Gozzer 2009 - Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Well....another memory for the scrapbook! The 12 of us all headed to Coeur d'Alene and specifically Gozzer Ranch for golf and lots of water activities which included: fishing, swimming, wake boarding, surfing, boating, and wave runners!! Too bad the weather didn't cooperate a bit better this summer. We did manage to get about three really nice sunny days, but we also experienced some very heavy rainfall! A couple of days the water temperature was warmer than the air temperature! ha...that is not cool, we could stay home for rain!

Anyway, we all were in one house this summer right on the Gozzer property - it was called a "cabin", yeah right, like a 3800 sq. ft. cabin! At times the noise was quite deafening - remember now we have 2 two year olds, and boy do they each have a set of lungs! Jalen is quite the sneaky one and knows how to push all of Addie's "buttons"...he grabs her 'blankie' and she falls to the floor in hysterics crying for her 'blankie'. Then he spies her juice cup, even though his is right there, he grabs for hers and has to drink out of it, oh and there she goes again, falling to the floor screaming for her cup! Oh my! And then there was the pounding on the heads, but that was shared equally! It was not all 'bad'....one great picture was of them sitting on the steps each with a pink 'DS' belonging to Ellie and Lily, and they think they are so clever pushing buttons and watching the screen. And of course, Jalen is quite the 'lover', he goes up and grabs Addie's head and gives her a big kiss. Like he thinks that makes up for all the pinches he has given her!

And our little Addie is quite the "fisher girl". Unfortunately for her mom and dad, she woke up quite early every morning, and Aaron, being the great dad that he is, whisks her off to the lake for some very early morning fishing before she manages to wake the entire house! And she catches fish all by herself!! Early in the week of morning fishing, Addie was sitting on the dock and her pole got caught on something. She called for her daddy, and he said he would be right there...but she had to look over the side and see what was happening and sure enough she fell into the lake!! Aaron heard a 'splash', looked and didn't see Addie!! He dropped his pole and ran to her, and there she was under the water, but coming up with eyes like saucers, arms stretched out and still holding the pole! Aaron grabbed her and hauled her out of the water! I do believe he learned to put a life jacket on her from that day forward. (thank goodness!!)

And Jalen is really obsessed with balls! Good thing we are on a golf course with lots of balls!! He has the stance down pat, but he does take out a few 'divots' when he swings! And all the kids love to swim. At the lake there is a slide and what fun they had going down the slide into the lake! We rented a boat a couple of days and the kids tried wake boarding. Caleb and Ellie got up and were so excited. Caleb actually did some wake surfing and was quite pleased with himself when he was able to surf across a wave!

All the kids went to Silverwood, a big amusement park, Scott and I chose to stay home and relax in the quiet of the house! Even though the weather wasn't great, it was nice to not have the hot sun beating down on them, but it was still really crowded and they had to wait in long lines just like at Disneyland! Bummer....

Joe and his family joined us for a few days of swimming and golfing. Joe is helping Scott build our house. They both deserve a vacation for all the hard work they have done, and we were happy that his family joined us in the fun on the lake. One day they all went to the movies since it was raining! We shared several meals together and the kids had fun playing on the beach of the lake.

All in all, it was a great time had by all and it was really fun to live with the little kids 24/7 ( I say this with tongue in cheek!!). And our littlest one, Tristan was SUPER! He slept through every single night and we hardly heard a peep out of him (unless you happened to be riding in the car with him when he is awake...oh my, he does NOT like the car and let's you know it quite clearly and LOUDLY!)

Another great family vacation with wonderful memories that we captured on film and in our hearts!