls from toddlers. I know kids will be kids, and it's awhile before they really know any better. But where are the parents? It was unbelievable how many times Jim and I had to step in to make sure D and B didn't get their balls stolen.

A little game of catch

A few more issues with AB, which again may be associated with the level of activity. One, where were the lifeguards? At GW, they were everywhere. There were always a few in view from any vantage point. At AB, you had to search a bit to pick one out. Maybe not a big deal if you have bigger kids, but the lifeguard coverage at GW was more comforting for me.
And lastly, the lazy river at AB was more of a crazy river on Saturday. There was so much bumping of tubes and other action that it truly scared D and B.
With all that said, I did like some aspects of AB. They had a surf simulator and a climbing wall, all cool things for older kids. Aside from the water park, Boyne also had an indoor resort pool that opened up to an outside pool which was heated year round, kind of a cool concept.

Furthermore, we liked the nightlife at Boyne.

Bree and Daddy admiring the fish on our way to dinner

They had pre-packaged smores kits fireside in the lobby. What's not to like?!? We grabbed a few (or more than a few) packages to snack on before dinner. Not sure if it's legal to eat raw smores, but we did it!

Unpackaging the smores

Enjoying the smores "raw"

We grabbed dinner at the onsite pizzeria - pizza of course! It didn't exactly cater to children, but we made it work.

That's a cheesy grin if I ever saw one!

And I think Bree is literally in the middle of saying "cheese" here

As we left, the waitress told us there was another set of twins about the same age on the other side of the restaurant. When we made our way back to the lobby to cook smores and enjoy storytime, we ran into them. Interestingly, we already knew them from my multiples group back home!

We got pack n plays for the kids brought to our room by the hotel. However, Drew had no intentions of sleeping in his. Instead, he crawled in bed with me and spent most the evening wiggling around and sleeping sideways. Jim relegated himself to the couch, rather than be subjected to that. This is how Jim found us in the morning.

Drew, all snug as a bug

And Bree slept like a champ in the pack n play.

The view from above

We awoke to this in the morning - snow falling and a good deal of snow on the ground. Not all that exciting when it's the middle of April! There were still people skiing the slopes. The resort offered some sort of golf AND ski package deal for the weekend. Umm, I think we'll stick to the indoor water park, thank you very much!

New Years Bowling

Happy New Year!
We hope everyone rang in the new year in a fun and safe fashion. As for us, Jim and I traveled to Florida on New Years Eve to attend Michigan State's bowl game. We spent New Years Eve at a Japanese restaurant in Orlando with my friend Michelle and her boys, who were also in town for the game. It was a quick trip and a brutal loss for the Spartans, but still well worth it.

Here we are outside the game for our makeshift tailgate. We met up with some fellow Spartan tailgaters while there. I finally got a shot of Brian's famous cigar!

 Here is the home of the Capitol One Bowl in Florida, where we played Alabama.

We ended up losing 49-7. It was never close! On a good note, we got awesome seats on the 30 yard line about 10 rows up. We have our friend Jerry to thank for that. Oh, and did I mention the weather could not have been better.  Bowl game recap: The national anthem still gets me teary eyed, the flyover still gives me chills, and win or lose, I still love my Spartans!

And on another good note, we had just enough time to day trip over to Clearwater beach and have dinner with my good friend Nancy and her husband Gene on the way back. We shared some good stories and laughs. With them being in Florida, any chance to see them is a treat!

Thanks to Jim for planning and taking care of all the little details for our New Years getaway!

Have Kayak, Will Paddle

Hi All,
Jim and I had a nice little getaway. We traveled to the Apostle Islands, where we embarked on a three day, two night kayak trip. For anyone not familiar, the Apostle Islands are a cluster of islands located in Lake Superior, north of Wisconsin. I learned of them through a travel feature in the local paper back in 2008. (We briefly considered the trip then, but not for long, since I was pregnant with the twins.) Anyway, we like to visit nature when we travel, so this spot never really left my mind. We found a guided kayak trip which boasted, among other things, awesome food. Admittedly, Jim and I were skeptical. How good could camp food be? Well, it did not disappoint! The excursion was called Beaches, Waves, and Caves with the group Living Adventure. Our kudos to their crew, as it was an awesome trip!
We flew into Duluth, MN on Thursday evening and drove onto Bayfield, WI (a two hour drive) to spend the evening in a hotel. We embarked on our trip Friday morning. We met up at the headquarters, met the group, packed our dry bags and received some introductory instruction and information. Then, a van/trailer drove us to a state park which served as our jumping off point. We got off on the right foot with a delicious lunch of sandwich wraps, homemade hummus and chips, fresh fruit, chewy bars and homemade cookies. We received some "on the beach" instruction and then wasted no time entering the water and practicing tipping the kayaks. If I recall correctly, Lake Superior temperature measured somewhere in the 50s. Yes, we were none too excited about tipping on purpose, but felt much better with the confidence of knowing how to vacate the kayak and skirt in the event of future mishaps. Our group contained a mix of single and double kayaks. Jim and I took a double for the first leg of the trip, probably a good choice for the first leg since it was a sturdy ride. When we arrived, we set up camp and enjoyed dinner - whitefish on the grill and smores for dessert (another delicious meal!). We island hopped to York and Raspberry Islands on day two. We enjoyed a nice day on the water in good paddling conditions. About half way through, Jim and I switched into single kayaks. The singles were definitely more "tipsy", but also more fun and easier to maneuver. We stuck with them for the rest of the trip. The islands we visited were mainly uninhabited. We saw only park rangers and other kayakers. We had cell phone service on some but not all of the islands. I was very happy to arrive on York Island to find my cell worked, as I was anxious to check in on the kids (Bree had gotten sick not long after we left). We also took in some of the sea caves on day two. There are some beautiful sandstone caves that have been carved out by the pounding water. It reminded us a lot of the formations we saw when hiking Pictured Rocks in the U. P. While the paddling was a workout, the setting was serene and made for a good break from modern civilization. We parked ourselves on Oak Island for our second evening. We ran into a small issue with a group of girl scouts that took our campsite for the second night in a row (we had a permit to be there, they did not). But our guide was very diplomatic about it and polled the group as to how we would like to proceed. We ended up letting them stay put and shared the campsite. The girl scouts were thankful and offered to do our dishes. :) Our last day was a nice, leisurely paddle back to the mainland. Along the way, our guides pointed out shipwreck remains and even offered up some tall tales surrounding the details. Speaking our the guides, Brian and Bjorn were first rate and incredible in every way! They were excellent instructors, friendly, funny and engaging, and awesome cooks to boot! Back at headquarters, we unpacked and cleaned the kayaks, said our goodbyes, and Jim and I grabbed a quick bite to eat in Bayfield before heading to Duluth for the evening before our early morning flight. We reflected on what a nice spot it was and how well run the Living Adventure operation is. It was a nice getaway, but I was also more than ready to get back to my little sweethearts at home!

View from a kayak

Sea caves

Sunset on Superior

Dinnertime!

Cards in the tent - Jim is smiling because he won all three matches

Campsite

Our "cooks" hard at work

Ranchos huevos for breakfast - compliments to the chef!

Colorful kayaks

Trail to fetch water

Yes, we used the outhouse when available (better than the "facili-tree")

Little know facts and park rules posted in each outhouse

My paddle partner :)

More caves, we paddled through these

Out on the open water

Resting on the beach

Jim bilging out his kayak after "challenge by choice" single handed rescue

Kayaking the shipwrecks

Brian telling tall tales on the sea

The group!

Us with our fearless leaders, Brian and Bjorn