Hanging Out

My oldest son turns 14 today. He didn't want us to make a big deal over his birthday. He refused to have a party. Last Saturday we invited one friend to join him at High Trek Adventures (a ropes course) in Everett that opened up earlier this year.

When we arrived we found out that a special charity event was going on and we'd have to come back later. We dropped A and his friend off at the beach for a few hours, alone.

The boys had training first before using the course for a two hour time slot.

There are three levels. Each section (60 in total) is colour coded as to its difficulty. A said that this spider web section was the most challenging of those that he did.

There are 3 zip lines at the end of the course, at the highest level.

At the final descent.

The boys had pizza at MOD afterward. His friend gave him a Seahawks t shirt and a Seahawks navy blue hoodie which are perfect for him.

He had to be in school today on his actual birthday. Poor kid!



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Idaho Vacation Part Two - Schweitzer Mt. and Boating

On Thursday we went to Schweitzer Mountain which is a ski area in the winter. On the road up the mountain we saw several wild turkeys by the side of the road. That was a first for me.

J and I took the chairlift ($15 each) to the top of the mountain. At the village the elevation is 4,700.

The elevation at the top is 6,375.

this is the view on the way down

There is a restaurant at the top but we didn't eat there since the boys were waiting for us at the bottom.

They played oversized chess.

Before we left we recreated a photo we took here 7 years ago.

In the late afternoon we went to City Beach in Sandpoint. We used our inflatable tubes and mats to float around.

A funny thing happened at the beach. This small boat pulled up that had a pirate on board. He handed out "booty" to kids from a treasure chest.

For supper we got pizza from Domino's and ate at a different area of the beach. We played Ticket to Ride as a family and discovered how cut throat that game can be.


On Friday we stayed in Bayview. This is the view outside the front door of the condo.

The boys were intrigued by this unique house. We found out that an architect owns it. He lives in Mexico but comes back to add to it occasionally.

We asked at Macdonald's Resort in Bayview about boat rentals.  They had a simple motorboat for rent for a reasonable price - 65 dollars for 2 hours.

We just explored Lake Pend Oreille. This was my view.

Selfie on the boat:

We stopped in a little cove that had some docks where we could disembark. The photo at the top was taken there. The boys took a turn at the controls.

I took this photo which shows the condo that we stayed in.

It is 3 storeys high and brown, on the right. Note that there are many floating houses in Bayview.

Later in the afternoon we took out our own inflatable boat in the area right by the condo.

We had supper at the Lakehouse on the outdoor patio. We watched the pre-season Seahawks game on their big screen TV. I think that was the first time we've watched a Seahawks game while outside.

At sunset I took this photo.

On Saturday we drove home. We stopped at Vantage (aptly named) to take these photos high above the Columbia River.

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Idaho Vacation Part One - Silverwood

For our summer vacation this year we returned to Northern Idaho -- Sandpoint & Lake Pend'Oreille (pronounced Pond-er-ay in "American"). We returned to Bayview where we stayed for our summer vacation seven years ago. The vacation rental by owner (VRBO) condo is still there and managed by the same guy. This is our review:

We just stayed there for 4 days and had a wonderful time. The sun coming up across over the hills across the bay bouncing off the rippling water and dancing on the ceiling of the condo over your morning coffee is really hard to beat. We used the condo as our HQ for a day at Silverwood Theme Park (it's a 12 minute drive), a day on Sandpoint beaches & up Schweitzer mountain, and a day entirely in Bayview including getting out on the water in a rented boat. The condo is right on the shallow waterfront so you can just walk down and goof around lazily in inflatables and then walk to the floating restaurant for dinner.

But before getting to Idaho we stopped in Spokane. After breakfast the in an old rail car (Frank's Diner) where we also ate seven years ago we headed north. 

Our vacation didn't get off to the most auspicious start. The first activity planned was to visit Gardner Cave in Crawford State Park which is two hours north of Spokane. We left one day early in order to go there. We drove up to Metaline Falls which is very close to the Canadian border. The state park that the cave is located in was CLOSED when we got there. Closed on a Tuesday in August? Very strange indeed.

My family was very chill about it. I was the most upset. My husband enjoys being in the "middle of nowhere". We explored Metaline Falls and had lunch there. We found out that a movie was filmed here - the Postman starring Kevin Costner.

The "detour" also let us approach Sandpoint from a different direction than we had before, from the West instead of the South, which helped a little. This is Sandpoint beach at sunset.

Wednesday we spent the entire day (8 hours) at Silverwood Theme Park. A lot of people in Western Washington don't even know about Silverwood. We only really found out about it by accident years ago when we were driving from Seattle to Calgary. We've been once before and learned a few lessons. Our main target was actually the water park, known as Boulder Beach.

We arrived at the park at 10:30 am which is the best time to arrive. Boulder Beach (the water park) doesn't open until 11 so you spend some time waiting in line. Once it opens you should claim some lounge chairs with your towels for later.

We picked our rides pretty carefully the night before so we could get the most out of the day. We focused on the "medium intensity" water slides which we could do as a family (Avalanche Mountain & Richochet Rapids) and the low intensity longer-lasting attractions, like the wave pools and lazy river. A was the only one to take on the Riptide Racer (solo mats you lie face down on and go up to 30MPH on.

The family favourite was Avalanche Mountain. It is for 4 to 6 people, in a large tube and goes down a slide. We also tried Richochet Rapids but C and I didn't like that one. I ended up going backwards and that was no fun. There is a dark section and you don't know when a drop will come.

The Lazy River is just a fun way to float or swim along in a big 'circle' bumping inner tubes with a hundred perfect strangers. We did that multiple times.

There are two large wave pools and they actually are a lot of fun. The water is super-warm and the waves come thick and fast without too long of a break in between. You can easily pick your intensity level by where you choose to stand.

Later in the day we dried off and did a few rides in the main park, though mostly the ones with a water theme. We did the "Roaring Creek" Log Flume, which is mostly a lead-up to a 20 ft "freefall" slide & splash, and finally the "Bumper Boats", which are more like spray boats. You can spray other boats and spray people on shore. Watchers from the shore can also spray those in the boats. Jonathan joined in and got soaked by S who was on the shore.

That's J in the top right and C at bottom right.

We ate at the sit down restaurant at the park - Lindy's. We left the park about 7:30 pm. We'd planned to go to a magic show but it was sold out by the time we checked. We ended up spending 8 hours at the park, definitely getting our money's worth.

Our feet were pretty tired. My phone has an app that tells you how many steps you did. I didn't have the phone with me for the whole day but even with that caveat it said that I did over 9000 steps.


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Seeing the Sights of Seattle

The boys and I went on a field trip, of sorts, last week. There were three locations in Seattle that I haven't visited before and I wanted to show to my boys.

First we went to Columbia Tower Observatory which is 73 storeys high. A has previously visited Rockefeller Center in New York City and that is 70 storeys high. The Columbia Observatory is the highest public observatory on the West Coast. It is higher than the Space Needle and it costs less to see the view. Here's a link to the price, if you are interested. If you really want to save money, you can just go to the 40th Floor (for free) where there is a Starbucks but you don't get a 360 degree view. We started at the Starbucks and these photos show the view from there.

At the top I was impressed by how much you can see. You have views on all sides of the building. I also noted that it wasn't crowded.

Photography was hard since the sun was so bright outside and yet inside is was shaded.

We had a clear view of Century Link field where the Seahawks play.

Our second stop was the Seattle Public library in downtown which is only two blocks away from the Columbia Tower. It has very unique architecture. However, my aspiring architect wasn't impressed.

They have a fun gift shop on the main floor. To get a better view of the building we crossed the street to the courthouse.

Our third destination was Gas Works Park on the shore of Lake Union. A very unique place.

This was once a coal gasification plant. It closed in 1956 and has been repurposed as a park.

The views from here are amazing.

Parking was a bit challenging since the lot is small. I eventually found street parking that wasn't too far away. C wanted to roll down the hill but there were a lot of droppings from Canada geese.


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