Mitchells Take McCall 2017

Paul and I haven't been on vacation since the fall of 2013. Every time we travel it's to visit family or for a family event. I was rather insistent a true vacation happen this year. Since the baby's still breastfeeding we decided to make it a family one and bring all of the kids. Overall, the vacation was a hit. We had a great time. I'm sharing the pictures from the camera since I haven't had a chance to get pictures off phones yet.

Our greeting party at our cabin. This deer was not afraid at all. He stayed right there the entire time we unloaded.
We had a deer in our yard every morning and sometimes in the afternoon.

Hiking what I believe is the East Fork or Lake Fork Trail. It was great for the kids.

We played a lot of Hi-Ho! Cherry-O and Uno Attack while in the cabin.

We rented a kayak a couple of days. 

She had mixed feelings about the sand.

This boy was in his element.

Touring the lake on The Idaho. 

S'mores night at the fire pit.

They enjoyed the wagon on the property. 

The downer part of the trip? Our driver's side window broke. While we were driving out for our hike Mr. Mitchell rolled down the window to enjoy the breeze, and it fell down with a thump of finality. We could not get the window back up. We drove from McCall to Boise with the window down. It was cold and loud. In Boise we tried to get the dealership to help us get the window up, but they wanted a chunk of money just for a diagnostic. Mr. Mitchell ended up taping a bunch of plastic to the window so we could survive the interstate home. It will still very loud, but we weren't as cold. Besides this event, we had a great time.

Best Friend Visit

Mr. Mitchell came home on Sunday after being gone all month, and one of my best friends came to visit us. I felt so spoiled to have them both here. Heather and I were assigned as roommates our freshman year, became fast friends, and despite distance have remained good friends. It's one of those friendships where you can not talk to each other for half a year, and when you talk again you pick up exactly where you left off. We did some calculating while she was here and realized that we hadn't seen each other in 18 months! Didn't matter. We gabbed up a storm and did some fun things.

We played card games, watched movies, went out to eat, and explored Pocatello.

We spent a day in Old Town exploring the stores on Main Street and admiring the old advertisements and murals.

Possibly our favorite stop was the used bookstore there. You walk in and it's dusty and disorganized and dim. There are books piled everywhere, and the owner sits at a table and just hollers around the store at his customers in order to assist them. "Turn on the light while you're back there!" "Yeah, we have that one. It's to your right. Further to your right. Further. More to your right." It was super entertaining, and there were actually some good options there. The store could use a good vacuum session, but that might take away some of its character.

We hiked the easy City Creek Trail to test out Sprout's new carrier.

We like the awkward pictures.

Heather and I were looking up things to do in Pocatello and came across the Museum of Clean. It sounded like a hoot so we went. Turns out the guy that owns the museum is famous for his cleaning skills, and we had no idea until we were halfway through a tour given by him (Don Aslett). He gave me one of his books for free. Sweet. I was too enthralled with Don, who was funny and quick, to take many pictures, but it was actually a very fun museum. And because Don gave us the tour we got a bunch of 'behind-the-scenes' stuff, including inside of the clock tower.

Like I said, don't let my lack of cool pictures fool you. The museum is still a work in progress, but once it's complete it will be a total blast for kids. Oh, and by the way, Don Aslett pushed me around the museum in a wheel chair he made from a garbage can. Granted, he didn't push me all over the museum, but how many people have been wheeled around by 80-year-old Don Aslett? I finally have a claim to fame! Don loved Heather and acted as though she were the smartest person he had ever met. It was awesome.

Thanks for coming, Heather! It was great to have you here, and I'm sorry I was so tired all of the time. Now that we're only three hours apart we really shouldn't wait 18 months before seeing each other again.

Holdaway Reunion 2013

According to Blogger this is my 100th post. I feel as though I should be doing some celebratory madness on here that makes everybody who doesn't have a blog wish they had one. I'm just not that clever, therefore I'll stick with my regular blog doings.

A couple of weeks ago I headed to Logan, UT with my little man (my big man was up in Alaska) for the Holdaway reunion. It was a week long event full of games, outings, activities, gabbing, and lots of food. I can't guarantee that I'll chronicle the festivities in the correct order, but I'll do my best.

In attendance:                               Missing:
Grandma and Grandpa                  Britton & Tena plus 3
Chris & Tiffany plus 3                  Chandler                
Eric & LaVonne plus 1                  Connor                  
Jayme & Steve plus 4                    Paul
Ryan & Angela plus 3                    Garrison
Sabrina plus 1


Here is what we arrived to (quite typical, I might add):


We had a day of water activities:

We had a siblings night while the grandparents took all of the grandkids:

"Facebook picture!!"

If you know my family then you know that the majority of us did not get pictured. We went out to eat and then went to Ryan & Angela's and played games, talked, and ate some more.

We took a tour of the Aggie's creamery and had some delicious ice cream:

(Is it weird to anyone else that the activity for which I have the most pictures is probably the least interesting for other people to look at?)

We took a hike to the Wind Caves:

We had a Western-themed game night along with some races:

My niece and her ballroom partner
 provided some entertainment.

"Ol' Digger Gramps"

I didn't edit this video because I'm lazy and Mr. Mitchell is off on another fire, so don't bother watching until it gets to about 0:40. In fact, I would say 1:40 - 2:00 is probably the most entertaining segment.


We had a few skit-like nights:

Cannibalistic hikers

Law School/Clown School

Dr. Mean & Painful

Bigfoot Hunters

They managed to escape and be audience only.

We spent a day at Lagoon:

The entire gang. The picture where everyone looked their
 best was totally photo-bombed by an employee. Trends these days.

(My only Lagoon pictures - very pathetic, Sabrina.) The only rides C.G. could go on were the train and the carousel. He didn't care about the train at all. He pretty much just wanted to eat the railing that is crawling with layer upon layer of little pointy-fanged germs. He really liked the carousel, but I couldn't snag a picture and hold onto the squirmy little dude.

There was a lot of ultimate frisbee, Nerf guns, and bandits & sheriffs (a.k.a. cops & robbers or mafia).

I tried to get a sibling shot, but it didn't turn out so well:

Camera setting, lighting, and timing, oh my!

We had salt dough and edible finger painting for the kids:

C.G.'s was mostly done by feet.

And, since we're Holdaways, plenty of food:

It was so nice seeing everybody that could make it. Sorry if I missed anything!