First Family Vacation!!

We finally went on family vacation, just us, no grandparents to help, not staying with family, staying at a hotel (fortunately they put us in a condo instead which was a major help to us to have all that extra space).  We are so proud of all our children.  They stayed up late, waited patiently for their turn, didn't slide down on top of other kids, only pushed people out of the way when ice skating and they were blocking the wall (but still said 'excuse me'), didn't complain, listened well, and not one meltdown, even from Jake.

First we went ice skating.  Dave isn't a big fan so he and Jake hung out while the girls had fun.  I expected that they would pull me down multiple times and was worried one of them would get frustrated.  But they were great!  Half way around they didn't even want me to hold their hand anymore, except when we had to cross the opening, and even then Catherine kept trying to go by herself.  Sam only wanted to hold my hand to go faster.  They fell, a lot, and kept smiling and laughing.  It was Catherine's favorite part of the trip.

Then on to the water park.  Not a lot of pictures here because, well, there was water. They went down the 'big kid' slides and Jake hung out in the baby bouncer in the kiddy pool.  We splashed in the lazy river and Dave went down the tubes, which he said were cool and scary in the dark because we went at night and the tubes go outside.  It was Sam's favorite part, once we got them excited about the slides and found the family hot springs to get warm in between trips down the slide.

Poor Jake. No ice skating and no tubing so this is what he did a lot.  But he was very good about it, and if he keeps growing at this rate he'll be tall enough to go tubing next winter!

This is the view from the top.  Two big moguls and then when you stop you have to get up the hill at the end quickly so the next set of people can go.  At first it wasn't sunny and the run was fast, so only 2 tubes could go down at once.  The girls had to go by themselves and we were worried they would get to the top and not want to go.  But they were brave and when they got to the bottom they told me it was 'really fast' and 'I love it! Again!' They were so tired at the end from going up that hill back to the start but they were troopers and had a great time.

I zoomed in as much as I could.

Jake and I still managed to have some fun and even took a few selflies! (P.S. He says 'mama' now!!!!!  I'm so excited because the girls both said 'dada' first.)

The girls with Dave, all 3 tubes together.

Some fun while waiting at the top.

I always seem to go into these kind of things with apprehension, expecting the worst.  That they won't sleep or won't like the activities or any number of things my mind can imagine. But, it turned out it was the other side of that coin, it was better than I hoped it was going to be and we can't wait to do it again.