Taraka and Tucker we had so much fun at the park. I hope the wedding was fabulous, sorry we didn't get to come play on your new trampoline!
Sondra and Kai - it was so fun visiting. A whole day, bounce house and water blasters included, and no pictures... pathetic!
GG and Papa Choo Choo, I hope you had a fun trip. GG, Coeur d'Alene was great, as usual! Thanks for everything.
My big brother... I am so sad we didn't even get to say goodbye :0(. I did get one picture out of your family.....
I'm glad the girls got to spend some time together though... again... 2 full days... no pictures! WHAT'S MY PROBLEM!?!The trip wasn't all lost though...
Naunie and Papa Tex - thank you for the fun gifts! I'm glad Naunie went to Coeur d'Alene with us too. Thank you for everything as well!
Mother nature at its best. We watched these baby birds being taken care of by their mama for a few days, then off they went... good luck little birdies!
Ashlyn got to spend a day with Leesa... no pictures... hey Lees can you help me out with that??
Then a day with Gramma Shawn and another with Craig as well.
We also got to go out on Papa's boat. Papa and Ashlyn BOTH jumped off the back... and our little Kailey Lou jumped off the side. Woo Hoo!!! Nope... no pictures. All 3 of the kids even got to drive the boat!
We got to visit with Harley and Jordan and Pammy. CJ took all the kids for a drive on the golf cart too. Apparently Harley, being the great go-cart driver he is, almost hit a mailbox, Ashlyn almost hit Harley, Jordan was having problems keeping it on the road, Kailey couldn't even keep it on the right side of the road, and Canyon somehow with all those mishaps, was still dubbed "craziest diver of all"! I made an attempt at a picture while they were there, but Pam... I'm depending on you!
And we had a nice visit with Nita (aka Nina)
So, our plan was that the kids and I would stay a couple of weeks, and since CJ had to work and couldn't come along, Dad would drive us home and fly back to Spokane. A couple of days before we were supposed to leave, some hair-brained, big shot attorney ran a red light and hit Mom. She was ok, she got pretty bruised up, but thankfully not worse... although her car was totalled. This unfortunate event allowed for a couple of things... 1) CJ decided he would use Dads ticket to fly up, and drive us home and 2) I got to see Shandi!! We had a nice breakfast... but once again, no proof of our reunion.
Since he just HAD to be here anyway, CJ was able to discover one of life's true blisses... salmon fishing! He arrived on Saturday, and headed out to Wenatchee with Dad that night for a full day of fishing on Sunday... and then a little more on Monday. After learning that the bowling ball thing was actually called a down rigger, peeing off the boat (oh, maybe I'm not supposed to share that), and making an... arse (works a little better than the original word).. out of himself by using the completely wrong technique and losing "the big one"... he did have some prizes to show for it.
Ok, Ok so those weren't them... these are them...
Oh come on, you know as a child you did it too!
Lexi came and played a couple of days... and this was the only picture I got!
The girls showed off some new clothes
And... we all had FUN, FUN, FUN
(no, its not Dads)
We had LOTS of fun, did LOTS of shopping - the kids got all their school shopping taken care of... thanks Grammy and Papa, and Mom and I had a full day out... without kids at the Coeur d'Alene street fair. We can't wait to do it again next year (so I can actually make use of my camera). Grammy and Papa we owe you a million thanks. We REALLY did have an awesome time!
We love you!On the way home we stopped by Grammy JoJo and Grampy Stevie's for a night.
Kailey found a bird nest in the garden
where they also picked and ate raspberries... YUMMY!
And the kids and Grandma cleaned and played on the trampoline and the hammock
than Jessie gave the girls make overs
A good night sleep and we were off!... Eventually. I forgot my insulin at Mom and Dads so we had to stop by the cab office and pick that up. Then by the time we did that and got on the road we were hungry again, so we stopped at a truck stop in Post Falls, gassed up, got a snack, and realized we didn't have car sick medicine for Ash, so I ran back in and grabbed that. Then we decided that it would probably be best if all the kids could be in the seat the farthest back, so they could watch movies and it wouldn't be so loud for us up front... so we had to do some rearranging and move Canyons seat to the back. Then we realized we didn't have any ice in the cooler so I had to run back in for that. After close to an hour WE WERE OFF. Really!
Once we were really, truly on the road we realized it would be stupid to try to make the drive in one day... after all it was mid morning at this point. So we got to Kellogg and CJ decided we should take the gondola up Silver Mountain.
It really is beautiful up there. Since we were up there, we decided why not take the chair lifts all the way to the top. Amazingly enough only Ashlyn was a little jittery... ok, me too, but we got on, and once we did everything was fine.
Now the decision was "how far do we go?". We probably didn't answer the question properly because we decided to take a SMALL detour... through Yellowstone. It was worth it because we ended up seeing some elk
geysers
including Old Faithful
and buffalo
We eventually made it home, all in one piece, all be it, totally exhausted - no worse for the wear. But we're happy we did it - with the exception of a couple tired Mommy and Daddy arguments... it all just makes us stronger... right?!?!?! I would say that, overall... and besides Mom getting hurt... this was the best vacation ever!
