Thankful Hearts Day 2013

Family time at Skamania Lodge

We woke the kids up bright and early-popped them in the car, still in PJ's and all, and told them they were heading to a cousin adventure to Skamania Lodge with Maddy & Doug. Emma was OOOOOOBER excited and tried to contain her excitement by pouring it all out on paper in the car. ha ha ha

First we stopped in The Dalles and made glass blown christmas ornaments (see next post)

Then we headed over to Hood River for some lunch at a yummy pub called Full Sail. They have AWESOME Salmon Fish & Chips & rootbeer floats!

We finally made it to Stevenson, WA and unloaded for our adventures at Skamania! My kids LOOOOOOVE hotels and so they could not stop exploring in "FULL STEAM AHEAD" mode everywhere they went.

 

 We explored the game room-where poor sick Dadda played Checkers with Em

 and tried our hand at Bryce's new favorite thing...Table Tennis....

 Emma discovered a Foosball table-the ball discovered her brothers face a time or two as well. Nice.....there were a think times had, but not too bad. :/ (Hey-I never professed to having perfect kids!)

 Then someone mentioned SWIMMING! The kids practically blinked and they were dressed and down at the pool!

Of course, all that swimming works up quite an appetite so... we had a little dinner of yummy chicken nachos and parmesan garlic fries at the hotel restaurant...

 Afterwards it was back to the game room for a little more game time

Then DESSERT! Aunt Marcy went and got some s'mores kits from the concierge desk, Em & B grabbed some Hot Cocoa in the great room, and out the door we went to the GIANT fire pit!

It was cold, wet & windy-but worth it. They were SOOOOO yummy!

 Back inside to defrost, Bryce decided to "relax" a smidge....

 until Candyland was brought out and he was all about that!

 Sad looking Dadda-you can see it in his eyes. He is doing his best to be a good sport, even though he felt like garbage. Darn all those school germs!

 Candyland didn't last long-Bryce is still learning the art of "not being bossy" and "fighting over turns/playing pieces, etc" so......we packed it up and went upstairs for jammies and a movie. Aunt Marcy ordered up some popcorn for everyone & we had quite the relaxing evening. After the movie, THIS may or may not have happened back in our room....

ha ha ha
This is what you call parental payment for a long drive & awesome adventure ;) just kidding. They asked if they could. Who are we to say no! Not kidding. (We train them well, and we train them young!)

In the morning we had a super yummy breakfast and then the kids headed out with Uncle John to hunt for Sasquatch! Em & B had NO CLUE what that meant, but it sounded fun and so therefore they ATE IT UP! lol

Alas-no Sasquatch sighting, but a super duper fun time was certainly had by all. A great family weekend of adventures!