The Heit Happenings: Family Vacation, August 2015

We are headed out of town/out of state for a couple weeks! We have several stops along the way, but our destination is the Wisconsin Dells!

Here's the traditional first rest stop in Fargo.

These two are posing by their sand mountains. Very proud builders.

Here we are walking Oakdale, MN. The Hotel Havican was open even though the Havicans weren't home to visit with us. We are grateful they let us bunk there anyway. The girls are always SO excited to go to the Havicans. They don't even really know the Havicans, but they know the house, and it's a thrilled place to be!

We found the lake Rick remembered going to as a kid. Had we planned ahead, we would have brought suits and let them get REALLY wet instead of only half way wet.

Chelsea found tiny shells and a bracelet in the water. Thrills!

We like to visit the aquarium at the Mall of America when we go through there.

The sillies. I asked them to pose like this and they weren't even sure why. Ha!

Abby wanted nothing to do with Blue.

We didn't have time to take full advantage of the amusement park this time around, but Chelsea remembered the log flume ride from before and wanted to do it again. She and Brie enjoyed it, and so did Abby. Until the drops.

We've made it to Madison, WI at Chris at Amanda's place. Here's ALL the Heit cousins, including little Gemma who was not born for a couple more days after this. None of us knew Gemma's name at this point. Chelsea liked talking to "Baby" through Michelle's tummy.

While in Madison we explored the University of WI, I think it was. Rick has been faced with a couple potential layoffs and has considered coming to this university if that should happen. Or maybe before that happens. Who knows. Not in the near future at least. But it is a very nice campus and Madison would be a fun place to work/live. Not to mention we have so much family there now!

We also had some fun in a boat.

Who's driving this thing?

Surfing in the high speed pontoon. Ha!

Amanda hasn't been in too many photos yet.

Neither has Michelle! Or me! Here we are.

Yep I have weird kids who like to play in the weeds.

Later we got IN the water. I like free expeditions. Even if there is sand involved. The kids had a blast!

I went shopping with Michelle and Grandma Morse while Amanda and Rick took the kids to this fun place.

The House on the Rock! I remember quite a bit of this when I came here with my Grandma Jeanne and cousin Amy when I was 14 years old. When I realized how close we were I wanted to pay another visit. The kids did surprisingly well here. I wasn't sure about their interest level.

This would be interesting accommodations to live with.

The infinity room. I remember this room.

Even the bathroom was fancied up

There were several money takers, er uh, music makers throughout the museum. The kids had a couple different dance parties, and entertained the other passers-by with their antics. A few other kids joined in too, but I didn't take their pictures because that would have been awkward and weird.

I vaguely remember this street as well.

I call this a clown car tree. It looked like a normal sized tree to me, but ALL the kids fit in it very easily.

I told Brie to look scared. HAHAHA! I love her face!

Kate and Kairi were all up for "looking scared" as well.

The butterfly place was thrilling as well. We had to take SO many pictures with them.

Posing wistfully.

"Releasing" them from her hands.

I remember this merry-go-round but not the tunnel down below. The kids were getting antsy so we didn't explore section three of the House on the Rock, but they did well so it's all good.

This leads to section 3.

Exploring the Japanese garden outside. We asked Amanda if it looked like a real Japanese garden. She said not really.

Find flower, must put in hair. And take a picture.

We visited this fun familiar park with the whole family. A guy was flying some really big kites this day.

More flowers. Weeds. Whatevers.

Brie is getting good at monkey bar type things.

I did take a couple pictures of people other than my own kids, but not too many. Sorry.

We've made it to the main event of this year's family vacation: The Wisconsin Dells! We took a jet boat tour while we waited for our resort to become available for check in.

We knew we'd be getting a little wet, but that's ok. See how ok with it we all are?

My attempt at action shots.

We got to get out and walk around this cool scenery on a scary wooden path.

On the return jet boat ride, our driver went nuts. He got us a little bit wet on the way here. But on the way back, he DRENCHED us! Repeatedly! Every one of us was dripping wet to the bone. Abby had a hard time on the way back because she got splashed hard in the face a couple times. Up until then it was pretty exciting for her. But we didn't have a place to change so we were stuck drying out a little in a tiny bathroom that blew freezing cold air through the hand dryer. The sun took care of the rest eventually. It was just uncomfortable to sit/walk around in sopping wet clothes.
I would definitely recommend the ride, just be more prepared than us!

Here's part of the amusement park that is included with our resort package.

Here is some of our water/swimming accommodations included with our package.

This is the indoor pool, which we did take advantage of.

Our resort. Mount Olympus.

For as expensive as this place was, I wasn't overly impressed with what we got. This is basically IT aside from a tv on the opposite wall. But it's ok because we only slept there and changed clothes there really.

Someone was all tuckered out! She ate her food (Subway, of course! Or was it McDonalds? One of the two) and fell asleep while the rest of us ate and lounged around, finally drying out. Abby was excited to have a huge bed all to herself.

The bunk beds were a big hit. I'm glad we brought our own blankets in though. The air conditioner was on that side of the room (There was a partial wall between bunk bed and big beds) and the air had to be blowing pretty hard to get to our side of the room. These two would have been popsicles with just the one tiny blanket provided by the resort.

The next day we roasted outside at the amusement park area. It was SO hot!

Daddy took both big girls on this big roller coaster. I'm not sure they liked it.

There were a few indoor rides, but it wasn't any cooler indoors. It was pretty miserable at THIS point.

We had a kid or two melt down, in more ways than one.

Chelsea and Daddy are up in that one.

Chris and Amanda took a weekend vacation to the Dells, and we overlapped just a little. This was our last night and their first night. We met up at a fun restaurant that serves its food (and toys, and bubbles) on a train. The kids LOVED it.

Selfies while waiting for the food to arrive. They wanted BIG faces. Here's Brie.

Chelsea

And Abby even allowed herself to get a "big face" There's one of me too, but I'm not posting THAT one, ha!

These three are much cuter.

The other Heits. We took up two tables. We even intermingled slightly.

We had planned to just start our return trip home from the Dells. But Gemma decided to make her grand appearance. So we detoured back to Madison to meet her.

Chelsea was in heaven! She loves babies, especially cousin babies, and would have gladly taken Gemma home for herself, were it plausible. We all know how long that would last, right!?! Ha!