McCall Summer '08

We had a great time in McCall this year! We were there at the end of July and beginning of August and it was so great to spend over a week there... we haven't done that in quite a while! This has already been blogged about quite a bit by family members... and you can see their better pics and some good descriptions about our time here and here. So here are the pics in no particular order.

My Uncles Jim and Warren got some sweet new Sea-Doo's. I haven't ridden on one of these in a while. I couldn't believe how fast they went and how quickly they accelerated! Sometimes I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to hold on it took off so fast! I enjoyed taking lot's of kids for rides, including this hotty I picked up off the beach one day! These certainly are babe magnets! (These last two sentences sound like something my dad would say, kind of corny)

Opa holding his newest little granddaughter... she's not so little now!
Oma with her "touch" and ability to get kids to fall asleep in her arms. Do you like her sporty "Lifeguard" chap-stick?

Due to Nathan's fractured foot, he had to wear hard-soled shoes the entire time. He didn't seem to mind but I could tell it made it hard for him at times and he had a lot more on his feet. It was obviously more of a process to clean him up when we came up from the beach, but it worked out fine. The hard part was keeping the dry shoes dry and keeping the wet shoes somewhat clean. He was a trooper though!
Jane did pretty good, though there wer some rougher evenings and we obviously had to have some restrictions when we were down at the beach or when she needed to take a nap. We generally had some takers to hold her though! Here she is with Sarah's little visor that she made. Here's Nathan with the visor that he made. It was an activity that we did with all the kids one morning.
We played games quite a bit in the evening. We played cards quite a bit (Hearts and "Mormon Bridge") and also played Ticket to Ride: Europe and Alhambra. The above picture is me and Jane playing Alhambra. We enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere in the evening when the kids had gone to bed.
The kids had fun when a mother goose visited the beach with her goslings. They would come up on the beach towards us and then go back in the water and then come back up on the beach. It was cute... I think they were looking for some hand-outs and eventually left when we didn't give them anything after a while.

Some things that I love about McCall: Being there usually means that there is at least some extended or immediate family, which is great; lounging on the beach; watching my kids enjoy the beach as much as I do/did; My Father's Place shakes and food; the town; The Pancake House for breakfast around lunchtime; the reunion; games at night; and many more little things. We enjoyed all of these things up there and more.

Uncle Warren's Cooking!

Another thing I love abuot McCall is the occasional opportunity to be fed by my Uncle Warren... who is a great chef. After Braden and I went wakeboarding on Saturday morning with my cousin Jimmy, he mentioned that Warren was cooking breakfast and asked if we wanted to come along. Uh, yah! He's got a sweet outdoor grill and this is what he had for us when we arrived:

Hash Browns (w/ plenty of onions of course), eggs ("fried or scrambled"), bacon, toast and OJ! It was good stuff! Below is my Uncle Warren getting ready to crack an egg. Thanks Warren!

I made sure to make up a plate of breakfast for Mary before we left, which she enjoyed. Mary and I have enjoyed being treated by Warren to fabulous breakfasts specifically, but he's also a master chef with other things as well, it's just that breakfast is always a particular treat. When Mary and I were engaged, we stayed at Jim and Warren's cabin and enjoyed this a few times. We also enjoyed being there when he "broke in" his griddle this last winter when we were up there for the Winter Carnival. I hope this continues to be a tradition!

Winter Carnival Sculptures

So one of the biggest highlights and traditions of the McCall Winter Carnival is the amazing snow/ice sculptures that they do. This year's theme was "Wild, Wild West", which is pretty obvious from all of the sculptures. The Carnival essentially runs from the last weekend in January through the first weekend in February. On Friday the 25th, we went around and saw some of the sculptures. We didn't make it to all of them (there are over 40 at least), but we saw some pretty cool ones. They are spread throughout the town as they are sponsored by different stores, restaurants, hotels, etc.and are built in their parking lots, which makes it kind of hard with kids being in and out of car seats, but it is worth the trip. . Below are a couple of the cool ones that we saw and I'm sure we missed many other great ones. This is like the first day that some of them were finished and some were probably completed after we left. If we go next year we'll plan it better, but this year we ran into Nathan's nap and he was getting tired and cranky and we needed him to nap so he could be happy and have energy for his party later in the day. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Some of them we just drove by and looked at from the car but below are the ones that we got out of the car and took pictures of. I hope you can realize how huge these are. Unfortunately with the sun out and all the whiteness of the snow the clarity of the pics is not as good as they are in real-life. Sorry.





The five pics above are all from the same display, which was definitely one of the coolest. It was huge and had like 5-6 huge cattle, two cowboys on horseback, a cave with two Native Americans carved into the side of the cave (see difficult-to-see pic above of me and Nathan in front of one of the Native Americans). This one was huge and really neat!

This was the front of a train in front of "My Father's Place" the diner we went to for lunch for Nathan's birthday. The kids enjoyed seeing this one and we all enjoyed the chimes of "Choo Choo" from Sarah and Nathan.

A prospector mining for gold in front of the old Burger Den that apparently is no longer.

The three pics above are obviously from the same one of a bunch of wild stallions going through a river or some kind of body of water. There are 7 horses that are ornately carved with really detailed manes and tails. It's really cool how they make the water look so real.

Well that's the last of the snow sculpture pics. We'd love to have some people come and join us for next year's carnival. It's worth the drive and there is lot's to do, besides just enjoying being together and playing in the snow. We were fortunate to be there on Friday as it got really busy on Saturday and Sunday and we were able to avoid the crowds. However, we wished we would have planned things better and gone to participate in some of their other events or seen more of the sculptures. By the time we were leaving on Monday some of the sculptures had already melted or been covered somewhat in the snow. The people try to gently sweep the snow off, but it is hard to re-do anything that is melted by sun or fluctuating temps.

Birthday Boy! The Big 2

Nathan turned two while we were in McCall, and I'm sure that was one of the reasons that Oma and Opa decided to make the trek to be with us up there. We decided to wait until Friday evening to actually have the birthday party as Jim, Peggy and Warren were going to be up there at that time and we thought they might enjoy being there for Nathan's birthday party. Of course, Nathan was oblivious to the wait and just happy when he saw presents that he got to open. With the Christmas present opening still somewhat fresh in his little mind, he tore into the unwrapping process with minimal assistance from Daddy and his big Sis.

He was pretty excited about his "Fox and the Hound 2" movie, of course you can all see that!

Opening some fun board books from Nanu and Bumpa (Mary's folks)!


Opening his Lightning McQueen spoon and fork set to go along with the plate, bowl and cup set he also got. Now he has one like his big Sis.

After opening several matchbox sized characters from the movie Cars, Nathan opened his "Radiator Springs" rug and went to town. He and Sarah were busy the rest of the night and since neither of them like cake (they had a little ice cream), they cut that short to continue playing with Nathan's new toys.

For the duration of our stay at McCall, whenever we were inside there was a constant buzzing sound. What was it you might ask: Nathan making a car sound. It seemed to never stop and was so cute to hear and to watch him so excited to play with his new toys.

Birthday Cake!

Nathan sees something he thinks he's going to like, he seems pretty excited!
It was so cute how excited Nathan was about his cake. I think that he's observed enough birthday parties to know that it is a pretty exciting event, even if he didn't even like the cake! He was quick to point out to everyone that the candles were hot.

For the last couple of weeks Nathan has been doing this cute thing where he blows air out and it flips his hair up. He gets a lot of verbal approval (laughter, applause, etc.) from us when he does it because it's so cute and he seems so proud of himself. Of course, when it came time to actually blow out the candles, he just blew up his hair over and over, but was so proud of his efforts. Dad finally chimed in and added some extra hot air to assist Nathan in the blowing out of the candles.

Going in for the final kill!

Sledding in McCall

McCall is just beautiful in the winter, particularly when you're surrounded by trees and it's been snowing so much. On Saturday we took advantage of the snow and took the kiddos out for some fun. Although Nathan screamed while we got him dressed, he loved it once he was outside. Oma and Opa joined us as well and it was nice that Jim, Peggy and Warren's cabin has a driveway that acts as a mild kid-sized snow hill. It was easy just to walk outside and sled on their driveway.

Here's Nathan and Sarah on the porch before they embark into the white snowy bliss!

Jim and Peggy had this sled that works great for kids because it has a back and you can just sit them down and send them on their way. It was great to have!

Here'sNathan and Opa on a trip down the driveway. They ran into the snowbank, which turned out to be a somewhat frequent occurrence for everyone that tried the hill.

Daddy and Sarah squeezing onto a saucer-sled.

Nathan and Daddy trying to avoid the snow bank

Sarah piggy-backing on top of Opa, she was squeeling the whole way!

Nathan on a solo trip down the hill, always smiling!

Nathan and Oma after a sledding trip where they were backward most of the way!

Daddy and Nathan on one of our trips down the hill, with Opa supervising.


Daddy and Nathan preparing for a trip while Sarah and Opa look on.


Sarah on one of her solo trips down the hill.

Sarah and Daddy pulling Nathan up to the top of the hill for another trip down. The cabin is in the background.
Sarah wanted to help Daddy give Nathan a good pull down the hill on one of his solo trips. She forgot to let go of the rope the first time, this is the second (successful) attempt.

Nathan at the bottom of the hill after a solo trip.

We had a great time sledding and when it was time to go in, after at least an hour or so, the kids probably would have been happy to stay out longer but they were also content to be done and get into the warmth. It was a really fun time and I just realized that Mary isn't in any of these shots. I hope Oma and Opa took some pics of her because she did take several turns down the hill with the kids and the four of us used Jim and Peggy's large tobagan to take a trip down. I'm sure Oma and Opa will put the photos on their blog soon enough (hint, hint)!

S'No Fun like Snow Fun

Besides sledding the "kids" had fun just playing in the snow.

This was one of the smaller icicles found on the front of the cabin. The icicles were quite amazing both on the cabin and around town. Scary stuff!

Nathan enjoyed putting his glove into the snow and then sticking it into his mouth, which always brought out the "Mmmm good" expression from him. Whenever Nathan would do this it totally reminded me of Winnie the Pooh getting his honey out of his jars... "only a smackerel!"

Sarah enjoyed making a snow angel for the camera. She told me just this morning that she has a lot more fun in the snow when she can make a snow angel.

A couple of pics of Nathans attempts to participate in the snow-throwing. He would just jab his glove in the snow and then act like he was throwing something which would result in a few flakes "flying" out of his hands. He was pretty proud of himself, even if he couldn't actually grip any snow.
Quite remarkable series of icicle growths. As the snow slides and curls around the bottom of the roof the drips resulting in icicles find a new vertical while the old ones remain. If you look closely you can see that some of them have hit the side of the cabin or the window and have curled backwards. Pretty cool. My Uncle Jim made a brief appearance in the snow and he and my mom got in a little snowball fight. I think they both had fun, Sarah wanted to join in the fun too!