I’m dedicating this week to paying tribute to my Dad, scrapbooking our Celebration of Life for him, and recapping our family vacation to Idaho, per our kids’ request to have proper closure.
If you missed my first post yesterday, you can READ IT HERE.
We woke up on Day 2, Friday July 10, of our trip to Idaho and spent the morning eating yummy french toast casserole and sipping coffee on my aunt and uncle’s back patio. It will never get old to sit outside during summer without humidity!
And what every Idaho experience should naturally include, is of course target shooting into the woods…
…there’s my crew with my Aunt Ilene, my dad’s sister-in-law. Fun fact: both sets of my aunts and uncles (my Dad was one of three) all went to high school together with my dad in southern California. A lot of water under the bridge with those five, I’m sure. 😜
There’s Noah checking his accuracy, which was pretty dang good after Ryan sighted in the gun.
Ryan and I planned out a little itinerary in order to maximize our time with friends and family that were traveling from out of town for my dad’s Celebration of Life. We texted it out a few days beforehand…
Remember when I said in Day 1’s post that it felt very similar to planning a wedding? The itinerary was strangely reminiscent of a wedding weekend.
We were able to check into the house we rented in Coeur d’Alene at 3pm. Ryan found this house right on CDA Lake, that would be perfect for not only our family vacation, but also serve as the venue for the Celebration of Life. The house was right across the street from the lake and included a private garden where we hosted the service.
It was surprisingly an old house, reminding me of the old farmhouse we currently live in here in Maryland, but with prime real estate on the Coeur d’Alene Lake. Not too shabby of a view from the front porch of our rental…
We were right across the street from a public beach, which was the perfect place to put in the paddle board, raft on the tubes, and end each evening at sunset…
As we were unloading party rental tables, chairs and linens to the private garden, low and behold, one of my dad’s colleagues at the CDA Police Department, where he worked for the COP (Citizens on Patrol) division, drove up and introduced himself. Bruce knew we were family of Larry Seaward, because the location of the house was on the celebration of life invitation. Apparently, our location was a hotspot! We would later see Bruce at the ceremony the next day. So we got a parking pass to unload on an otherwise highly ticketed street, and my boys were given police department souvenirs. My dad would have been proud that I name-dropped him for our parking pass. 😉
Here’s a peek at the private garden across the street…
I didn’t take many pictures of the house, but it was beautiful and spacious.
I found this on my phone later in the week. Whose kids are these anyway? For the love.
Josiah couldn’t get enough of this sign. He thought it was the most hilarious thing!
Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of our first gathering that evening. We picked up food from a local restaurant, Syringa Japanese Cafe + Sushi, and hosted family and friends in town for dinner. Catching up and eating together was so good for my soul.
We ended the night rather early as we were still on east coast time, I’m pretty sure we were all in bed and fast asleep by 10pm. It was another full day of good food, family, friends and laughs.
