Spring Break- the hotel

Our hotel needs a post all it's own!! :) We stayed at a cool place called Wilderness at the Smokies. We got a room that had a living room, kitchen and then another room the same size as the living/kitchen area that had beds in it. I guess that I didn't get that great of a picture of the kitchen because this is the only picture that I have. Amber is sure cute at the table though!!! :) The kitchen had a stove and oven, fridge and dishwasher. It had pots and dishes and everything. We cooked and ate our dinners there at the hotel which was nice. The place had 2 bathrooms as well which is nice for a larger sized family.
Here is the living area. There was a curtain that you could pull for privacy. They had a cool Murphy bed that you see Aaron on that pulled down out of the wall. The couch that the others are on also was a queen sofa sleeper. I think that the room said that it accommodated up to 12 people, but I am not totally sure of that!
The room with the beds had a bunk bed that you see here that was a twin over a queen! We brought our own porta-crib although I do think that you could have requested one. We had so much room! There was also a privacy wall between the bunk bed and the other queen bed that was in the room. I didn't get a picture of that bed. Also in the bedroom was a twin pull out sofa. Like I said, it really fit a ton of people!!

The boys thought that it was fun that they could turn on the tv right here by their bed as soon as they woke up in the morning. We thought that it was nice too since we could lay in bed and sleep just a little bit longer while the kids were entertained by the tv! This particular morning we told them that the could eat their breakfast in bed while watching cartoons. I think that it won us parent of the year awards! :) Oh the little things that thrill kids! (they thought that it was a special treat since they don't get to watch much tv at home!)

Aaron and Amber enjoyed the cool morning air out on the deck one morning. They were so excited that this room had scriptures. Those 2 carried the scriptures all over the place while we were in the room. It was really cute!

Perhaps the best thing about this hotel, and the main reason that we chose it, was that it had it's own indoor water park that was only for the hotel guests!!!!!!! We thought that it was awesome and we spent hours there each day! Here are Aaron and Amber before suiting up with life vests that were provided by the hotel that they had to wear in the wave pool. To keep from having to fight to get them to put them on each time they went to that particular pool (since there were several) we just said that they had to wear it all the time. Lucky me, they didn't mind a bit!!! :)

The bigger boys were tall enough to "surf" there! I didn't get to try it, but it did look awesome!!!! Weston could have tried to surf while standing, but he didn't want to! Here is Brian riding the waves!!!

Weston liked it too. The longest line for anything was for this particular ride. I think that it is because the guards let each person ride for 5 minutes (no exaggeration) and so they usually had to wait about 20+ minutes for this one! According to them, it was well worth the wait!!!

Here is Weston riding the waves. Next to the wave pool was a small toddler pool that I didn't get a picture of. It had some spray things as well as dumping buckets. There were also some tiny little slides and 4 baby swings! Amber only wanted to go there one day. She thought that the wave pool was much better than the kiddie area. If you look closely behind Weston (right behind the lifeguard), you can see an opening in the back wall behind a line of chairs. In there was a 3 to 4 ft pool that had water basketball and a big floating snake thingy that the kids could climb on. That pool was more heated than the other ones and the little kids, including Evan, liked that pool the most.

Here was the other little kid area that was there. It is kind of more like Rosemeade Rainforest. It had a big dumping bucket of water that Aaron loved and Amber hated! :) There was also a smaller kiddie version of a tube slide that Aaron rode over and over and over again. Amber liked making the water spray different ways and doing some of the other water activities that were there. This water park had a see through roof so you could actually tan at the water park indoors. Cool huh?

There were 2 slides that Weston and Brian rode over and over again. There was almost no wait at any time for the rides. Sometimes they rode together (as you see here), but they could also go separately, so sometimes they raced each other- one in the yellow tube, one in the purple. I rode this with the boys a few times! They were quite fun! There were also 2 big tube rides that you had to ride in bigger groups. You can see one of the tubes for those rides leaning up against the wall with the 4 holes. Weston and Brian each rode the bigger rides once with me, but alas, they don't have as adventurous of a spirit as I do and so once was enough for them. (Sadly, I even had to bribe them to go on those rides with me!!! :) M&M's work wonders for me sometimes!)

Daddy with the littler ones in the wave pool. Amber wasn't too crazy about the waves, but she really liked the more shallow water to swim in once the waves were gone. You can see the opening to that other pool that I was talking about earlier better in this picture.

Evan had a fun time too, splashing away in the water. The funny thing was that the last day we were there, we ran into a family from our ward that had stayed there too!!!! (and our ward is pretty small) It is a small world after all!!!!!

And keeping with tradition, Barth let the kids ride the luggage cart on the way out! I am glad that we stayed here. It was a lot of fun!!!!!