We took only ONE family vacation this summer, and thankfully, it was a super fun one! We started a tradition back in 2009 that we would visit one set of mine or Josh's grandparents each summer, and do something fun as a family on that yearly trip. The year we started it, in 2009, we visited my Grandma and Grandpa Perkins in Spokane. That also happened to be the last time we saw my Grandma before she died unexpectedly a few months later. This year, our destination was to my Grandpa Perkins' home again (we also visited him as a family in 2012, and I try to go every year in between family visits). We've been visiting National Parks the last several years while on our trips to visit grandparents, but we decided to go to an amusement park this year instead, to see how everyone would do in anticipation of going to Disneyland next year for the first time. So this year's trip cost a little more money than we usually spend, but it was totally worth it, because Josh and I were both so much more relaxed. Not spending a ton of time stuck in the car with everyone driving around (like we do in National Parks) was nice, and so was not having to pack and make all our meals to eat at picnic tables while vacationing.
We left on Sunday, July 26 and headed for Spokane. It's about a 5.5 hour drive to Grandpa's house, but because he's in a different time zone, we arrived at his place an hour ahead of our time. When we got there, Grandpa was taking a nap on the couch. The boys brought all their bags in and got settled downstairs, and Josh and I listened to Grandpa talk for a while before making dinner around 6:00. Tabbi had been there the previous few days and had taken Grandpa grocery shopping, and in preparation for our family coming, he had gotten us some frozen pizzas. It was an easy meal, and I was so appreciative to Tabbi and Grandpa for thinking ahead and getting a meal for us!
After dinner, the boys went back downstairs (they like Grandpa's man cave) and I stayed upstairs talking to Grandpa until 10:30 (11:30 my time!). I was so tired; I went downstairs and found that everyone was already asleep and I climbed into bed and dozed off myself. The next morning, we had breakfast and Josh took the boys shopping at White Elephant while I stayed and talked to Grandpa some more. He just turned 98 years old, and he has an amazing memory and a lot of stories to tell, and I enjoy listening to him recount them. I heard some new ones this time around, like the Middle-eastern guy who gave my Grandpa a handmade knife but refused to have his picture taken because he thought his soul would disappear into the camera, and about the time Grandpa was a pilot and got stranded in England on Christmas Eve due to fog and the female hotel manager came knocking on his door at 10:00 at night to ask what time he "wanted to get knocked-up in the morning". I re-heard some stories he's told me in the past, too, like when he went dancing at Lagoon with my Grandma's sister before he met my Grandma, and when he took my Grandma skiing on a date for her first time, and when he flew in the Berlin AirLift. My grandpa does very well living on his own, especially for his age, but he seemed more frail and physically slower this time around than visits in years' past. We said our goodbyes and left around 10 that morning. I always worry when I say goodbye to my grandparents that it will be for the last time. When we were leaving, Grandpa said to me, "Now you'll come back again and see me, right?", and I said "I promise I will". It made my heart sad, because I hate leaving him all alone.
Josh didn't get what he was looking for at the White Elephant store that morning, so on the way out of town, he stopped again at a sporting goods store before we headed up to Silverwood, an amusement park north of Couer d'Alene, which is about an hour's drive from my Grandpa's house in Spokane. I had hoped to get to the park around 11, which is when the rides open, but because of the unanticipated shopping stop (which took a half hour), we arrived at 11:30, along with a long line of other cars. Surprisingly, the car right ahead of us was also from Salmon, which was exciting! And it turned out to be one of my piano students! Anna was there with her dad, her aunt, and her Ganske cousins Kymber & Bre (who just recently moved to Coeur d'Alene from Salmon). We'd never been to Silverwood before, but we'd driven past it 3 years prior on our way to Glacier Park after visiting my Grandpa Perkins. The parking lot is on one side of the highway, and the park is on the other, so you have to walk through a tunnel that goes under the highway to get to it, which was strange. The park itself is also mapped out weird: you have to walk down through its Pioneer Village before crossing the railroad tracks and then walking all the way back down to the rides and amusement park area. We couldn't figure out where we were headed at first, but we just followed the masses of people. We did a lot of walking before we finally arrived at the rides, and since it was still early, the lines weren't too long yet. The boys went on the paratrooper ride first:
Then Ammon and Kanyon got in line for the Ferris Wheel, but the line was moving at such a snail's pace, so I told them we should go do the roller coasters first before it got too crowded, and I promised them we would come back to the Ferris Wheel later. So, we headed for "Coaster Alley" where most of the roller coasters are, and got in line for Timber Terror, one of two wooden roller coasters they have.
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| Waiting in the roller coaster line |
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| Looking at the map of the park while waiting in line |
We took a lunch break after that ride, which lasted about 45 minutes because the food service was SO slow, but again, it was still nice not to have to pack and make our lunches and carry coolers around all day. As lunch was ending, a little storm blew through, which had the effect of making people leave apparently, because the next few rides we went on had little or no lines at all! We walked down to the Thunder Canyon river ride, and got on as soon as we arrived without a line! Ammon didn't want to get wet, so he opted not to go on it with us, so I had him take pictures of us instead!
We all got wet, but Kanyon definitely got the wettest of all of us on the ride! When we got off, the Corkscrew Rollercoaster was just across from us, so we went on that next. Notice everybody's soaking stances?!
Kanyon and I accidentally lined ourselves up wrong, so we didn't ride with Josh and the other boys, they went one turn ahead of us. The Corkscrew goes upside down twice, but the ride is short, and surprisingly it didn't make me sick at all like the Colossus at Lagoon does. It was a fun ride!
Right across from the Corkscrew is "Super Roundup", which spins you around and around (it would totally make me vomit if I rode it). We watched Jonah and Micah take a turn on it, since once again--there was no line for it.
Kanyon was soaking wet, and freezing. Doesn't he look just miserable here? He refused to let us take off his shirt, though, so we decided to go on another water ride right then, so that we didn't have to keep getting wet after drying off over and over.
We headed over to the last water ride--the Bumper Boats. Only the three younger boys were interested in doing it, so Ammon went to the spray guns on the side, and paid to shoot water at them from above!
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| Micah's staring at Ammon who's shooting water at him. |
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| Jonah didn't have a good spray gun on his boat, and he got soaked. Kanyon, on the other hand, had an incredible sprayer, and he LOVED dousing his brothers! |
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| All 4 boys ready to ride! |
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| Going Up, Up, Up |
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| Ammon was all smiles after the ride! He went on a similar ride with me at Lagoon this spring, and although it scares him, he likes the thrill! |
Kanyon surprisingly loved it (Josh and I were surprised all day at the adult rides that Kanyon was willing to try and even more shocked when he was happy after riding them!)! He liked it so much, in fact, that he wanted to go on it again! So, he and I got back in line to ride it a 2nd time! But neither one of us enjoyed it so much the 2nd time around, in fact, we both got a little scared, and it made our tummies feel weird, and I screamed the whole way down!
As we were riding the Panic Plunge the 2nd time, the twins went on the ride Sky Diver together. This turned out to be one of their favorite rides, and they went multiple times that day!
Josh and I went with Kanyon and Micah on the Timber Terror roller coaster again as Jonah and Ammon went on the Sky Diver together. Unfortunately, as they were riding, Ammon's iPod fell out of his pocket as they turned upside down, and we couldn't find it anywhere on the ground around the ride. The employee searched the car they were in, but to no avail either. Ammon thinks it fell inside a crack in the metal casing of the car. We walked down to file a missing item claim, and since we were all the way back by the Pioneer Village, we decided to ride the train that goes around the park. It goes just once an hour, lasts about 35 minutes, and there's a little drama production they do half-way through the ride. It was nice to just sit for a bit and relax!
When the train ride was over, Kanyon wanted to drive an Antique Car. The line was slow, so the other boys played carnival basketball games while they waited for him.
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| Kanyon was my chauffeur! He was like "I'm flooring it!", but the car didn't move as fast as he wanted it to! He was a good driver! |
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| Ammon played the basketball game of shooting as many 3-pointers you can in 30 seconds. His prize was a small basketball. |
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| Jonah and Josh also played a free-throw basketball game, and won basketballs |
We wanted to all go on the "Tremors" rollercoaster again, to see if we could get better faces in the coaster camera. Micah did the best, and had an awesome face, but unfortunately there was a girl in front of Jonah whose hair was hiding his face, so you couldn't see him very well, so we decided to just stick with the earlier photo taken that day. The photo of Kanyon and Ammon was similar to the first one taken that day, but Kanyon's face was much more excited in the second one, so we bought the picture of them from our second ride. We all loved riding that roller coaster, and I'm glad we were able to do it twice!
It was starting to get late, and the rides close at 9:00, so we all picked one more ride that we each wanted to go on. Josh and I rode Aftershock--the giant rollercoaster that was voted the "Top Hanging Rollercoaster" in 2012 by the Travel Channel. We'd been eyeing it all day, wanting to go, but not wanting to get sick and unable to enjoy the rest of the day, so we saved it for last. It takes you up one tall side, and you're hanging face-forward, then you go around the roller coaster loops, and you go up the other tall side, and you're hanging on your back, then you go around the roller coaster loops backwards! It ends by taking you back up the first tall side, so you're hanging face-down, before it levels you out by the ground. It was crazy! I was excited to go, and there wasn't a big line at all, but as we were waiting, Josh kept repeatedly saying he just might die of a heart attack and he's glad he has life insurance, and then I started feeling nervous! I was so anxious when we got strapped in; Josh told me that he closes his eyes on rides to help him not get sick, so that's what I did. The worst part of the ride was hanging face-down, but the rest of the ride was fun and I'm glad we did it (but probably never will again)!
Jonah and Micah's last ride was the Sky Diver (again--for the 3rd time!), and Ammon and Kanyon chose to go on the Ferris Wheel. That was the last ride for any of us that day, and I'm glad they came back to it, since I promised them from the start of the day that we would! The line was still pretty slow, but since we got in line before 9:00 that night, they let them stay in line until they got on the ride around 9:15.
When we left that night, we headed for our hotel in the Sandpoint/Ponderay area which is about 30 minutes north of Silverwood. We were so tired from our long day, that once we arrived, we fell right to sleep--without ever even turning the hotel TV on, which I swear is a first! The next morning, we had the hotel's breakfast, checked out, and drove back to Silverwood for Day 2 in the park--this time we were going to the water park side instead of the amusement park. We waited in line outside the doors of Boulder Beach for about 45 minutes until 11:00 (when they opened), and we found and claimed a table to put our stuff on since we arrived so early!
I wanted to go on the family-tube water slides first before there was a big line, but when we got all our stuff on the table, Josh, Jonah, and Kanyon went to the bathroom. They didn't realize that we were close to a bathroom, and walked all the way back to the entrance to use one. Ammon, Micah, and I felt like we were waiting forever--watching loads of people come into the water park and head up to the same water slides that we wanted to go on!
It was the first time we've been to a huge water park like this as a family, and we all loved it! There was so many things to do: 2 family tube slides, 4 single/double tube slides, 3 body slides, a lazy river, 2 wave pools, and a child's area with spray guns and the dumping bucket and small water slides. We went on the family tube slides 3 times in a row, until the line started getting long. Then we did the wave pool, the body slides, the wave pool again, the tube slides, the wave pool again, the lazy river, and (you guessed it) the wave pool yet again. The kids loved the wave pool! There was a group of large storm clouds that covered the sky as we were there, so the lines for the tube slides and body slides weren't too long, but the kids got cold easily, which is why they always returned back to the wave pool to stay wet and warm.
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| Ammon |
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| Kanyon's splash |
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| Kanyon |
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| Micah |
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| Jonah--he didn't realize he had gotten in the line for the steepest body slide!! |
The last ride that Josh and I did was the yellow family tube slide--it was the first one we'd done that morning, and I wanted to do it one more time before we left. The line was considerably longer by then, but it was worth it: we ended up riding with 2 teenage boys, and because of the large weight in our tube, we went so high on all the slide's corners. It was awesome!!
Because we were driving back to Salmon that day, we knew we'd need to leave the park by 4:00, so we got out of the water and changed into our clothes by 2:30. We went back to the amusement park side to get treats and souvenirs before we left for the day. The day before, Josh and the boys had dippin' dots and I'd had a funnel cake, so on the 2nd day, I got myself a dippin' dots. It was refreshing after spending so much time in the water!
Kanyon really wanted a caramel apple since he'd seen one the day before, so that was his treat:
And Josh and the other boys really wanted Elephant Ears. They were so huge, it took them a long time to consume them!
When we were leaving, we stopped at a souvenir shop on the way out of the park. The shop didn't have what I was looking for: a magnet with a picture of the park! I knew I'd seen one at a different shop the previous day, and I thought all the little stores would have the same merchandise, but I was wrong. Josh, Ammon, and Kanyon got shirts at the shop, but there wasn't anything in there that Jonah, Micah, and I wanted. So Josh took the two boys and headed for the car, and I took the other two boys and headed back into the park to go to another shop to get what we were looking for. I kid you not--we stopped at 5 shops, and none of them had the magnet I wanted. I collect magnets from places we visit to put on our fridge, and I really wanted the one I'd seen the previous day. I hadn't bought it the previous day because I didn't want to carry it around with me all day long, but in retrospect, I wish that I had. We finally went to that shop, located in Coaster Alley, to purchase the magnets I wanted, and to get shirts for the twins. Then we had to walk all the way back to the Pioneer Village, back to the entrance, under the highway, and to our parking spot. The extra walking that the twins and I did probably equaled 2 miles, and it took us about 45 minutes extra from when we left Josh and the other two boys in the shop right by the park entrance. He was so irritated with me when we finally arrived at the car, but I felt like we were equal since he spent time shopping at the sporting goods store the previous morning when I wanted to be leaving to go to the park!
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| Josh loves his shirt he got there! |
All in all, it was a fantastic family vacation (and a good trial run for Disneyland next year)! We had fun with our kids, our kids had a good time and raved about the rides and water slides they did, and I was glad to see my Grandpa again, too.
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