Santa Claus in July?!?

Santa Claus, Indiana that is! We made one last trip of the summer and headed to Holiday World. I had heard about Holiday World last year and we decided to give it a try this summer. Then we asked our dear college friends, the Gorsch's, to join us for the weekend. Once they said they could, we started planning for our mini-weekend vacation.

We arrived at the Santa's Cottages cabins Saturday afternoon. We were in a 2-bedroom cabin that was really nice. It had a full kitchen, living area, 2 bathrooms, back patio with a grill and a fire pit. Once we were unloaded, the dads ran into town to get the last few groceries we needed and the moms took the kids to explore the grounds. Here are the five kiddos before we set off.

Cameron (4 mo.) & Hannah (2 1/2 yrs.) Casey, Sadie (4 yrs.), Kinnick (2 1/2 yrs.) & Macey (1 1/2 yrs.) Gorsch Our first stop was Elf Pond where the kids got to feed the fish.

Then we made it to the play area that was equipped with a HUGE sandbox and sand toys, a little play house, horse tire swings and a playground. Here is Hannah and Sadie sitting in front of the play house.

Hannah also liked swinging on the tire swings.

After playing, we came back to the cabin to have a cook out of hamburgers and hot dogs, cheesy potatoes and corn. Although it was really hot outside, Marc made us a fire so the big kids could make smores after bath time. Here is Hannah and I waiting to make our marshmallow.

We started off bright and early on Sunday to head to Holiday World. We decided to do the amusement park first, then come home for lunch, then back for the water park and finally finish up with whatever we had left of the amusement park. It was really, really hot and it took us a bit to get into a groove. But, we covered a large section in the morning before our lunch break.

Hannah and I on the carousal - a nice mild ride that Hannah loved.

Then, at Holidog Town, there was a little roller coaster that Hannah could ride with me. It was a little bumpy and faster than I expected, but I think Hannah enjoyed it.

We also rode the Eagle's Flight before we had our lunch break.

We headed home for lunch and air conditioning. We wanted to have the kids rest a bit since we were hoping to make it until the park closed at 8:30. After a couple of hours, we put on swim suits and headed to the water park!

Here are all the kids with Santa Claus!

And the Casey Family.

The water park was really awesome! We didn't quite get to experience the whole thing. There were a ton of areas for the kids to play in. All of us enjoyed the lazy river at one time and we also took turns taking the bigger kids down the slides they could go in. The daddys even got to go on a couple of big people slides while Kristina and I had the kids going down a new area of all little slides. We definitely could have spent a whole day just at the water park!

Here is a nice self-portrait of the Casey family hanging out at the water park.

After we dried off and changed clothes, we went back to the amusement park for a few more rides. We covered a lot of the parks, but probably could have spent a few more hours there. We came home, made homemade pizza, bathed the kids and put them to bed. It was a long day, but tons of fun! We enjoyed hanging out with Marc & Kristina after the kids went to bed. It was great to have adult time as well.

We are so blessed to have friends like the Gorsch's in our lives. Our friendships have grown over the past 10 years and continue to do so everytime we get to hang out. It's awesome that now our kids are growing up and getting to see each other every few months. Thank you, Gorsch's, for taking this vacation with us. We can't wait to do it again sometime!