Serenity's 10th Birthday Trip
For Serenity’s 10th birthday, we let her plan a trip all by herself. Eric and I got to spend a whole weekend with our wonderful ten year old! She researched different locations, bought the plane tickets, and rented a car. She picked hotels too! She had a hard time narrowing her choices until she decided she wanted to go to the Great Wolf Lodge, but one she’d never been to. She found out North Carolina had beautiful hiking trails, with waterfalls. That settled that! She planned a waterfall hike, such fun to enjoy with my nature girl 🙂 We went to Rainbow Falls and Turtleback falls the first day! As we walked through the beautiful woods, Serenity told us magical stories about Sparkle, her pet fox. She told us that Dragon Eggs can only be hatched with the help of Fairies. The fairies take the dragon eggs into dreams to keep them safe. The hike was beautiful and the weather was clear and pretty. Serenity picked up some rocks and took them traveling along the trail, and then left them in new places. =) We made it to Rainbow Falls first. It was really beautiful, a big waterfall. There was a path down close to the falls, but I asked if we could finish the trail to Turtleback falls. I was worried I’d run out of energy to keep going if we didn’t get to the top first. Turtleback falls was a different sort of waterfall, it was a big rock that really did look like a turtle’s shell. People went sliding off it while we were there! Serenity thought they were pretty crazy. =) Afterwards we took a little trail down to the base of rainbow falls. It was a narrow little goat track that I didn’t know how I was going to manage. I suggested we go to the observation point first. But Eric was all about that trail and it was Serenity’s trip so I followed her lead. I sort of slid down the whole way on my backside… I was completely coated in mud afterwards. Serenity thought my poopy pants were pretty hilarious. I made it to the bottom though. I told them they were going to have to have me airlifted back up though because there was no way I could make it back up that way. Eric had scouted around the bottom though and there was a nice easy trail back… past the observation point. Lol! It was really fun!
Watching people slide down Turtleback Falls
Before that first hike we had fun just traveling together! After we got off the plane and we got a rental car (Not from our rental reservation, evidently they gave that away so we had to search for a different car company. But we didn’t let that affect the day.) On the drive Serenity and I made crosswords and word search puzzles for each other. That was part of her travel plan and it was really fun. We got a late lunch at Olive Garden. It’s really fun making food choices with just one child. Serenity got to pick everything this trip, and she did a good job balancing costs, getting inexpensive meals sometimes and nice treats sometime. We stopped off at a Visitor’s Center and we saw the most beautiful white squirrel. Apparently they are common in that town. It was adorable!
Serenity actually watched a whole movie with Eric! Guardians of the Galaxy with commercials! Eric was pretty excited since serenity hasn’t been interested in most live action movies.
The next day began with more hiking! We saw Moore’s Cove, which we picked because Serenity calls it Lillyan Moore’s cove. Funnily enough we saw a tree that said A💕Matt. 😜. We also saw looking glass falls and sliding rock :) Moore cove was Serenity’s favorite waterfall, because we were able to hike right behind the waterfall. It was so much fun!!! I saw a rainbow there too =) Someone had done some fun little stacked rocks, and Serenity put her little fox Sparkle on the stack for a photo op. At looking glass falls, Eric and Serenity walked across this fallen log. It looked just like a comic of Calvin and Hobbes that they both love. Eric has a shirt with a Lord of the Rings version of the comic too. Super fun! Sliding rock was another waterfall that you could slide down, but this one had life jackets and a lifeguard. Much safer. Eric and Serenity had a blast sliding down! It was cold though.
After that hike we headed off to the Great Wolf Lodge! We did a little bit of the waterslide and waterpark fun, but mostly it was all about the MagiQuest! Serenity became a Master Magi and beat all the runes. She beat Compass Quest too! The timed Compass quest we tried 4 times! We each took a turn, turns out it wasn’t working. She even started the third quest and did a few of those as well. Eric was very determined to beat the dragon Last dragon was like Simon says. Serenity was top money maker for the month, and just near the end became highest runes completed for the month. She really loves questing! She ran all around the hotel seeking runes and magic items. There were three different floors and so many pictures and treasure chests to use her wand on. Oh, and she was pretty excited when she found she could wave her wand in the breakfast area to make critters come alive.
She LOVED her birthday hat wolf ears!
Eric was determined to defeat this dragon!
Serenity is ABCDEF =)
Serenity just thanked us over and over for this trip. She said it was the best weekend ever and she just loved getting to go somewhere with us. It was an amazing experience.
