Our Fun Resort Weekend

For various reasons (most of which involve the words "I'm busy"), I haven't gotten to writing about our Labor Day weekend. Here we are in mid-October, so I will endeavor to do so.

We kicked off our September 2011 with a bang, by cashing in a deal we'd purchased earlier in the year at the Arizona Grand Resort, up in Phoenix. In a nutshell, the deal offered a one-night stay in one of the Grand's suites, unlimited access to the resort's water park, a breakfast credit, and a spa credit. Sounds like fun, we thought...sign us up!! When we travel, our accommodations are a little more, ahem...modest (read: Motel 6), so it was fun for all of us to "live it up" a little.

The above photograph was the view from our room entrance...lovely. However, there was no time to waste gazing at this "dinky-sized" courtyard pool; the water park awaited! So we headed out...

The girls were all very excited, and we spent hours at the park, which included a couple of large water slides, a small splash park for toddlers, a wave pool, and the girls' favorite, the "lazy river" shown here...

The water park's attractions may have been a bit above my daughter's age range; the wave pool (my personal favorite) frightened Lorelai & Celeste a little. This was a minor quibble, though; overall, we had a great time! There was one small snag; as I was trying to load Aurora and myself into an inner tube on the lazy river, we capsized...with our digital camera in tow. Long story short, the camera doesn't work any more. SAD FACE. I had to buy a (surprisingly expensive) disposable camera to document the rest of our trip...hence the less-than-stellar pictures for the next couple of blog posts.

After a few hours splashing around, we decided to head to the nearby mega-mall for dinner...

...at the Rainforest Cafe! We'd been curious about it for years, and now was our chance. Verdict? Fun for the kids, merely "eh" for adults. It was definitely atmospheric and cutesy, and I enjoyed all the aquariums with their beautiful fish. The animatronic animals and the mock rainstorms were a bit loud, but overall enjoyable (although Lorelai, who is pretty sensitive about loud noises, was bothered by the "lightning" and "thunder" doing the storms).

Here's my dinner! The food was decent, but not all that memorable. I had macadamia-encrusted tilapia (which was actually pretty good), coconut shrimp, stir-fried veggies, and rice (which were all blah). Then it was time to "explore" the restaurant and hang out with the animals!

(those are giant apes on the rocks behind Lorelai, BTW...darn cheap camera!!)

We also "explored" the Rainforest Cafe's gift shop (of course), then walked off our dinner around the mall, occasionally popping into a store to window-shop. After that, the kids were pretty pooped, so it was back to the resort for bedtime. A fun day.

The following morning, we had a wonderful breakfast buffet at the Arizona Grand's Lobby Grill. Yum...one of the yummiest buffets I've ever tried! Too bad we couldn't spend all day there and sample more wares...

...because it was time to go swimming again! We decided to make the most of the water park during our stay, so we went again for a little while the next morning. Afterwards, we headed back up to the suite and cleaned the girls up a bit...with a bubble bath! They had a great time playing in the oversized tub, making bubble hats and unwinding!

After that, we packed our things and headed home, slightly tired & sunburned but refreshed as well. It wasn't a long trip, but it was a lot of fun to hang out as a family together. And that was just the beginning of our September!