Sorenson Family Reunion

We started out July with a trip to Northern Idaho and Washington for a family reunion. We traveled on Wednesday and checked into our hotel in Coeur d’Alene. Then we drove on to Spokane to have dinner with Shawn’s Grandparents and Aunt and Uncle’s family. They made delicious enchiladas and a scrumptious salad from their garden. After dinner we had fun playing some Wii games – Wii Play and Dance Dance Revolution.
On Thursday we spent the day at Silverwood Theme Park near Ashton, Idaho (**Correction here. It is near Athol, Idaho. I knew it was an "A" name. Coeur d'Alene is the closest big city.) We spent the first part of the day on some of the rides and then spent the afternoon at the water park, which was the favorite by far. Shawn, Felicity and Lydia all went down the velocity slides (really high and really fast) and we all had fun in the wave pools – Shawn and the 2 big girls in the big waves and Evie and I jumping the little waves. Then we all rode on a tube slide together and had a blast (even if I did have my eyes closed most of the way down).
Friday morning we checked out of the hotel and drove back to Kellogg to meet my parents and brother’s family at a rental house. It was nice and roomy inside with an “old fashioned” style. The girls loved exploring all the “secret passageways” and doors with cut glass doorknobs. One of the bathrooms upstairs had a claw foot tub and 2 of the girls got to sleep in a Murphy bed that folded up into a closet during the day. After packing a lunch we went into Wallace and went on an old silver mine tour and trolley bus ride around town. Then we played some games at the house before we went to Silver Mountain and on the “longest gondola ride in the world.” It was quite long with beautiful views. At the top of the mountain we had barbecue dinner at the ski lodge and enjoyed the views. Felicity and I even got in a couple games of tetherball.
Saturday morning we picked up some rented bikes and other equipment for the rest of the days activities. We went on a 15 mile bike ride on the old Hiawatha railroad trail. It starts out with a 1.7 mile long pitch black tunnel that slopes to the sides where there are drainage ditches for the water. Lights were required. It was a bit crowded too, since it was a holiday, so there were several accidents in there. Felicity’s light stopped working so she was wobbly and crashed a few times. Another lady stopped right in the middle of the road, so my mom ended up crashing too with my little niece on the back of her bike. Once we got out of the tunnel and a little further down the road, Lydia cam flying around a corner where someone else was stopped in the middle of the road and came to a skidding crash on her bike too. No one was seriously injured and we were all able to go on, but it was a rough start to the ride. Fortunately it is all downhill, so other than some griping and moaning from my kids, everything went pretty smoothly after that. Evelyn got to ride on a tag-a-long on the back of Shawn’s bike and had an absolute blast. The trail goes over some really high trestles too and has some amazing scenery. It took us a while, but we made it to the bottom, where an old school bus took us all back up the trail so we could ride back through the tunnel again and to the cars. In the tunnel the second time it was less crowded and a few of us opted to walk, at least until our eyes were fully adjusted. When Lydia was ready to ride I went with her and she was flying! I think I was white-knuckling it going that fast through a muddy, slippery tunnel, but we made it without any spills. The whole thing was not something that Shawn and I would probably ever choose to do, but I’m so glad mom had us all go. It was beautiful and a fun experience – even with some muscle cramps, sore bums and scrapes and scratches. By the time we got home and had dinner, we were too wiped out to go watch fireworks, so we just hung out at the house.
Sunday we went to sacrament meeting in Pinehurst and then relaxed the rest of the day. We took some family pictures in our red, white and blue outfits that afternoon and that evening we went to the Sunshine Miner’s Memorial which was pretty cool. It is a statue of a miner whose headlamp never goes out in honor of the men and women who died in the Sunshine Mine. We also looked for a geocache with grandpa that took us awhile to find.
Thanks for a fun and memorable reunion Mom and Dad!!