Coeur d'Alene

At the end of May, we went on a vacation to Coeur d'Alene.  It is right on the Washington/Idaho border and it is only 5-6 hours away from Seattle.  We invited two other family friends to join us with their kids and we all had a blast.  It was so nice to have the kids there to entertain each other and we got to stay up and play games once all of our kids went to bed.  Unfortunately the Folkman's and Struiksmas are moving soon and we won't be able to make this a yearly event!   

We stayed at our resort a little longer than our friends and got to spend quality time together as a family.  Of course we had to take lots of pictures of our cute baby girl!  She was definitely loving being spoiled by Mommy and Daddy with lots of attention.  :)

 

One of our favorite hang out spots was this city park right on the beach in the center of town.  Mia had fun walking in the sand!

 

We also spent a lot of time playing in the pool.  We were picturing super warm weather, but once we got to Coeur d'Alene we realized it wasn't quite as warm as we thought.  Luckily, the resort had an indoor pool that was heated.  Mia loved hanging out in the floaties.  Anytime we took her out and put her in the water, she would kind of scrunch herself up into a turtle.  She was such a cute turtle too!

 

When we first started planning this trip with our friends, we had decided to rent a boat and a tube to take around the lake for a day.  Once we got there and saw that the water temperature was only 50 degrees, we realized that plan wasn't going to work out.  Luckily, Jake has a thing for go-carts and found this family fun center.  We each bought an unlimited all day pass and got to do everything.  We went go-carting, played laser tag, bowled, played outdoor minature golf and glow in the dark minature golf.  It ended up being way more fun that we had even imagined.

 

Downtown, by the beach, there was this really cool park.  I guess it was built by the community and it was one of the nicest parks I have ever seen.  They had a separate toddler section where we hung out and took lots of pictures.  I can't wait for Mia to start walking and running around everywhere.  I think she's going to love the park this summer.

 

The Struiksmas were able to stay a day and a half longer than the Folkmans, and we found two fun little hikes to do.  We even found a trail guide book and Eric proceeded to guide us on our nature walk.  It was pretty entertaining.

 

Who can resist taking pictures of a pretty lake like this?  Eric's main goal was to get a good sunset picture while we were there.  Everytime we would drive past the viewpoints he would get out his camera and take pictures.  Derek was also into taking pictures, so we ended up with a lot of pictures to choose from.  Didn't these turn out super pretty though?