Sunday, September 29

Day 2 of Grandma Janie visiting us in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t any better the third day of her visit. Overnight, temperatures dropped into the high 20’s and it was snowing outside when we woke up Sunday morning. Boo! Definitely not the weather I’d expected to see in late September. Meanwhile, it was in the 60’s and 70’s where Andi was for the weekend in northern Minnesota.

I decided to make the best of our last day in Coeur d’ Alene, despite the crappy weather. I promised the kids I’d take them to an indoor bounce house, so after breakfast we piled into the rental car and drove over to Jump for Joy in nearby Hayden, ID.

Tory and Aden love bouncy houses and beg to stop and play whenever we see one at a carnival or event. This was an entire place of business solely based on bounce houses. Inside, a huge warehouse was filled with six different bounce houses for the kids to explore. Nothing fancy, just bounce houses and a few couches and chairs for adults to sit and watch.

I wasn’t sure how long Tory and Aden would be up for bouncing, so I paid for an hour of time. Janie and I sat on a cozy, beat-in sofa while Tory and Aden ran from bouncy house to bouncy house the entire 60 minutes. They were both hot, sweaty and thirsty by the time they finished.

Janie wanted to see downtown Coeur d’ Alene during her visit, so we decided to get lunch downtown and maybe do some shopping. I drove downtown by Lake Coeur d’ Alene so Janie could take in the view, and then picked out a spot for lunch overlooking the river. Quite persistently, Tory said she wasn’t hungry so we all agreed to walk around downtown for a bit before grabbing a bite to eat. Not 10 minutes later, Tory insisted she was starving and HAD TO EAT RIGHT NOW. We picked the first restaurant we saw called Sweet Lou’s and called it good enough.

Inside, Sweet Lou’s was a sports bar blaring NFL games on dozens of TVs. The menu looked decent though, so we decided to make it work. Aden surprised all of us by ordering ribs for his meal. Tory ordered a hamburger, Janie got a steak salad and I ordered grilled chicken. The food was good, but our service was terrible.

After lunch, we walked around downtown in the freezing cold. We poked our heads into The Shops and I surprised Aden and Tory with a stop into Mrs. Honeypeeps Sweet Shop. I let the kids each pick out 10 pieces of candy and much to their individual personalities — Aden quickly filled his bag with 10 pieces while Tory hemmed and hawed over which 10 pieces of candy to select. She never did pick 10; she just couldn’t decide.

We wandered through a few other stores inside The Shops before stopping at FigPickles Toy Emporium. I’d heard about this famous toy store from a few people in town. It was one of those toy stores that had every type of high-end toy — none of them cheap! Aden played with the train table for at least 15 minutes while Janie and Tory browsed the shelves. I purchased a copy of Mudgy and Moose, a children’s book written by Coeur d’ Alene resident and best-selling author Susan Nipp and let Tory and Aden each pick out a toy under $10.

Around town, there are several Mudgy and Moose statues and a walking trail that follows the storyline in the book. On a warmer day, I would have encouraged Tory and Aden to find all the statues along the trail downtown. Instead, I told them we’d go back to the RV and read the story. Now every time we read the book we’ll remember our time in Coeur d’ Alene.

Janie, Tory, Aden and I continued to wander the streets of downtown Coeur d’ Alene. It was like a ghost town that afternoon — not another person was around the sidewalks of a normally touristy town. I stopped for a cup of coffee at Whoops! to warm myself up. Tory and Aden wanted ice cream (go figure!) so we walked across the street to Abi’s.

Tory and Aden ate their ice cream and then quietly played with Lego’s in the corner for over an hour. Janie and I just let them be and enjoyed our conversation together by the window.

We were chilled to the bone — it was cold! The four of us walked back to our rental car a few blocks away, and then headed back to our RV at Camp Coeur d’ Alene campground.

I made Beef Bolognese for dinner while the four of us hung out in our cozy camper for the night. Aden cried when dinner was served because he didn’t like his spaghetti, and then curled up under a blanket and promptly fell asleep at 6:30pm. I hoped he’d just had a big day and wasn’t getting sick!

Since Aden was asleep, Janie, Tory and I snuggled up and watched a few episodes of Cake Boss. Tory loves watching baking shows and Janie thought she might enjoy that one.

Unfortunately since Aden fell asleep at 6:30pm, he was up for most of the night. Not sick, thankfully, just wide awake. I shared a bed with him again while Janie slept in my bed and Tory slept in her usual spot above the cab. Aden talked, talked, talked my ear off about anything and everything on his mind from the hours of Midnight-3:00am. Finally, I crashed somewhere around then and thankfully he did, too.

Tomorrow, Andi flies back to meet us and we’ll say good-bye to Coeur d’ Alene.