Just the Four of Us!

It is very rare that we ever take a trip with just the four of us, in fact I can't honestly remember a time when we have ever done it. For Christmas this year Dave's parents gave us a gift card to Triple Play Waterpark in Hayden, Idaho (right next to Coeur'dlane). Triple Play is an indoor waterpark, complete with bowling, miniture golf, arcade games, rock climbing and a children's play area. We had been trying to schedule a weekend to go since the beginning of January but we always seemed to have something going on. Track started last Monday and this past weekend was one of my only free weekends so I called the week before and booked the last room they had available. The hotel we stayed at was connected to the waterpark so it made it very convenient to go back and forth between our room and the park.  We left around 7 Friday night after I got done with track practice and made it to the hotel around 10. We all fell asleep right away, we had two queen beds so Jax and I slept in one and Colt and Dave in the other, the boys woke us up around 6:30 the next morning. You could see the slides out our bedroom window and Colt and Jax talked all morning long about the slides and constantly asking when they could go. They had a great breakfast at the hotel that was included in the price so we had breakfast and then had to wait around until 10 when the waterpark opened.

Once we got inside the waterpark the excitement wore off and both the boys were a little weary about their surroundings. Colt was happy in the water but he wasn't real interested in going on the big slides. Dave even walked all the way up the stairs with him and then had to turn around and come all the way back because Colt told him he was scared to go down.

He loved swimming around in the water with his life jacket on and by the evening we couldn't even stop him from coming down the big slides. They must have gone down the slides 15 times in a 2 hour span. Colt was loving it by that point and Dave was too!

 Swimming with daddy.

Jax prefferred to sit in the chair with his lovey bear and towel and just people watch. He wanted nothing to do with the water or the slides. They had a really nice children's play area for kids under 2 that was awesome but he just cried and cried so I finally gave up and sat with him.

After he got over the crying he was all smiles as long as he could sit in his chair with his bear.

Dave and Jax got some cuddles in while Colt and I swam. Since I am 7 months pregnant I didn't even attempt to go down any of the big water slides. I let Dave do all the fun stuff and I would usually just stay with Jax while Colt and Dave played.

We took a break from the water around lunch time to go try some bowling. The bowling was really fun, it was not crowded at all and we got the kids their own lane with the bumper guards and then Dave and I got a lane next to them. We all got to bowl for about an hour and Colt was a maniac. He basically bowled all 2 games himself because Jax kept running over the line and falling/crying so we finally got him a basket of fries and sat him at the table so the rest of us could enjoy ourselves. Great parenting I know!

 

Enjoying some french fries!

Keeping Jax happy so everyone can enjoy themselves!

After bowling we played miniature golf and spent some time in the arcade area playing games.

Colt is at the perfect age for this type of stuff, he was so much fun most the weekend and loved every minute of it. Jax was much harder but he did love the games with balls in the arcade area. We decided after the arcade to get in the car and head to Cabelas in Post Falls. Both the boys fell asleep on our way there so Dave went in and I stayed in the car while the boys slept. They awoke after about an hour and we all went inside, the boys loved all the animals, guns, fish and had a really fun time looking around at everything. Colt kept wanting to try hunting gear on, he had on all sorts of orange hats, vests, camo. He so wants to be just like his daddy. We spent about 2 hours at Cabelas and then went back for a little more swim time, Colt went crazy on the water slide that evening and after that we all went out to Mackenzie River Pizza for dinner. The pizza was amazing and the boys were naughty. Dave and I were eating as fast as we could to get out of their without losing it. It was really our fault, they were both tired and it was already 8:00 and neither of them wanted to listen. We were all asleep in our hotel room by 9 and the boys didn't wake up until 7 the next morning. That was a huge treat!

We went back to the waterpark Sunday morning for a couple hours. This time Jax was so much more comfortable and even had fun playing in the water and going down the little kid slides.

Dave brought him over to the kids play area right away and started getting him comfortable with the water.

 

Both the boys had fun laughing and splashing around in the water and going down the smaller slides for about a couple hours.

 We had to check-out of our hotel by noon so we headed back to our room to change and pack up and then met up with my sister Ann and family. We headed to a place called Capones in Coeur'dlane that had awesome food! Colt and Perry (I didn't get a picture of Reese) and fun playing with Perry's Leapster during lunch.

It was so fun to see the twins, we had not seen them since summer but Colt and the girls just picked up like they always see each other and were running all over the place laughing and giggling. It was pretty cute to watch.

We headed home after lunch and both the boys were asleep within the first 20 minutes. They slept all the way to Kennewick where we stopped to see Dave's parents and have dinner. It was nice to break the trip up a little bit and get to have a nice dinner with his family. Camryn and Colt had a great time playing together as always and we got home around 8. It was a fun trip but both Dave and I agreed it was a lot of work. We are definitely not taking the kids to Disneyland until our youngest child is at least 5!! It was so fun to get to spend time just the four of us though, we really need to do trips like that more often. So often most of our vacations are planned with my family or Dave's family or even our friends (and they are always a lot of fun too) but this was a good reminder that its important for us to have our private family time too. I am sure as the kids get older we will do this more often.