A weekend adventure

This past weekend we embarked on an spur of the moment road trip, kids in tow, in an effort to have some fun together and recapture the spontaneous road trips we once did in our early years together. With a very loose plan in place, a suitcase packed, and kids excited for an unknown adventure, we set off!
Our first stop: Silverwood Theme and Water ParkWe spend the majority of our time playing at the water park in the wave pool. The kids LOVED it! Sorry no pictures, way to busy chasing the Little Man to snap any.

After leaving the park we headed through Spokane, at which point we saw a sign for HWY 195 and decided, what the heck, lets take it! We know the road well because it leads to...Randy was out until the early morning hours with his good buddys and had a blast seeing everyone again. The kids I settled into a hotel room, watched Nick @ night together (Home Improvement marathon) and fell fast asleep. Saturday was a good day!

Unfortunately, Randy spent all Saturday not quite feeling right and by Sunday morning he was down right sick. While Randy laid miserable in the hotel room the kids and I went to check out some of our favorite spots.
First stop was Sunnyside park to see the Llamas and pigs, and feed the ducks at the pond, play on the equipment, and talked for quite awhile with some friends and one of the Daughter's old teachers. How crazy that we happen to know people at the park after being gone for a year?!
Then we drove by the "compound" (our endearing name we came up with for the apartment complex we lived in), through campus, past the Daughter's old school, and stop to visit the bears at the WSU Grizzly Bear Research Center. While we had many more people and places that we would have liked to have visited while in town, we decided it would be best to head home. We picked Randy up, grabbed Food from McDonald's (where our old neighbor still happen to work, giving us the opportunity to catch up with him for a few minutes), said good-bye to our Hometown, and drove off through the rolling amber hills of the Palouse...I never thought I would miss the hill ridden train.
Pullman holds a very special spot in our hearts and memories. It gave us the chance to separate from our families (not that there are bad), learn to depend on each other for support, become our own family, have a fresh slate, make new friends, try new things, and reach major milestones. On top of the fact that Pullman is a community filled with heart and hometown pride. In the back of my mind I feared that if we returned to Pullman we would discover that things had changed. Not in the sense that a new building had been put up or a store had closed but that with most of our friends now gone and after our separation it wouldn't be special anymore. But at alas , it's still the same special place, we're everyone knows your name or smiles and wants to get to know you. We love you Pullman!


P.S. I'm plotting a return trip to hang out with my Pals soon!