This winter has been wearing us down, so we were all thrilled to get away this weekend to Honey Creek Resort in Moravia, Iowa. We went with my parents and sister to celebrate my 30th birthday, my mom's 50th birthday, and my parent's 30th wedding anniversary. It was the perfect way to celebrate these milestones and to break up this winter for us
It was Chinese food and movie night at home (and early to bed) while I packed bags. We were only gone for 24 hours, but it felt like I had to pack half of our house! Harrison (the middle mini) had a very hard time leaving behind our things: he wanted us to pack the tv, his bed, a couch, an entire cupboard full of food, all of our movies, the Wii, and ALL of the toys. After a long discussion and some reassurance, he settled on 4 shirts, 2 pants, 1 pair of pjs, 6 pairs of underwear, 2 socks, 3 toothbrushes, snow/outside gear, 3 pairs of shoes, his pillow, 4 stuffed animals, and a canvas bag full of random toys. Good grief.
Before we headed out, we had some errands to run: the bank, gas station, getting my glasses fixed thanks to a random headbutt (again the middle mini), and another stop back at home to grab DVD's for the portable DVD players in the van.
Elizabeth was thrilled to eat a donut and watch "Rella" ("Cinderella") for the first time on our drive down to Honey Creek Resort. She even started whistling like the birds and singing along to the songs.
The ride down to Moravia was easy and took very little time. The kids were well behaved for the 1 1/2 ride too. Our first stop before we checked in was to get our regular vacation picture. Then we made our way to our hotel rooms, the kids jumped on the beds, and we went right down to the water park.
The kids LOVED the water park. It took Elizabeth a while to warm up to being in the water, but once she did, she loved having us swim her around. Max's favorite part was the water slide and Harrison loved the pirate ship toddler area (I failed to get pictures of this part, but it was a big pirate ship with little slides and water cannons). The biggest disappointment of the water park was that Max was the only one of the kids that could go down the water slide. Otherwise, this was a great smaller water park for younger kids and great that the adults can see the kids from the hot tub!
This was our first go at a water park and we definitely all loved it. We had plans to head to the Wisconsin Dells for spring break, but after realizing that there may be many things that not all of the kids can do (such as water slides, like we found out at Honey Creek) we decided to wait a couple of more years for the Dells.
The lazy river was a favorite of all of the kids. There were parts that were shallow enough that Harrison and Elizabeth could stand.
After a few hours in the pools, we went back to the rooms, showered and headed for a hike on the grounds to explore a bit. There was a beautiful paved trail leading from the resort to the beach area and an unpaved trail leading around the lake. The highlight of the walk for Elizabeth was dog poop on the trail....that's a big deal when you're almost two!
We had packed snow gear for the weekend, but we were pleasantly surprised to see very little snow. Of course, my kids just had to find the very little snow there was and walk in it.
The boys admiring the beach area. They were very disappointed they couldn't go for a swim (yes, they needed reminded that it was only 32 degrees out). This places will be so fun to visit in the summer.
We worked up quite the appetite swimming and walking. We headed to the resort's restaurant Lake Shore Grille for a nice dinner. The food was yummy (but pricey) and the portion sizes were huge! We could have easily order half of the food we did. One of the best meals was the kid's homemade mac and cheese--it was the cheesiest, creamiest mac and cheese I've ever tasted. Unfortunately the kids were more concerned about getting back to the pool than they were with eating, while Elizabeth practiced getting in and out of her highchair. It was just one of those meals with them.....
One of the best parts of dinner: the homemade rolls and butter. But not just any butter--there was strawberry butter and honey cinnamon butter. Oh. My. God. I've never been a fan of butter but I could have just eaten the butter for dinner. Fantastic!
My sneaky parents had the restaurant surprise me with chocolate molten cake and ice cream. One of my faves!
After the kids went to bed, it was adult night which included cherry wine and Cards Against Humanity.
We adults stayed up nice and late playing games and these little mini's woke us up nice and early.
Sunday sunrise at Honey Creek Resort.
The kids with Grandma and Grandpa Harmeyer and Aunt Jenny. Thanks for a great weekend!
One of my favorite parts of the resort was the lobby's massive fire place that was toasty warm. By the time we checked out at 11 a.m. the kids were beyond tired and instantly fell asleep in the car. HOWEVER, they only slept for 40 minutes so we completely expected them to crash for nice long naps when we got home. Can anyone guess what happened when we got home? NO NAPS. Instead they ran around and informed us they were bored........so we headed to Old Navy and Target to get the last of our errands out of the way.
Yep, we bribe our kids with bouncy balls from Old Navy for their good behavior and I got a start on their spring wardrobes. That's how we do it.
Lily will only hold one of her brother's hands while walking.
"Look mom, I caught a cat!" said Max. Elizabeth thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Thanks Target Dollar Section for the $1 laugh.
We had such a wonderful, fun weekend at Honey Creek Resort. It was such a great way to break up the usual winter weekends and gave us great memories. I couldn't think of a better way to spend a birthday weekend getaway!
