You know how it goes: Your group of friends promises to never stop hanging out, but between moves and marriages and kids, it gets harder to keep the connection.
For a group of childhood buddies and their families, the solution is simple: an annual winter waterpark weekend.
Chris and Andrea Foster, who live in Waukesha, have been part of the tradition since it started in 2012, when Evan, their oldest child, was just three. Now their son Owen is also part of the group, which took four families this year to the Wisconsin Dells.
Andrea shares how they make the weekend a splash for kids and adults alike.
Let’s start with the logistics: What waterpark do you go to and why that one?
We always go to the Wilderness, and we stay for a weekend, Friday to Sunday. We like the Wilderness because it has three indoor water parks, so the kids don’t get bored. They also offer some non-water activities, which my kids love as they have gotten older. We also like the options they have for “housing”— we like to all stay together so the adults can hang out once the kids go to bed. There are condos, or standalone houses and adjoining hotel rooms, too, and they all offer full kitchens, which is a must-have for us. With a group our size, going out to eat just isn’t an option.
What’s the weekend like?
Typically, we all arrive Friday evening and get situated. We have dinner (we bring take and bake pizza) and then head to do the non-water park things like the arcade or mini golf. Friday night is typically the late night for adults — most of us haven’t seen each other in a year so we are trying to all catch up.
Saturday morning, we make breakfast and then hit the waterparks. The hotel offers shuttle service so we can leave our cars parked and they pick us up and take us where we want to go. (If it were summer, we would walk, as it is a short distance, but it’s cold in the winter in swimsuits!) We basically stay at the park as long as the kids are having fun! If we need a lunch break, we head back to the condo to eat, or grab something at the water park.
We have started to do a crock pot meal on that day, so that no one has to cook after a long day of swimming. We eat dinner and, depending on how we are feeling, we may go back and hit the non-water activities again. Otherwise, it’s movie time for the kids and drinks for the adults!
Sunday is packing day; we all get the placed cleaned up, and then we squeeze in one more time in the water before heading home.
When not at the waterpark, the kids are running all around the condo — movies, games, snacks, iPads, making forts, playing with the other kids’ toys that they don’t have.
What are the best parts of these trips for you? How about for your kids?
For me, there are two best parts: having adult time with friends we haven’t seen in a while, and then seeing all of the kids together. The guys that go have been friends since elementary school or middle school, so seeing them together and talking about the past and then seeing their kids together is so awesome.
What is great too is that as the kids have gotten older, we feel more comfortable letting them run off in groups together. The adults will find a spot at the water park where we can see them, but they can go do their own thing. Sometimes they pair off and play together, sometimes they will each find their own thing. Evan, being the oldest and tallest, will often do some of the bigger slides with the adults. Owen likes to find a slide and will go on it twenty to thirty times in a row before he gets bored and moves on.
Sometimes the parents and kids go off together and go do rides and slides. What is nice is that there are no expectations with our group. If someone is tired, they can head back. If the kids all want to do rides together, they go do that. We try to make it as relaxed as possible.
What’s the biggest challenge?
Getting everyone ready to go! With that large of a group, kids don’t eat/get dressed/go to bed at the same pace. But in cases like that, if someone is ready to go, they head to the water park and save a table for the group and the rest comes when they are ready. If someone is hungry, they find something to eat.
Has anything about the experience surprised you?
Since the kids only see each other once a year, is always amazes me that they just all pick right up and play together like they see each other every weekend.
Any tips for other families considering a trip like this?
We try to make it as economical as possible by bringing our own food and have meals at the condo. When the kids were smaller, we would go back to the room and have them nap and eat lunch. Now that the kids are older, if they are having fun, we don’t like to stop that, so we will spend some money on the snack bar if they don’t want to leave to have a full lunch.
Another tip is patience! Some of the water parks have limited seating so finding a spot to sit and leave towels can be hard. And there are often a lot of kids in the kids’ area. It is a great time, but you have to have patience for the weekend crowd.
Also, we go in the winter mainly because summer tends to fill up — finding a weekend for three to four families is much harder. Winter seems to be less busy for everyone!
What does it mean to you to create a tradition with your family and friends?
It has been so great seeing the kids grow up each year and how they interact with each other. And it is great to catch up with our friends. As families grow and people move, it is harder and harder to do things like this, so having this to look forward to is so nice!