The Woods

After planning on leaving at noon on Saturday, August 4th, we ended up pulling out of our driveway at 9:00 p.m. arriving at 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Instead of going to Ben's for the night, we stayed at the little hotel cabin in Spirit Lake, ID that Grandma and Keppi had rented for the week. They had inadvertently scheduled it a day earlier than they had planned to check in and graciously let us lay our tired bones in the beds for the night. Love how the kids like to touch each other. Such sweet siblings.

We went to Ben's later that day and the kids had fun playing in the dog's bed. They were the dogs in the pound and Trev was the dog catcher!

Trev just turned 12 and would be receiving the priesthood. He was unsure what his role was going to be in passing the sacrament, so Ben got out a whiteboard and drew the chapel and explained the Deacon's routes. Everyone wanted to hear about this!

This week was going to be a WOOD family reunion. 21 in attendance. 12 cousins/grandkids and kids with their spouses. We would circle around our campfire each night, tell stories, play the guitar, roast s'mores and enjoy one another's company.

On Monday, we went to the Silverwood Theme/Water park. It's about 20 minutes from our campground. Grandma splurged on all of us and gifted us a day swimming in the lazy river, jumping over the waves in the Wave Pool, and sliding down the slides. The boys could not wait to get wet!

Mike took the boys to the waterpark and I took Kaylie to the kiddie park along with Jon, Rachel, Jack, Ilee and Quin. Kaylie did not want to ride any rides. I went on a ride with her and she was crying. The operator asked me if she was going to be okay. I told him she would be fine. She stopped crying during the ride, and then once it stopped, she started crying again. After that we went to the water park and floated around the lazy river, which she loved! They had spouts that would spray water out. She was really scared of those, I called them rainbows and we would go under them without getting hit by the water as she dug her head into my shoulder till we passed.

We were all separated around the park and none of us had our phones on us, so communication was limited and pictures were limited. When we made it over to the water park, we ran into Decker, who said "Cody is missing" About 5 minutes later, Jon came walking over with Cody. We had talked to the boys, that if we got separated, that they should go find an employee and tell them that they were lost and they would get some help. We had also put wristbands on each of the kids with grandma's phone number to call...she wasn't going to be in the waterpark and would have her phone and purse on her during the day. Cody did just that, he said, "that he had been crying because he couldn't find dad and Decker. He wiped his tears and then found an employee, and told him that he was lost. They called Grandma. In the meantime, Decker later told me that he had said a prayer that they could find Cody quickly. All prayers were answered and Cody was reunited. He had gotten separated from Dad and Decker on the lazy River and had walked out of it to try and find them. We were so happy to be together again.
At 5:00, we all came back together for a BBQ dinner and compared stories of what we'd all been doing for the day. The boys wanted to go back to the waterpark--it closed at 7:00 and then the ride park closed at 9:00. So after playing in the waterpark until 7, we went over to the rides. The boys enjoyed going on some of the kiddie rides. Kaylie was still not interested in riding anything...too scared.

She'd give the boys a thumbs up and tell them "Good Job"!

The flowers in this place were amazing! All beautiful and in full bloom. Very well kept!

At 8:00, Cody said he wanted to ride a Roller Coaster. We found one that he was tall enough to ride. The Timber Terror. We waited in line for about an hour and a half to ride it. He was so excited and couldn't believe he was going to ride his FIRST roller coaster. I was so happy to be doing it with him. It was an old rickety wooden roller coaster. He said it was awesome, but once was enough. Mike was waiting for us as the park was closing down. great to be reunited with everyone again.

We had a little visitor in our camp...Stuart Little. We chased this guy out of our campsite. He was a quick little guy as he liked to hide under all our stacked chairs under the table.

We went to Lake Pend Oreille. Mike was out on the boat with different kids as they took turns riding on the tube. I hung out with whoever wasn't on the boat at the swim beach. The kids fed the geese some of our crackers.

On Tuesday night, we went back to camp and got ready to celebrate Keppi (50) and Dottie's (38) birthday. Savannah Banana helped the boys get the campfire started for the evening.

Dottie and Rachel preparing their salads.

Kaylie made a friend at the swim beach and played with his buckets and shovels...turns out his campsite was in our same loop, so he came over to say hi. Kaylie was not impressed.

With so many candles it was easier to get out the blow torch to light them all. ;) James played Happy Birthday on the guitar as we all sang.

I got a video of everyone doing the floss...even grandma....
12 GRANDKIDS

James is in the kayak

Kaylie entertained herself by putting all the mastermind pieces in the game.

Auntie K brought her hammock again.

And Mike set up the mister under the tent for those hot days. The temps ranged from 80 - 106 during our stay. It was great weather with very little smoke. When we left the last day, the smoke from the Wildfires in Canada had started to enter into our state and Idaho.

Wearing Auntie K's sunglasses.

water balloon fun too...

Kaylie made a little smiley face with the fruit! Her imagination has grown over the last couple of months along with her conversation skills and vocabulary. It's been so fun to watch her language increase. Another FIRST for Kaylie on this trip....she has never wanted to try the hand dryers in public restrooms...Well she did at the campground!! First for everything!!

We went to the Brig where the kids pledged to be good little JUNIOR RANGERS. They had set up a place for kids at the museum to color, measure their wing span and other activities.

We of course visited our FAMILY ROCK. The boys got out and swam to it!

Decker decided he likes to tube on this trip and even ventured to stand up on the tube. Cody will stand up and do the floss.

Auntie K's list of 50 things to do before she is 50--get up and waterski--we altered it to attempt to waterski. The summer's not over though...she gave 5 good attempts and didn't have any luck. I think I got up on my 4th attempt. David and Mike both got up on their 4th attempts. I decided I want to try to waterski every year at least once. I always get nervous when I'm up...but it's pretty exhilarating!

Kaylie decided she liked the boat on this trip. The first few days, she only wanted to be held while on the boat and she would close her eyes...Now she says she likes it and she is very brave. We took her out on the tube as well. She tolerates it, but not a huge fan yet.

I'm King of the World!!!

We roade out to Bay view to get some ice cream. The shop was under construction

but it didn't affect their PRINGLES collection. We tried the Memphis BBQ and Honey Mustard flavors. The BBQ was the overall favorite.

There's Decker doing a DAB!

We went out with the Wyndhams. These boys have so much fun together.

The boat rocked her to sleep sitting upright.

At the boat launch, we played in the water too.

We decided to go to Silverwood an extra day. Saturday! It was so much busier than the Monday we went. I quickly braided my hair for the day and wanted to see what it looked like. I see where I missed some strands. LOL

This time we bought a plastic case that we could put our cell phone in and it would keep it dry. so we got some pictures in the Waterpark.

Kaylie loved this little tunnel slide. She would go up the stairs, then slide down over and over.

We rode some water bumper boats. We could squirt others and get squirted. Kaylie didn't like getting squirted.

We got Kaylie to agree to ride the Elephant ride. That became her favorite ride. She said he was not scared anymore.

Funniest story! We ran into the Pavlakos family who were also camping in the area. Lizzy is Kaylie's friend is 3. They had fun in the wave pool

They took Kaylie and the boys with them while Mike and I got in line to ride an extreme roller coaster. We were in line for about an hour and a half at the Spin Cycle. Once was enough for that one. Then we went to find the kids. Emily took them on a wet ride.

They both got soaked and afterward we even rode on two more rides. The Tilt a Whirl and the Round up which Decker who is our most cautious, ended up loving. Kaylie even went on the Tilt a Whirl and loved it.

We invited the Pavlakos family to visit our camp the next day for breakfast and boating. We had eggs and waffles for breakfast. Poor little Lizzy burnt her arm on our waffle maker. We didn't even notice, since she didn't cry or anything...we just noticed a mark on her arm. After they got home to WA, they took her to the dr. Turns out she had 2nd degree burns which had burned her nerves. She is healing nicely and had a colorful bandage to wear to cover her burn.
We took them to the Junior Rangers room at the museum. They built a couple of campfires out of felt...

and played with the animal finger puppets.

Then we went boating. We went over by our FAMILY ROCK and saw a Mt Goat relaxing on the mountain. I had a hard time finding him in my lense.

Then Monday, Aug 13th it was time to pack up camp. We actually got done about an hour before check out...that never happens!! Must be because we had a little extra help.

Ben, Trev and Lincoln camped with us the last night. Kaylie is showing us the money she had in her pocket. (Uncle James always gives her all his change in his pockets.)

Kaylie is showing us that the back of her dress says "Hello Kitty"

Kaylie likes giving bunny ears.

After we were all packed up, we went to Super One for lunch and 25 cent ice cream cones. It's tradition!

Kaylie made a flower with her money and Zot's candy. She wanted me to take a picture.

We left to go home around 2:00, so we pulled into Seattle around 7:00. You can see that the smoke is in the air. The sun was bright orange...pictures just don't capture the majesty of the sunset.