Girls Weekend!

Earlier in the year I had decided it would be fun for just Ella and I to head over to Spokane to see Jen & Logan. After taking the road trip in August 2017 with all the kids by myself I felt fine driving over there with just Ella. My parents had been watching the kids for me since Sunday, August 5th. They drove down to a park and ride in Auburn on Thursday, August 9th where we met and I took Ella and they took the boys back to their house for a couple more days until Michael could come get them. 

Ella and I set out for Spokane a couple hours before rush hour traffic. Our first stop was in North Bend to go potty and so I could buy my favorite road trip food...Oh Boy Oberta Cocktail Pepperoni. After that we drove until we were ready for dinner. We stopped in Moses Lake at Carl's Jr. I love their waffle fries and have been dreaming about them for about a year. They were so yummy! 

Side note: Normally when we travel I pack DVD's that aren't necessarily specific to boys or girls. We'll watch...Sing, Shrek, Despicable Me, Madagascar...things like that. Since the boys weren't coming along I thought it would be fun to pack more girly movies. I grabbed the ones that Ella loves, Princess Diaries 1 & 2, Annie, Tangled and Brave. Oh my word these are the most boring movies in the world to listen too! Brave wasn't that bad since there is some music, but the other ones were a total snooze-fest. I think the music portion is what plays into it....since I can't see what's going on at least I can enjoy the songs or the humor in the movie. Note to self...don't pack girly movies! 

We pulled into Spokane around 7pm and of course the girls were so excited to see each other. I was excited to see Jen as well. Jen and I stayed up chatting until midnight! 

The next day we let the girls play for a while and then around lunch time we got on the road headed for Jen's parents house about an hour north. The kids and I got to go there last summer and it was so much fun. We stopped at MCD's for lunch and then we on our way. 

This summer was HOT...plus we had a lot of smoke come down from Canada and basically zero wind. It was brutal! At Jen's parent's house it was 107 degrees out! To cool off we spent hours in their pool. The girls had fun trying to handstands and Jen and I kept busy by killing bees. Yep....the bees were everywhere! I was using the pool net and Jen would whack them with a flip flop. These were yellow jackets so these weren't nice bees...they would dive bomb you! We killed over 150 bees during our time out there and amazingly no one got stuck. 

After swimming we got out, washed up and then ate dinner. It wasn't long after that and it was time to head back to Jen & Richard's house. Logan's brother Conner was staying the night with this grandparents since the next day us girls were going on an adventure. On our way home we stopped at Fred Meyer's to get lunch stuff and of course that turned into a mini shopping trip where the girls got matching shoes. Cute girls! 

Saturday was our adventure day! We drove to Silverwood in Idaho! 

Jen's family has season passes and they get a free ticket for another child so Ella was free. 

I love this wagon that Jen has I'm totally buying one next year at Costco. So handy and SOOOO much lighter and easier to handle than our Radio Flyer ATV wagon. 

Originally we wanted to go to Silverwood on Friday, but then changed it to Saturday because of the high temps. Saturday ended up being 20 degrees cooler than Friday. Of course we did have to contend with bigger crowds, but that didn't really matter to us. 

Ella didn't really want to go on any rides, but I encouraged her to go on 3. The first ride we went on was one of the little roller coasters that spins around. After that we went on the Log Ride. Even though it was cooler it was still HOT! While standing in line for the ride we kept using our frozen drinks to cool ourselves off. I wasn't worried about getting a little wet on the ride, but I did have my purse with me so I was hoping to not get drenched.  

After the drop we didn't get wet at all and then Jen starts yelling, "We gonna get wet, we gonna get wet...move your purse to the right". I did what she said, but I was looking around frantically trying to figure out how we were going to get wet when we already went down the drop. That's when we got totally soaked from the left side. What I didn't know about is there is a platform you can stand on and drop quarters when the log gets to a certain point and if you drop the quarter at the right time it will trigger an arm to move and soak the people in the log. Oh my word I was laughing so hard. We were soaked, but it was so hot I didn't even care! 

After that we sat down and ate some lunch. For Ella's third ride she wanted to go on the corkscrew rollarcoaster. This wasn't actually my first time being at Silverwood. Michael and I came in 2002 on our way out to Wyoming for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. Back then it didn't even have the water park. We went on the corkscrew and I was in so much pain. This was before I even got all messed up from car accidents. So I knew there was no way I could go on that ride so Jen took the girls and I just hung out and waited. Jen said that when Ella finally saw the ride in action that she wanted to come find me, but Jen said, "You got this!" and Ella went ahead and rode it. Not sure if she'll ever want to go on it again though. 

After the three rides we head to the water park. It was CRAZY busy! We ended up having to go to the changing area all the way on the other side of the park. All Ella wanted to do was go on the Lazy River. Which in all honesty was probably the best thing to do. All the lines for the water slides were terribly long. It would have taken a couple hours and we would have only gone on a few rides. The Lazy River was amazing! 

We would go around a few times and then get out to eat a little and drink and then get right back in. We did walk over to another play area that had lots of little slides, a climbing area and one of those giant buckets that drops water on you, but Ella didn't want anything to do with it. It was all about the Lazy River. 

I think we were in the water for about 4 hours and then it was getting closer to the water park closing. I didn't want to be caught in the rush of people leaving so we got out a little earlier. On our way out of the water park we stopped at this Ice Cream place and got soft serve. Oh my goodness the cones were so big we had them put them upside down in a cup. There was no way we could eat them before they started melting. They were SO yummy!! 

Right outside the water park we saw this area on the grass that had chairs and a giant chess board. We thought that would be a nice place to eat our ice cream. Of course the bees knew it was a great place to be as well. 

There were people that were playing chess when we got there, but after they finished Logan wanted to play with this other girl. She didn't know the rules so I helped her out. It was fun playing with the giant board. I'm horrible at chess though! We didn't actually end up finishing since we wanted to go get in the line to ride the train, but I'm sure the other girl would have won. I did have to talk to Logan about being a good sport earlier in the game. Logan had taken her queen and she made a big deal out of it and wasn't talking nicely. Of course a few moves later and she took Logan's queen. At the end of the game Logan walked up to the girl and congratulated her on winning and shook her hand. I was so proud of her! 

We didn't end up getting to ride the train...the line was really long and Jen had even been standing in it for a while. We didn't want to wait around for the next one since it was a whole hour away so we decided it was time to go. 

On the way out Jen and Logan went into a gift shop while Ella and I waited outside. When they came out they had a gift for Ella. Logan got a necklace with an E on it and Ella got a necklace with an L on it. They were so cute! On our way home we stopped at The Cracker Barrel for dinner. I wish so badly they had one in Washington. Yummy! 

The next day it was time to head home. I let the girls play all morning and Ella and I got on the road. We stopped at MCD's in Moses Lake this time for lunch. Once I left Moses Lake Google Maps said I had 2hrs and 58 mins to go. After an hour and a half it said I had 2hrs and 47mins. This was when I started to feel my anxiety rise. I was holding it together though because I didn't want Ella to know I was upset. We did stop in Ellensburg to buy a couple boxes of peaches and then we got on the road again. I could see on my phone where the traffic got bad so we pulled over in Cle Elm and stopped at DQ to go potty and get ice cream. That's when I called Michael to get a pep talk. It was basically stop and go from Cle Elm until after Snoqualmie Pass. It was so awful! At this point I was exhausted from playing hard and then just sitting in a car is tiring. Plus not having another adult to talk to or share the driving with was rough. We finally pulled in to the driveway at 6:30pm....2 hours after my phone originally said we'd be home. I was spent! I went right upstairs to lay down and rest. It was a wonderfully exhausting time and I'm sure we'll do it again next year. We mostly likely won't come home on a Sunday though....I'd rather stay another day than have to deal with that traffic like that again.