Salmon Fishing

This past weekend, my dad took all of us (I think there were 16 total) down to the Great Wolf Lodge and then down to Long Beach for salmon fishing. We had a really good time.

For those of you that don't know, the Great Wolf Lodge is an indoor waterpark/hotel. It is in the middle of nowhere so the theory is you go there, play at the waterpark, stay at the hotel, and spend lots of money -- Which is pretty much what happened.

We got to the waterpark on Sunday, hoping it would be less crowded as the weekend winded down (not true). It was very crowded and there were small (sometimes evil) children running everywhere. I, of course, could not go on the slides so I played in the wave pool with Ben, played in the kiddie pool with Alysa, Max, and Ryan, and sat at the meeting table with Jen for most of the day. That night, we took a shuttle to a nearby casino (in hopes that the buffet would be a little cheaper than $25 per person). The casino had good food and excellent ice cream! I even was allowed to take my spoon to go so I could finish my vanilla and mini M&M delight. Yummy!

On Monday, we woke up and played more at the waterpark and hung out until Alysa was done with her strange wand search. (I am telling you, this place wants you to spend your entire life savings... they have this wand "game" where kids can spend $25 to get a magic wand. This wand then is used to activate small creatures and talking pictures around the hotel. The kids are also given a little adventure book which tells them specifically which creatures to find on what floor and in what order. If the child spends 5 hours doing everything in the book, they are then called a Master and are allowed to do 3 other adventures that would likely take another 5 hours EACH. This was a genious idea for whoever thought of it. Kids were going crazy - running around looking for treasure and wanting to have the most expensive wands- mind you, the $25 dollar package was the cheapest one...) Alysa loved her magic wand and was so excited to become a Master. Of course, we didn't know how long this little adventure would take so she was quite disappointed when the rest of the family was ready to go before she could even slay the dragon.

After lunch on Monday, we headed down to Long Beach, WA. Ben and Kelsey and I played the movie game all the way down and listened to my old college mix cd. Kelsey was not impressed with my music or my movie knowledge, but we had fun.

On Tuesday, at 4:30 am, Me, Ben, Kelsey, Kristi, Dad, Felix, Robee, Greg, Eric and little Max all got up and headed out for the fishing expedition. At 6:30 am, Me, Ben, Kelsey, Kristi, Dad, Felix, Robee, Greg, and Eric were all puking over the side of the fishing boat! So, no, none of us have sea legs- Everyone, but Max apparently. He didn't get sick at all and even caught 3 salmon himself! At the end, before we had reached our maximum amount, I looked around to see everyone slumped over, sleeping, covering their eyes, holding their stomachs. Everyone but Max and occasionally Ben. Ben took it upon himself to fish all 10 poles on the boat in order to catch the 20 fish limit we wanted and get back to safety. The fish were really biting so Ben was running from one pole to the next after the captain would yell, "fish on!" He would reel in one, get it safe in the net, make sure it was not a native guy and then run to the next bouncing pole. He would pull the fish in and make an announcement... "Only 3 more to go" "Two down" "One more!" Only pausing for a brief moment to puke off the side of the boat again. After catching the limit, the captain asked if we wanted to stay out there and fish for sport... catch and release for a few hours. Ben and my dad exchanged looks and made the executive decision to get these City Slickers back to dry land!

We had a really good time on the trip. It was fun to hang out with the family, see Em and her kids, get away from work and spend time together. Thank you dad for our latest adventure.

By the way, we are planning a salmon bake soon if anyone is interested... you should see my freezer!