Our Staycation

A vacation -- too expensive but really needed for our family.

Best Alternative -- a "Staycation" here in Boise!!

I've been watching the deals for the past 2 months and this is what we had planned....
Room at the Double Tree (by Hilton) for $35 (reg $124/night)
Passes for the entire family to Bounce for $15
Dinner gift certificates ($25 Gift Certificates I picked up for a deal of $2!)
Breakfast at Krispy Kreme for the family: $8
Walking the greenbelt:  Free :)

So as you can see, we were really going to be able to "get away" for a under $100 for our entire family of 8!!
Everything pretty much went according to "plan" except that the Restruant we'd gotten the cheap GC to, was closed and out of business when we arrived! what!?  I want my $2 back!! LOL
Everyone was starving and the consensus was to go to Chuck-A-Rama.  The wheels in my mind were turning as I was thinking how it would (literally) be $75 to feed our whole family at Chuck (and I was freaking out a bit inside! heeeee!) but we ended up going and had to wait in line for over a half hour... we finally got seated  (and yes, the total bill with tip was over $75 :(   but we got several comments on how well behaved the kids were! And I have to say that they really DID behave quite nicely at the restraunt! :)

After we ate, we headed to the hotel room to check in.... the front desk "upgraded" us to a River View room that opened up right onto the Greenbelt :)  I have to admit that sometime around 2am when I was tossing and turning I thought to myself "and WHY did I think this would be a good idea??"  We had 3 to each Queen bed and then had put 2 ottoman  type furniture pieces together for another bed and then Seth ended up sleeping on the floor!  The next morning - YAY for mornings!! the light was just flooding into the hotel room and with the crisp white bed linens, I knew I wanted to get some pictures of the kids!  Here are some of my favorites  (oh, and that first photo at the top is the last one we took before checking out and put the camera on a timer).... 

I think our family is pretty cute!!

Aubrie

Aubrie and Lexi

Lexi

After our breakfast of champions (donuts from KK!) we went for a leisurely stroll along the greenbelt.  John commented how this is the type of atmosphere our family does best in - lost of open space for everyone to spread out and run around!  After we checked out, John took August and Seth and they went to the Boise Roadster Show while I took all of the younger ones to Burger King and let them play in playland.  We were gone and together as a family (with no interruptions!) for just about 24 hours!  It was simply wonderful!!