Silverwood Shinanagins

They say that pictures tell a thousand words. And that is true in some cases. But when it comes to my family there are usually at least a thousand STORIES behind each picture. And so I'm writing this post just to tell some of the stories and provide a few more details about our Silverwood adventure this week :)

It all started on Monday. I heard Mom and Dad's alarm go off at the wee hour of 6 in the morning because they wanted to leave at 7. Way too early for my taste. I haven't woken up that early since school. Yikes. Anyway, everyone slowly got up and took their sweet time getting ready. So needless to say, we didn't leave until 8. And that's actually on time since we're usually always an hour behind. Oh the joys of a big family. Well, we loaded the BMW (Big Mormon Wagon) and took off for our two-day family vacation in Coeur d'Alene and Spokane, keeping our annual family tradition of a day at Silverwood and then a day of shopping.

Now I want to give you a description of what our car rides consist of: first, we start off with family prayer. Next come the 10-15 minutes of trying to find a comfortable position in the car and marking your territory so no one invades your spot on the bench. (There's usually a little arguing involved in the process.) But by the time we leave Pasco everyone is pretty much settled. And then starts the singing. Sometimes we'll listen to the radio. But most of the time we'll put in a CD choosing from our wide variety of 80's and 90's music. Our parents raised us well. So on Monday, we started off with a Chicago CD, a definite favorite of everyone's. I LOVE SINGING WITH MY FAMILY. Because there are plenty of us to go around, there are always a few people harmonizing, a few people singing the melody and then a few more singing a descant or the background instruments haha. No joke. Everything in the song is covered. We'll skip the songs we don't really know and then move onto another CD. Most of the CD's we listened to were mixed CD's of a bunch of 80's songs. We love them. And then we'll throw in the random Josh Groban, Earth Wind and Fire, Celine Dion, and other various artists. Sometimes the singing gets interrupted by  brief quarreling or napping. But that is basically a day in the car with the Warren's.

Well, once we arrived at Silverwood (after waiting in LONG lines of cars), we changed into our swimming suits and hit the waterpark. We headed straight over to our favorite waterslides and stood in longs lines once again. When we reached the top, we split into 3 separate groups and enjoyed the rides. (We usually try to mix up the groups each time we go on a different ride so everyone gets a chance to go with everyone they want to.) Turns out, we actually waited in lines for 2 hours just to go on 2 rides!!! It was that crowded. But we had a ton of fun in the lines too with Lydia doing the "creep" (It's a hilarious SNL skit. Look it up on YouTube) and the rest of us people-watching. Never a dull moment with my family. After the slides we decided to go to the wave pool. I volunteered to be in charge of Lydia (not that it's really a job or anything haha) and take care of her in the pool. We started up in the front. But the waves pushed us all the way to the back! Holy cow they were strong. But I would lift Lydia up each time a wave came or even threw her at the waves so she would come floating back to me. It was a blast. The rest of the girls stayed up in the front and actually rode the waves. It was hilarious to watch. By that point, the sun kept hiding behind clouds and we were getting worn out so we decided to change back and take a lunch break.

Mom had bought croissants and made chicken salad that morning so we could have a cute little picnic outside the park :) Part 1 of the day = awesome.

After lunch, we went over to the rollercoaster side of the park. We started out with the Spin Cycle. It was ridiculous and I refused to go on it. But everyone else was going and I didn't want to be the only one watching and waiting (yeah I know that's a dumb excuse) so I went. And I loved it! At one point of the ride we were completely upside down 104 feet in the air (I looked it up). And I wasn't scared at all! That's a lot coming from someone who is TERRIFIED of heights. After that we went to Timber Terror and I rode with Shonna. The whole time she kept jokingly saying "I'm gonna die!" It was hilarious. Then Alex and Jenna convinced us to go on Aftershock. Please keep in mind that these are all rides I refused to go on at one point. But I decided to do all of them so I could somehow overcome my fears. It was a great decision because I ended up enjoying every single one of them. I sat next to Sammie and kept comforting her the whole time because she was extremely nervous. But she did it! Then we went on Tremors and Jenna, Alex, Shonna and I all sat together. It was a blast. After that, we met the rest of the family at Corkscrew and I convinced Lydia to go with me. (How can you refuse that? hahaha jk jk) When we asked Lydia what she thought she said, "I didn't even have time to scream." Hahaha what a cutie.

Well, by then it was 7 o'clock and we were pretty hungry. So we decided to get some ice cream. Note: if you want a TON of ice cream and a lot of choices, go to the creamery in the park. "One" scoop is 4 small scoops and "two" scoops is 8-10 small scoops. It is MORE than enough and you won't be able to finish it. Plus it's only $5 for "two" scoops. Great deal. Anyway, then we went on more rides until the park closed at 9. We went hard all day long and we were all so tired by the time we got back to the hotel in Spokane. (We ate Domino's pizza at 10 o'clock at night haha. Gotta do what ya gotta do. So there ya go. Silverwood never fails to please my family!

Tuesday was shopping day. We woke up at 8 since the hotel breakfast closed at 9. Then we got ready, packed up and left the hotel at 11. Before we hit the mall, we just HAD to go to Krispy Kreme's because their donuts are delicious. Then we went to JC Penney's first and started in the dress section. You can seriously find so many clearance dresses for awesome prices. We love it. Mom and Grandma were even looking at possible dresses to wear to my future wedding! Haha it was awesome and made me so happy. We ended up spending  2 hours in that one store. But that's what happens when you have 7 girls to shop for. We found a ton of great stuff. Then we stopped at a few more small stores and finally went to lunch at Chili's. The goal for the day was to go to places that we couldn't in the Tri-Cities. And since the only Chili's in the state of Washington are all in Spokane, we couldn't pass that up. We ate our chips & salsa, our soups and salads, and then all of us were full even before our meals came out haha. It was funny.

After our lunch break, we went back to the mall and continued our shopping. But we were definitely starting to slow down. That is, everyone but Jenna was getting tired haha. And my stupid knee was killing me so I didn't really want to walk around as much. But we kept going. We went to Kohl's, Sears, Rue 21, Claire's. Barnes & Noble, Payless, Downeast and I think that's it. Yeah it was a busy day. By the end, most of the family just sat on benches and waited for everyone else haha. But we found a lot, and it's probably because we prayed to find good deals before we started.

Then we left around 7. We ate our leftover Chili's for a dinner snack and headed home, listening to more 80's music. The car ride home had more arguing than the car ride up but it also had a lot of laughing and singing too. What else can you expect when 10 people are trapped in a 15 passenger van together for several hours? At least everyone made it home alive. We stopped at Jack-in-the-Box before we got home and ordered a million tacos for a late-night dinner.

So there you go. My family is crazy, funny, loud, big and one-of-a-kind. You will never find another one like us. And that's probably a good thing because the world only has room for one Warren family haha. Yes we have our fights and say stupid things that we know we shouldn't. But deep down we really do love each other and would do anything for each other. I wouldn't trade my family for anything because I feel so blessed. We can be the worst of enemies and the best of friends. But that's just how families are. I know we'll always be there for each other. I can't wait to spend an eternity laughing and singing with the greatest people on earth.