This year for the Winter Carnival we did something special.  My best friend and her family live only 2 hours away from McCall (as do we in the other direction) so we thought it would be a great place for us all to meet for the weekend.  We rented a cabin for the weekend which was a blast!  I hope we get to do it again this year.

Our cabin was about 15 miles north of McCall in New Meadows.  We all met at the cabin Friday afternoon.  After we found the cabin we all unloaded our stuff, decided on sleeping arrangements and then just hung out.  It was awesome!  The kids loved running around and exploring the cabin.  I loved just hanging out with my best friend!  That night was the opening of the carnival and they had fireworks on the lake.  We all headed into McCall and got their right before  the fireworks started.  Since it was dark and cold we headed back to the cabin right after the fireworks.

(Jaelee stuck her face right into the snow, burr!  She thought it was hilarious!)

 

The next morning we all got up and relaxed for a bit before we had a mad dash to get ready and get back to McCall for the parade.   The theme of the parade was Mardi Gras and it was so colorful and fun.  The kids got a ton of beads and candy.

After the parade we walked around to look at the ice sculptures a bit.  It was a lot of walking and after a few hours we were all ready to head back to the cabin and chill out.  But before we headed back Amy and I were obsessed with finding the game Phase 10.  We really wanted to play it that night.  We went to 2 grocery stores looking for it and neither had it.  We finally found it at a Rite-Aid.

Back at the cabin the kids really wanted to go sledding.  We found a great hill right below the cabin and they had a blast!  As the evening was hitting we called it a day and headed up to the cabin for dinner.  It was so nice having a cabin to make food instead of paying to eat out all the time and as a central hub for both our families, I loved it!

That night we headed to a hot springs.  This place was OLD!  I am glad we ventured there at night because had I seen it during the day I don’t know that I would of stepped foot in there.  There was a building with a changing area, pool tables and small concessions; then you stepped out back to the pools filled with hot water from the springs.  There was a large pool for swimming that wasn’t as hot and a smaller one for just hanging out that was really warm.  It was really neat being in the freezing cold but swimming.  We ended up with frost and ice cycles  in our hair and Greg had some in his facial hair.  If you had to get out to go to the bathroom it was FREEZING!

At one point my friend Amy and I got in the large pool and wanted to do a lap.  Before we did we looked over and read the pool rules, the last rule was no spawning, LOL.  We thought how funny and set off on our lap.  It was a bit ominous as we swam to the other end.  The steam was rising up and we couldn’t see the edge of the pool until we were fairly close.  When we got down there we saw 2 couples that appeared to be  “spawning”  and high tailed it back to the other end.  All of the sudden the last rule of the board wasn’t so funny!

Amy and her family left the hot springs a bit earlier then we did, the kids were having so much fun and did not want to leave so we let them play a bit longer.  Once back at the cabin the adults got to play Phase 10, if you’ve ever played that game you know it can last hours.  No pictures at the hot springs, just thought it would not be a good place for my camera.

The next morning Amy’s parents and sister meet us at the cabin and we all went to breakfast at a local restaurant.  The food was delicious.  Afterwards we headed back to McCall to do some more walking and looking at more of the sculptures.  After everyone was worn out again Amy and her family parted and we took the kids sledding again.  We found a great hill just outside of McCall.  The kids had so much fun!  It was sad to have to leave after such a great weekend and getting to spend time with my best friend but I have over 300 pictures to remember it by.  I’ve narrowed it down to less than 150, enjoy!

This sculpture is one of the best I have ever seen there!  It of course won first place.  Not only was the outside amazing but you could go inside it and they had a mummy, hieroglyphics and pharaohs.  The only draw back was it was super slippery in there.  I think all the kids fell at least once and I saw many other people biff it in there as well.