Last Minute Vacation

Bubba's favorite ride that he went on I think 5 times.


Peanut's favorite-the "spinny" ride. There were three buckets on each arm and then the bucket spun and the arms spun around as well. I couldn't even watch because it made me dizzy.


Captain Peanut driving the boat.

So Thurs. night we made the decision to go on a mini vacation. I've been kind of feeling yucky about the fact that we haven't gone anywhere this summer as a family. There's an amusement park about 7 hrs. away from our house, so we opted to go for the weekend. We left Sat. morning and got there in time for dinner. We met my sister and her husband since they only live about 45 min. from there. Then we went to a really cool playground by the lake up there and walked around the lake.

Right after the border of Washington. We couldn't stop in the middle of the freeway where the actual "Welcome to Washington" sign was.


On the bow of the boat. We had to climb through this small hole to get out there. Not for the clautrophobic.

The next morning we drove to the Washington border which was only four miles from our hotel so the kids could say they'd been there. Bubba got his picture in from of a freeway sign. Then we went up to Sandpointe, which is another hour north and went to the lake there. It much nicer than Lake Coueur d'Alene. It had an actual sandy beach instead of just dirt and rocks. They have a nice swimming area, but unfortunately we didn't think to bring swimsuits for the day since we were planning on going on a lake cruise. It was a 90 min. cruise and she gave us the history of how the lake was created and history of the area. It was really interesting and cool. The boys all got the chance to drive the boat a little. They even got certificates to prove they were captains for the day. After the cruise we went back to our hotel for our swimsuits and met Alicia and AJ at the first lake again to go swimming. Unfortunately this is when we found out that their water and beach were ickier. Oh well. We went back to the hotel to swim in the pool.


The nice beach up at Lake Pend Oreille.

Mon. morning we went to the amusement park which is about 40 min. from our hotel. Man everything is far apart up there. Anyway, it reminded us a lot of Knott's Berry Farm in CA. It was really fun. Not crowded at all. In fact on a lot of the rides, including big roller coasters we walked right on or waited 10 min. They also have a waterpark on the other side that we opted not to go to since we had just gone to ours last month. So when it closed everyone came over from there, so a couple of the roller coaster ride lines got to be about 20-30 min. Still not too bad. Peanut was tall enough to go on all of the kid rides by himself, and a lot of the bigger carnival rides as well, which was good because Jo Jo decided to freak out and not go on anything. They all went on the tilt a whirl as the first ride and Jo Jo didn't like it at all so then he wouldn't even go on the little planes, or helicopters or elephant ride. He did go on the big train and old antique cars towards the end of the day though. They have two big wooden roller coasters. One of them even goes underground like three times. It was super hot, but still lots of fun. Bubba's favorite ride is called Aftershock and I don't even know how to begin to describe it so you'll have to check it out online. Peanut loved a ride we called the spinny ride, but I don't know what the real name of it was. He went on it at least 7 or 8 times. They also have a ride there called the Corkscrew which is one they bought from Knott's and it's the first roller coaster to have ever gone upside down. I remember it from when I was younger. B and Jo Jo watched as we went on a raft ride later in the day. I'm not sure why we didn't go on it in the middle of the day when it was 95 out. We got drenched! Halfway through the ride I mentioned that I wasn't even wet yet. Poor JP was backwards for every rapid, until we got flipped around right after my famous last words and like 10 gallons of water went down my back. We all had wet pants for the rest of the night. It's a good thing it never got cold out. It really felt like I'd gone swimming with all of my clothes on. It was pretty funny. B was glad that he had opted to stay with the baby.

Poor JP getting drenched-AGAIN!


Cool dude with mama's glasses.


His favorite ride of the day.

Yesterday we made the drive home and made it back just in time to change Peanut's clothes for his t-ball game. Today we're just hanging out, cleaning and getting groceries. I'm really glad we went. I'm not going to even start on the tiny hotel beds, no bath (shower only), no extra cot for our extra child, and how super expensive it was (all the hotels were and all were packed for some odd reason).