Ladies' Weekend

My fabulous sisters-in-law Desiree and Courtney came to visit about a week ago. (For those who know my family, Desiree is married to Chad and Courtney is married to Jared.) They left their husbands and kids at home, so we had the chance to relax together and spend some time talking, which is usually tough to do with the rowdy kids and my noisy brothers hanging around.

They got into town on Friday afternoon, so we went to see the Spokane Falls and downtown Spokane before heading to my apartment. (I thought I better show them the most interesting part of Spokane first.) We hung out and played Mario Party that night (which got us giggling) and talked a lot.

We went hiking on Saturday, since we had been planning for weeks to do some hiking while they were here. (Des loves hiking as much as I do and Courtney was willing to humor us.) When we woke up that morning, it was raining and cold (the high that day was 50 degrees) but we bravely persevered and headed up to Mount Spokane. The first half of the hike wasn’t so bad; it was raining and the trail was muddy in spots, but we didn’t see much snow. But as we started back down the mountain, the snow was several feet thick and the rain on top of the snow made it icy. Des and Courtney might think I’m exaggerating here, but I think we were lucky to escape injury!!! (I found out later that this same storm killed one hiker and stranded two others on Mount Rainier, which isn’t THAT far away.) I’ve never been so glad to make it back to the parking lot after a hike. We still had fun, though, and when we got back to the van we were laughing at each other because our fingers were so cold that we couldn’t bend them to take off our backpacks and parkas.

Later that night, Des and I went to the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre to see their production of All Shook Up, an energetic new musical based on Elvis’ songs. Des is a big Elvis fan, and this show was the main reason for their trip. I loved the show, and I’m glad that Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater has such a lively cast this year. (I haven’t seen a bad show yet at that theater.)

Sunday was Stake Conference, so while Courtney was good and went to church, Des and I opted to try hiking again instead. This time the day was beautiful: the sun was out, the rain was gone, and temperatures were in the sixties. We went to Riverside State Park and hiked along the river for miles. (We figured that since we had climbed a mountain on Saturday, we could do some easier hiking on Sunday.)

Des and Courtney decided to throw me a birthday party on Sunday afternoon, so they planned everything with my friend Heidi L. Since it was Sunday, we had a dinner in the park for families instead of just getting the women together. Heidi L brought some leftover plastic Easter eggs, so the all kids (and there were LOTS of little kids there) got to have an Easter egg hunt in the park, which they were thrilled about. There were piles of food, including a birthday cake that my friend Emily made, which was decorated to look like some of the books that our book club has read recently. (To light the candles, a bunch of the men were trying to light matches using the zippers on their pants—I should have gotten a picture of that!)

Des and Courtney had to leave on Monday, which was sad but I imagine they were glad to get back to their families. We decided to do this again and invite my two other sisters-in-law next year!