Come and See Spokane, Coeur d'Alene and My Baby

It's 5:00 a.m. and I can't sleep.  I have this little tickle in my throat and I keep coughing.  I don't feel that terrible, but I'm keeping my Bob and myself awake.  So I layed there and I layed there, trying NOT to cough, which of course only makes you cough more.  Then I tried to talk myself back to sleep, which of course only keeps you wide awake.  So I'm laying there wide awake, coughing, and thinking (about everything) and decided I may as well get up and write about our Spokane trip a few weeks ago.  When you lay in bed unable to sleep, for some reason it's a time when the brain seems to work double time in thinking about:  all that you need to do, want to do, forgot to do, worries that really aren't worries when you're up and about during the day, your children and grandchildren, and just overall trying to plan world peace.  In amongst all those rambles of thoughts I realized I never posted my Spokane trip with the pictures.  So up I got, made myself a hot cup of tea, looked out at the 1-2" of new snow and still coming down, and feeling wide awake.

We've been home now for about 12 days and I miss my kids already.  This is my youngest son, the Survival Trainer for the Air Force.  He actually starts his official six months training in January, but does things now like run, work out, exercise, and go out on survival treks in the woods of Washington.  He left two days ago for a survival camp out in the woods in a foot of snow and wind chills of 20 below with nothing but a back pack of gear.  I'm very impressed because there is no way I will even walk the dog if it's below 40 degrees.  If anyone is interested, the web site for what he does is : http://www.gosere.com/medium.html  It's a very interesting site.

My son, DIL and Baby Riley live in a cute, but tiny apartment in Spokane and since my Mom and Dad went along with us this trip, we couldn't all stay with them.  From our previous and first trip we knew they lived close to the Idaho border and there is a resort in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, that is just beautiful so we checked into that and were able to trade one of our time share weeks for a condo at the Arrow Point Resort on Lake Coeur d'Alene.  It's absolutely breathtaking there.  The bald eagles were in season to be seen flying over the lake right outside our windows.  Coeur d'Alene is about 35 miles from my son's place, but by the time you drive up the side of the mountain to get to the condo it took us about 50 minutes one way.  But it worked out well because my son could take a few days off work so they packed up and stayed with us a few nights and the other days we went into Spokane. 

Here is a view out our window of the condo showing the snow topped mountains in the distance.

The view in the other direction off the back deck.

View from atop the mountain looking down the lake.

The views and scenery are just awesome, but there were a few days of some light snow and driving up that mountain, with a little bit of slickness, and no guard rails in spots, had me gripping the car seat and door handle the whole way.  My hands would be sweating by the time we got to our condo.

We took a little visit to the Coeur d'Alene Casino one day.  We're not big gambling people so it didn't do much for us, but we can say we were there.

One evening we took the cruise to the North Pole.  This was quite spectacular with a huge holiday light display on the lake and Santa and Mrs. Claus out on a big dock and they would read off all the names of the little kids that were on the cruise boat.  If you have little kids and ever go to Lake Coeur d'Alene at Christmas time, this is a must do.

Sorry about the quality of this, but you get the idea.  I was outside on the front of the boat and it was so cold and I couldn't get the right focus with the lights.

Of course, our favorite site was of my kids.  My Baby Riley is just the cutest, sweetest, most pleasant baby girl I have ever seen.  I know I'm not very objective, but still ---.  And I was so impressed at what a good mother my DIL is.  So sweet and loving and patient.  I couldn't be more proud of all of them.  I know, I'm one of those mothers and grandmothers that talks about her kids all the time and is always showing off pictures, but I guess that's one of the reasons why I have this blog!  So here goes:

Beautiful baby and mama

My Bob with our granddaughter.  Big GG (My Dad) just had to buy her this cowboy hat and animal print fur lined vest.  I don't know if her mother was all that thrilled.  People thought she was a boy.

We got her this Jumparoo for Christmas, and then Grandpa Bob and Big GG thought it was cute to turn the cowboy hat sideways. 

Here in a much prettier outfit, that I knit for her

And finally, me with my baby girl!  I'm so in love!

It was so hard to leave, but DIL and Baby Riley will be home here for two weeks in January while my son is away at some training.  When they're here, though, I have to share with all the other grandparents, relatives and friends.  I hope sometime next year I can go to Spokane just by myself and have her all to myself for a week or so.

Well, now I've turned on the coffee pot.  No use trying to go back to bed now.  We leave tomorrow for Cincinnati to have our family Christmas with all the relatives down there.  I love all my family, but sometimes I just don't feel like travelling.  You can be sure I'll still have a good time once I'm there and I'll have more pictures!