Mudgy and the Idaho Spud

Day 163 (Tuesday 9-3):

The Smyths came back Monday evening, so Tuesday the kids helped Karyn in the yard.

The kiddos loved the dog.

Picking blackberries

They also had a great time playing with all their cool yard toys.

Bubble blower

Ta da!

Dumping toys never gets old, apparently.

Kees decided to clean up by sliding the toys into the bucket.

All done!

Magical!

In the evening, Russ took us for a tour of Coeur d'Alene and we stopped by the grocery store on the way back. I took a few pictures of stuff I saw at the store.

Kees looks suspicious.

Raspberry or Strawberry Almonds...never heard of that before.

Huckleberry is more popular up this way. One of the gas stations we stopped at on the way up to Canada had huckleberry soda and huckleberry flavoring to add to other sodas.

Idaho Spud "The Candy Bar That Makes Idaho Famous", hmmm...never heard of it.  We tasted it, I wasn't impressed.

Day 164 (Wednesday 9-4):
Our last day in Idaho. :(  We had such a great time with our new friends and really didn't want to leave, but we figured it was time. We had planned to leave Thursday morning, but then Doug decided he wanted to drive straight through...it's over 24 hours of driving.  I told him that if he expected me to drive we'd better leave at night time because if we travelled all day and then he wanted me to drive at night I wasn't sure if I'd be able to.  So, we made the most of our last day.

This stuff was so good! I had toast for breakfast with a little butter and honey.  Mmmm....

The kids played some more in the yard, I started packing up, and we had a family photo taken by the lake.

Kees wrote all over the back of this bench.

Kora talking to the dog.

Final draft of the family photo.  I told Kees he could have candy and juice if he'd smile. He responded by putting his hands up in the air, think "thriller" and sticking his tongue out. I had to hold his hands down the rest of the time.

When dinner time rolled around, we headed out to meet the Coes at a fancy pizza place (we left Kora with the Smyths).  The food was so, so good.

My friend Renee called while we were on our way to dinner.

If you're ever in Coeur d'Alene, try this place out!

This is the Gordy, it had dates and gorgonzola cheese.  You can see the full description here.

This is the Parma, you can read the description if you click on the link under the picture above. It was delicious!

Jon and Esther

Esther had been telling Kees and I about this super fun park. After dinner we walked over there. There's a moose statue, well I think there are 4 or 5 of them, and he's called Mudgy.  We only saw two of the statues, but I'm excited to go back sometime and find the rest of them.

Our impersonation of Kees's picture face.

Kees joined in for this one.

Walking over to the playground.

We found Mudgy!

There's also a little mouse called Millie, she was sitting on Mudgy's horn.

Cool, cool!

We took this one as a joke.  When Esther and I were shopping she was teasing me about how much I wear pink and I teased her about how she's always wearing white and navy. The sunset was pink, so I had to take my picture in front of it, wearing my pink shirt of course!

We got back to the Smyths, finished packing and headed out around 9 pm, which was 11 in Oklahoma.  The drive home was 27 1/2 hours.  I think I only drove the first 8 or so, then Doug took over.  I didn't take very many pictures.  We got to my parent's place around 2 am, but Kora wouldn't go to sleep until 4 am.  I would make that trip again, but it was a little crazy, and it took a couple of days to recover, but I'm old.