Our Spring Break Getaway : Part One

We just got back from spending some quality family time together away from all the hustle and bustle and distractions that can sometimes be home. This was pretty much our first ever little family vacation so it was a bit of an adventure and very much exciting for us! We booked a suite at the Edgewater Resort and Waterpark in Duluth, Minnesota and every day that we were there we enjoyed some time spent playing at the indoor waterpark. Zoey's favorite things to do at the waterpark were floating along the lazy river on a tube and then hopping on over in to the hot springs hot tub...which was just fine with me! Ethan enjoyed the water slides, vector pool and joined in on the lazy river here and there too. The photo above was the view of Lake Superior that we had from our room.



While in Duluth we made it a point to hit some spots that we thought would be fun for Zoey to visit and that would be educational as well. One being the Great Lakes Aquarium which ended up being everyone's number one favorite stop during our visit. Wow, what a place! We were so impressed and spent an entire afternoon enjoying our time there. Definitely worth the money to make this stop and it was super close to where we were staying which was a nice bonus as well!



Here was the sting-ray touch pool.



A volcano display...



Zoey checking out some rocks and minerals.



All of the displays were interactive in some way which made the learning all the more fun. Right now Zoey's class is talking about freshwater and saltwater and the animals and plant life that live in both so this was a pretty neat learning experience.







Getting to see the inside of a tree in this way was pretty neat and the perspective was right on for learning.



Zoey's favorite part of the aquarium visit? Why the tree house of course! This was just magical...truly a special (and beautiful) part of the exhibit.









Getting to steer course on a major ship is something any five year old would love to do right?



We hit our visit just in time to see the otters getting fed. The two that were there were rescued as babies and since they've never been in the wild beyond infancy they now have to be kept and cared for by humans. They were so fun to watch and were very playful with one another and also got into little spats with one another (they were brother and sister) which Zoey thought was pretty funny.











Loved this shot of Zoey checking out the fish...really put things in perspective size-wise.





You could make and see how waves are made by using the wave machine.







Couldn't resist getting a shot of these two with the moose!



Upon leaving the aquarium we found this incredible playground so we had to stop for some playtime.









One night we stopped at Bridgeman's for ice cream.



I had the Peanut Butter Cup sundae (Ethan shared it with me) ...yum! The last time that I had visited a Bridgemans was when I was a little girl so it was fun to have Zoey experience the Bridgemans ice cream experience as a little girl as well. It was Ethan's first time and he very much approved of all ice cream flavors and sundae's available.



Later I'll hopefully share some photos of our visit to the Duluth Children's Museum, the Duluth Art Institute and the Lake Superior Railroad Museum.

Here's a picture of Zoey on our last day packing things up and getting ready to go, she of course didn't want to leave and was trying to make it so "the bags would have to stay" and therefore so would we. =) A good sign that she had just a little bit of fun I think.