Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Kalahari

We had the best time at the Kalahari in the Wisconsin Dell's!

Our travel day started out cool, wet and dreary.
 Course for a summer that broke all kinds of  heat records, the few days we planned on an adventure it would be just that - cool and dreary.

Chyann self portrait showing the cloudy skies on the drive down.


We stayed at the Kalahari - not a hotel or motel, but a freaking resort!
This place was amazing!

Can't believe I didn't take more pictures.
 All I can say is that I was having too much fun to continually have the camera in my hand and really when you are at a water park, unless you have a waterproof camera or are just there to watch, it's a little hard to take a bunch of pictures. The resort did advertised the option of  hiring a photographer to follow you around to take pictures, but nope that wasn't something we were going to do.

We got there at 10a, but wasn't able to check into our room for a while so we hit the indoor water park!

My eldest children were pretending to be cool and unaffected by the excitement of the place - just before we got wet.
Also pictured is my friend Sherri and her daughter Kayla.

The boys after doing a bunch of slides/rides taking a break at our table.
 My camera didn't care for the cavernous park and I had a hard time finding the right settings for decent picture taking, so some are dark and some are too bright and washed out.

We brought our own snacks and beverages to avoid having to spend an outrageous amount of $$ feeding ravenous kids.


Caden and Kayla in the wave pool.

Sherri and I


The work out you get from climbing up the platforms to go down the slides, that are at least three stories in the air, is incredible. Your thighs burn and ache! Which is made even harder if you are going on a ride that requires you to carry up your own tube to go down on.

I loved the rides! and was probably more excited and giddy than the kids!
My throat hurt at the end of the day from screaming and laughing so much.

The weather did clear up some during the afternoon to allow us to briefly go and explore the outdoor park.

That evening we threw on some clothes quick and went down to one of the bars that put on a show like Tom Cruise did in that movie Cocktail. There was hardly anyone there and it was pretty cool to see them throwing bottles all over, blowing fire and catching cherries. Not to mention getting a free shot.


The view from our balcony - how's that for fantastic!?!
Drinking coffee and relaxing before starting our day.


See that platform up on top? We hollered for Colton, who was in the room, to come take our pictures, but he never heard a thing - drat.


Is that not just gorgeous?!
I can picture myself down there on a 90* day sipping a Margarita.

Caden just woke up and told me he wants to be the first on that water.
They weren't the first, but pretty close.

The kids were back and forth between the outdoor and indoor park. Get cold being outside, go in and hit the wave pool and hot tubs. Warm up and head back out.

We didn't do as much downtown exploring as we'd have liked.
Next time we'll make it a longer trip so we can afford a few naps to so we'll have more energy to walk and explore that area. As it was, the 36 hours we were gone didn't include much sleep. Couldn't be wasting that time sleeping and boy does being in that water take a lot out of you.



A few things to remember for the next trip:

1 - bring more food.
2 - take off jewelry before going into the water, or better yet leave that stuff at home. I only lost the back of an earring, but could have lost a bunch.
3 - take more pictures
4 - butterfly band aids are helpful closing up your eldest sons elbow when it gets torn open going down the toilet bowl ride - OUCH!
5 - think about getting those water shoes because all of our feet were sore from walking on the textured floors.
6 - stick to the tube rides, the body rides are too hard on my old body.

Best part of going to the Dell's?

NOT knowing a single person, especially since I tried surfing, lost my suit bottoms and literally mooned a whole water park! 
OMG! It was an epic wipe out lol 
The kids were mortified of course, but Sherri and I couldn't quit laughing!

aah what a trip.
Loved every minute of it :)








4 comments:

Ami said...

Awesome!! You mooned everyone!!

It sounds like you had a great time.

tainterturtles said...

You are just too funny Kellie. Seriously? You lost your swimsuit bottoms!!!

I'm so glad you all had fun. Yup, the food is expensive there, so bringing your own is a good idea.

Lisa said...

Thank goodness you didn't have a photographer following you around. Or we'd have a pic of your moon on a pg rated blog! LOL

Nikker said...

Looks like SO much fun!!