Inverse Bucket List

"Inverse Bucket List."  That's the new term I've coined to describe the things in life you end up doing that you never in a million years would've thought you'd choose to do.  That's the key - these are not things someone forced you to do, or you wound up doing by accident, but things that should sound awful to you, or used to sound awful to you, but instead you actively sought them out and did them.  Probably even enjoyed them. 

First entry on my Inverse Bucket List:  indoor water park in the dead of winter in Wisconsin. 

That's right, folks.  Single digit temps outside.  Screaming children inside.  Bare feet and water everywhere.  Midwesterners in swimsuits at the most unflattering time of year.  In a prior life, this would not have been my idea of a good time, despite my love for all pools in the universe.  Funny, though, isn't it how weeks (okay, months) on end of cabin fever with two rugrats to entertain suddenly made this excursion sound appealing?  A road trip!  A getaway!  A place for the girls to burn off energy!  A night out of our house, with no messes to clean up!  And friends eager to go with us to boot!  What's not to love?

So, we headed to Timber Ridge Lodge in Lake Geneva, WI with Maggie, Mike, Anna and Abe.  And you know what?  It was really fun!  Hmmm...interesting thing, though, I don't have any pictures of us at the water park.  Accident? 

Here's what the giant slides looked like:

Joe and I each took a turn on the yellow one, but we all spent the majority of our time in the toddler area playing in fountains and jumping in the water, or going down the lazy river in innertubes.

The slides go outside. I took this picture looking out the window so you could see the icicles.

(BTW, I screamed the whole way down - it was so dark and fast!)

Anna and Georgia rolling all over the $600 stuffed bear in the gift shop while we all waited for a table at the restaurant.


Joe, aka, "The Pied Piper of Children", reading books in the gift shop. The wait for dinner was longer than we expected - next time I think we'll order pizza to the room and just let the kids run wild or watch a movie so that the adults can talk.

(We're pretty sure June managed to change the temperature setting on that freezer while playing with the buttons. Oops.)

Georgia and I posing for "fake sleep" in the morning on the pull-out couch. Unfortunately, even though the accommodations were great, there was more fake sleep than real for Joe and me. We thought maybe Georgia would tolerate her first full night of sleeping in a real bed at this place, but no such luck.


Verdict:  You'd be insane to visit a place like this without children.  With children?  Try it, you'll like it!  We'll totally be going back someday.