Coeur D'Alene Idaho, Day #4

Today the weather was really cold.  We decided we would just get up and eat breakfast and then go back down to the swimming pool.  I loved the swimming pool in this place because it was bathtub warm and so it didn't shock the system when you got into it.  Rachel loved the pool and loved sitting on the stairs.  There were more people in the pool today.  She of course made friends with the little boys that were there swimming. 

 The stairs are her friends.  She sits on them and then turns onto her belly and tells everyone she's swimming.

 Dad got her off the stairs.

No don't let me go.  Check out Rachel's face she's saying she wants to go back to the stairs but Scott's telling her she has to swim to go back to the stairs.  She's got her stubborn look on her face.

 

After we went swimming we went back to the condo and had lunch and got ready for the day.  We decided since the weather wasn't nice enough to be outside we should go to Triple Play.  It's a family fun center.  We thought we should do the small miniature golf course since Rachel's never been before.  Good choice on our part since she wasn't into it at all.  Here are some of the golf pictures.

 Rachel's turn

 Mom's turn

Dad's turn

Scott and I ended up playing a round by ourselves because Rachel went to play on the kids playground right by it.  Scott ended up hitting 3 hole in ones.  I had to do a little bit of cheating but came back to win because on the last hole he couldn't get the ball to go in the hole. :-)

We then went upstairs to the bowling alley.  They have a duckling lane that Rachel got to play on and we played on the lane next to her.  It was really fun even though I bowl horribly.  

 Look at the cute little bowling balls that she got to play with.

 Cheese!  This is so much fun.  

 Throwing the ball down the lane.

The difference between our pins and her pins.

Rachel's 1st score bowling.

Susan bowling. Look at that form.

Scott bowling.  This was a strike that went down with force.

Scott and I played two games.  He won the 1st and I won the 2nd.

It didn't take us as long as we thought it would to do these games and so we had to come up with more things to do.  

We had to stop at Wal-mart because I ended up getting water in my ear while we were swimming and I was having a really hard time hearing and it was just plain driving me nuts. We then ended up going to search for the floating golf green.  

 

This is the floating golf green on the resort golf course.  So cool.  You ride a boat over to get to the green and we watched some people play on the green.  After that we went to look at a park that we saw off the highway.  The playground is going to be themed after the Fire Station that was right by it.  We were hoping it was open but they were still building it.  We chose to go back to eat dinner at a pizza joint.  It wasn't that good which was a disappointment.  It was still early so we went in search of a park for Rachel to play at.  We found another park today for her to play on and of course as soon as we got there she made herself some friends. She is so good at making friends with all the kids at the parks.

 Going down the slide.  The little kid in the hat is Jonas.

 Walking up some stairs.

This was a fish that you had to climb up the bones of it.  She struggled with it at 1st but finally figured it out.

 

 The fish that you climb up its bones.

Swinging.

The wind was so cold so we stayed there for about 45 minutes and then headed back to the condo to relax before going to bed.

Coeur D' Alene Idaho, Day #3

Today's adventure was centered around a book called Mudgy & Millie.

A Coeur D'Alene resident wrote the book and we bought it and decided to do it with Rachel since the weather was so so.  The book starts with a little hike out to a point on Tubbs Hill where Mudgy and Millie are swimming and decided to play hide and seek.

Hiking out on Tubbs Hill to the beginning of the story.

 You read a few pages in the story and then move on to the next point.

Reading the 1st few pages.

 We were then on our way back to the 1st statue of Mudgy and Millie.  Rachel wanted to walk on all the "Big" rocks as we headed back down the trail. She was so funny on this little bit of a hike.

 Off the trail walking on the rocks.

We found the 1st statue.  This is Mudgy with Millie up in his antlers hiding. 

So the next point we go to is the library.  So we walked across the baseball field and let Rachel run around the grass and into the dugouts and then found our next statue.

#2 The Library

 Up close of Mudgy & Millie so you can actually see Millie hiding in the antlers.

After the library Mudgy decides to see if Millie is shopping so we got to walk along Sherman street to see some of the shops.  We stopped in a candy store and bought four pieces of chocolate.

Yes these little pieces of chocolate cost $1.75 each.  I'm not sure it was worth it but they were pretty good.  Sometimes you just have to splurge on vacation.

#3 3rd & Sherman Street 

At this point we decided we would eat lunch.  We were going to go eat at Hudson's but when we walked in and looked at the menu and it only had hamburgers and pie we decided we had better go somewhere else that Rachel would actually have something to eat.  So we went around the corner to the Mexican joint.  The food was good and really cheap.  After lunch it was back to our adventure.  We had to walk over to the park.  I of course forgot the camera in the diaper bag so I had to run back to the car to get it so we could finish taking our pictures of each statue.  We got to number four which was the city park.

 #4 City Park - Mudgy takes a nap.

While Mudgy takes a nap Millie goes and plays on this playground.  This playground was awesome.  We actually let Rachel play here every day we came into Coeur D'Alene.  After about 1/2 an hour playing we headed to the last spot.

#5 Independence Point - We found Millie yeah.  (Millie fell onto his nose if you can't tell from the picture).  

The wind started to really pick up and Scott was trying not to get wet from the waves crashing up on the wall he was standing on to get this picture.  We finished the walk and it was now time to go back to the condo.  We had promised swimming in the pool with Rachel after we finished.  So we swam that night for fun and Rachel did really good in the pool.  We got her off the stairs a few times and we were the only ones in the pool.  So nice.

Coeur D' Alene Idaho, Day #2

We ended up checking the weather forecast and today was going to be the best weather to go outside and do things.  So we decided we would take a trip over to Spokane to the "Zoo".  We decided we would take a picnic lunch with us and eat before we went into the zoo.  After finding where the zoo was we ended up going and finding a park to eat at.  We found some green grass in a neighborhood close by and put out a blanket and ate our lunch.

1st Family picnic of the year.  Rachel thought it was so fun.  It was a great little park to sit and have a picnic.

So after our picnic we headed to what we thought was a zoo.  Come to find out it was a zoo but it was only a cat zoo.  I guess we should have known since the name was:

We weren't able to really find out any information online except that they have 42 animals.  We thought well let's go see what it's all about.  Here is the pictures from our trip to the zoo.

Getting ready to go in

The white tiger.

A little girl on her birthday getting to feed

 the tiger.

The baby lion.  So cute!

Baby Lion up and checking everyone out.

Rachel & the Baby Lion.

Black Panther

The Leopard hanging in the shade.

The Tiger being lethargic.  Most the cats were this way.

This is the only animal that wasn't a cat.  This bear went crazy while we were there running back and forth because they are doing construction work at the zoo and the noise drove him crazy.

Rachel was completely done with this place in 30 minutes.  She wanted to leave and so we did because we saw all the animals that were actually out and about.  We did get a couple of cute pictures of her on the statues they had around the grounds.  

 Look at this really cute lion.  She was loving on it.

 Let's ride the lion now.

Oh look it's a froggy.

Since we had nothing else planned for the day because we were hoping to spend it mostly at the zoo we decided we would go back to the Cabela's and the Outlet Stores.

Outside the Post Falls Cabela's.  Rachel even knows the name of this store.  She also knows there is fish in there and animals to look at.  She kept asking to see the fish.  She was pretty excited once we saw the fish tank.  I then saw the shooting gallery and I wanted to do some shooting.  It was lots of fun and we even got Rachel to try doing some shooting.

Trying to figure out how to hold it.

A little help from dad and now she's a sharp shooter.  She fits well into this family.

We headed to the outlet mall but they were nonexistent.  There were only three stores left in them.  So off to Coeur D' Alene to see what we could find at the Resort there.  

 

We ended up walking around the boardwalk of the resort.

 Seen from the shore by the resort.

 Looking out from the boardwalk to the other side of the lake.

 Mom and Rachel on the boardwalk.

 The boardwalk that goes out and over the lake and back to the other side of the resort.

It was still early and so we ended up going to the park and playing on this fort that they have there.  It's so cool.  Even adults can play on it and have fun.

 Rachel taking Daddy to the windy slide.  I actually had to go down with her the 1st time because she was afraid of it.  We have found that if we go down 1st with her then she's fine going down by herself after that.  She is a funny little girl. 

 I did it! 

Who's that coming out.  Oh yeah the daddy that got suckered into doing it with her also.  he he he.  He loved it though.  When we finished at the park we headed to eat at a restaurant called "Tomato Sweet."  I totally remembered it when I saw it from state basketball my senior year.  We asked Rachel before that what she wanted to eat and she informed us:  "Don't ask me I'm just a little girl!"  Scott and I laughed so hard about that comment.  It still cracks me up to think about her saying this to us.  After dinner back to the hotel for some relaxing before putting Rachel to bed.  Whew it was an eventful day.  It didn't go as we planned but we totally made do with what we had and made it fun.