He Said: When we are clicking, I love it! We stopped at the 7-11 for a free Slurpee (7/11 yo), then Target. I know it's just shopping but it was still great. Everyone had fun, the kids got matching shirts (which hopefully we can get them to take a picture in), and laughter abounded. Then we hit the factory outlets. There's not much for me to do there except keep Ryan occupied. We have had a fun time while everyone else shopped.
The shopping went well, everyone found something, everyone got along, we stayed longer than expected and then it was off to Great Wolf. The timing of that was horrible. We hit rush hour near Seattle and nothing was moving. We easily spent an hour just to drop the GPS estimated time by 15 minutes. Eventually we pulled off, made it a fast food day, and waited for it to die down. Which was fine, but it made for a late, 8ish arrival, which cuts into the party time.
Still - the kids were great and I let them go start their day at the hotel while I took care of all the luggage. As usual, the room here is great and the kids love the quest. Oh, and I won a claw machine! We stopped at the Walmart on the way here and I even told the kids "I'm going to put in 50 cents, not even look, and win one" - and I did. I definitely like the price of the 50 cent ones at Walmart better than the $2 ones at Great Wolf, but it's harder to convince the kids to hang out at Walmart.
She Said: Shopping in Tulalip is not as fun when the exchange rate is so high. A few of the sales were big enough to take advantage of and the girls got backpacks that won't look like everyone else's backpacks at school (ie, not from Costco). I found some sandals and some chocolate - mmmmmm. Traffic was so gross! Why do people live there? Even more people texting and driving than last time. Crazy! At least Great Wolf Lodge is a nice hotel. If it wasn't, the third trip here would have been less enjoyable. Starting to see the "cracks". The kids were excited and Brad impressed us all at the arcade! I try not to think about the expense and the crap and the teaching our kids to gamble and the excess of food and ..... oh wait - trying not to think about it. Walking and running up 5 flights of stairs for 3 hours to do the quests is great!