Girl Time

I seem to be on a weekly schedule at the moment. We're working hard to use up all the warm sunshine and summer evenings before fall rears it's ugly head. We had another week of hot temperatures and time at the beach. The week feels so far away now, I can hardly remember what we got up to other than working on Monday and Thursday.

I did decide, on a bit of a whim, to pack up Schmoo on Thursday and take her south to Spokane for two days of one-on-one girl time. With our shopping list and passports in hand, I picked her up after daycamp and drove south. I told her on Wednesday our plans, so she had time to get "organized" and excited about the trip. We arrived at our hotel exhausted and after a Red Robin dinner, we snuggled up in our king sized bed for a chapter of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and an early night!

The late night (for Schmoo) worked to my advantage as she managed to sleep in until almost 8am! After breakfast at the hotel, we hit the streets for a full day's itinerary.....

- a big bike ride down the Millenium Trail, which included Schmoo's first attempt at a big hill, which ended badly (scraped knee and bruised spirit), but she still managed to get back on her bike and ride the 2.5 miles back to the hotel.

- shopping, a mall lunch break for a slice of pizza, more shopping

- a drive downtown to see the movie "Shorts", in which us and one other family were the only people in the theatre

- a walk around Riverside Park which lead us to their amusement park where it was all you can ride Friday night! Our first ride was fun....our second ride was awful. Schmoo was determined to ride on the Spider and I obviously failed to watch it long enough to appreciate what the ride was capable of. Needless to say, it spun us around so much that we were both begging to get off and neither of us were interested in eating for the rest of the night. We opted for a game of mini golf, an IMAX screening of "Amazon" and a couple spins on the carousel to end our night.

- we made it back to the hotel just in time to get a couple of bananas from the evening reception to tide us over until the next morning.

Saturday wasn't quite so action packed. But we did manage to finish off our shopping (some stuff for everyone, including beer for Papa). Had lunch at PF Changs downtown and visited the Mobius kids museum before we packed up and headed back towards the border. Schmoo got her one trip to McDonalds as we headed out of town and was a patient passenger as we headed home. We finished off our trip singing I Love You, I Love You, I Love You with Michael Franti as we cruised back into town! Schmoo was high as a kite and eager to share her stories with Papa before we managed to tuck her into bed and say good night!

Today was another great family beach day. Church in the morning with the kids for me and a full golf game for Papa. Papa was golfing with K, so I met up with C and her kids on the beach and enjoyed the sun and water until they were finished. We all headed back to our house for a summer BBQ and have the kids tucked into bed at their usual bedtimes. It's month end already tomorrow, which means a late work day for Mama. It's also the last week of summer holidays, so we'll be making the most of every carefree moment this week!