Coeur d'alene, ID

We made it to Coeur d'alene, ID on our 9 year anniversary. What a great place to be!

We spent the morning hiking around Tubbs hill right on the water in town. The hike was about 3 miles. 

It was a perfect day!!

Check out those sun rays.

Here is a rickety suspension bridge, we had to walk slow Cricket didn't fall off. 

After our hike we went into town and visited the Farmers market. We purchased some warm raspberries and squeaky cheese curds that were made that day.

Delicious!

After the market we walked around the town and found a really cool toy store called Figpickels Toy Emporium. They let you play with all sorts of toys. Jonathan found a horse head to try on. :) I loved it. We ended up buying a new Ticket to Ride game and a dash buddy. 

 This is our dash buddy, Felicity the Flamingo!

After the fun day we splurged and had a fancy dinner at The Dockside restaurant. It was yummy! We shared a trout dish and a bowl of chowder. The food was really steamy hot. I love when food it still piping hot when it arrives at the table.

We also got a decadent dessert. Here is the menu, can you guess what one we got?

More Spokane

Spokane has a lovely downtown. 

We spent some time wandering around and taking it in.

There is a lot of different art there, some being these letter blocks. 

C is for Cricket!

I was also very excited to find the worlds largest Radio Flyer!

 Over sized things are the coolest!!!

Spokane had a lot of bridges and beautiful waterways to check out.

We walked and walked all day 

Spokane is a very pretty place!

Kennewick and Spokane, WA

We stopped in Kennewick, WA to get some dinner on our way to Spokane. We ate at a place called The Rock wood fired pizza. It wasn't to bad, the atmosphere was great though. Just outside the restaurant was a large sports complex we walked around after dinner. On the walk we came across this very nice 9/11 memorial.

This is the only picture we got of the placard, not to flattering of me. :)

If you read the placard, you will see that the structure is made from external vertical support column of one of the twin towers.

   

When we arrived in Spokane, we found a nice hike in town to go on. It was only about 4 miles, another reverse hike, down then up. It was in the middle of town, but it felt more secluded.

Then we went to Manito Park and botanical gardens. We spent a while in this expansive park. 

Feebording Maryhill Loops Rd

The Maryhill Loops Road was an experimental road in south central Washington, United States, built by Good Roads promoter Samuel Hill with the help of engineer and landscape architect Samuel C. Lancaster. Climbing the Columbia Hills from the Columbia River and Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway to his planned Quaker utopian community at Maryhill, Washington. Built in 1911 as the first asphalt road in the state, and bypassed by the present U.S. Route 97 after World War II, the road achieved low grades with horseshoe curves. The design became the model for the Figure-Eight Loops on the Historic Columbia River Highway in Oregon, designed by Lancaster several years later.^[1] The road is now owned by the Maryhill Museum of Art.

The road is closed to public motor vehicle traffic but is open to pedestrians and bicycles. The Maryhill Museum of Art rents use of the road for private events by automobile, motorcycle, bicycling, and longboarding clubs. The yearly International Downhill Federation World Cup Series downhill longboarding and street luge event is held there.

 Unfortunately, it was so windy on this day I could not get much speed on the hill. Still a fun smooth road to Freebord though!

The Avett Brothers

We were lucky enough to get to see one of our favorite groups, The Avett Brothers, in concert while in Portland. We have been listening to them for a few years now, and they have been the soundtrack to our travels. It really meant a lot to both of us to get to see them live.

They did not disappoint. What a great show!!!

Portland time

Here a few pictures of random things we did while visiting Portland, Or.

First off, Richard had a sweet car!

Also while in Portland, Jonathan came up with an idea for clothes storage in the van. I thought it was great, so I went to the store to get fabric and start. I drew out a plan and proceeded to stitch it together, Jonathan even helped with the sewing!

It hangs on pre-existing hooks on the ceiling, and Velcro on the sides.

It really turned out great, and it gets our clothes out of duffel's and off the floor.

My Mom owns a flower shop called, In the Event of Flowers, and she wanted to give me some lessons on arrangement techniques. I was pretty excited to learn because I love everything about flowers.

We hung out for hours making arrangements and chatting. I love this time with her.

She made the orange arrangement below as an example for me to follow, the rest are all me!

Below is a traditional bud arrangement.

This was my favorite, I really like the odd flowers and greenery.

I was really feeling the pastels during this lesson. They are so wistful and romantic.

 My Mom had a wedding scheduled for the weekend we were there, and was a bit short handed, so she asked me to help. Apparently my lessons went well. :)

There were a lot of amazing flowers to work with, and I had a lot of fun trying to make them as beautiful as possible.

I think I made about 25 arrangements in all different sizes. I was most proud of the two large ones I made.

Large one number 1

And number 2

One last thing we did was go get pedicures. We even got Jonathan to come along!!!

His feet were so clean for about a day. :)

Wedding weekend

Jenny and Greg Ybarra's Wedding.

Jenny is a friend of mine from when I lived in Portland. It was such and honor to be invited to her bachelorette party and her wedding. It was a gorgeous day that started out with rain and cleared in time for the wedding with blue skies.

It was held at Cornelius Pass Roadhouse Mcmenamins, in the Portland area. What a beautiful venue, it had restaurants and gardens and whiskey bars. 

This below had fire in the top. Mcmenamins always has such cool art all over there properties.

This is Renae, always one of my good friends from my Portland days. We had so much fun dancing the eating and dancing the night away!

I love this picture of the three of us, we were literally inseparable back in the day. 

Jonathan looking snazzy!