McCall!

Every year at BN I get new vacation hours in October. What ever is leftover from the "year" before is lost if I don't use it by September 30th and I actually had enough hours left to take off a week in mid-September. I can't remember the last time I had SEVEN WHOLE DAYS off. Pretty exciting stuff. I decided that I didn't want to spend the entire time hanging around the house, but I didn't want to drive all the way to Utah, especially since Hadley barely sleeps in her own crib, let alone a different house, so we settled on a quick getaway to McCall.

Loving that empty beach!
Since it was the weekend after Labor Day, all the room rates were super cheap. We ended up staying at the Super 8 and were pleasantly surprised to find our cheap little room had everything from a TV, to a fridge and microwave. Not bad! Also, the hotel had a hot tub, which I gladly took advantage of. I forgot how much I love hot tubs and I've been thinking how awesome having one at our house would be. It would be mega awesome.
We drove up on Saturday the 10th and hit the beach almost immediately. It was empty for the most part, which was a nice change from Redfish Lake this year, where there was a huge corporate party complete with obnoxious DJ and a bounce house. Ugh.
Hadley let us stay at the beach for an hour or so and then we decided to go back into town to wander around. Hadley loves her stroller and she mostly slept while we took in the scenery. It really is a beautiful place. My only complaint is that, even on an "off" weekend, there are still too many people there. It also has cell phone service, which means I spend way too much time on my awesome new phone and not enough time staring at clouds. In that sense, Stanley, ID and Redfish Lake win those points since there is not a chance in the world you're getting cell phone service there. It's extremely refreshing.

Hadley passed out in her stroller, still clutching her beloved keys.
We were going to go back to the beach that evening, but a weird windstorm kicked up and we got some ice cream from the grocery store and went back to the hotel room. All the news channels were playing September 11th special programs for the ten year anniversary and we got sucked in watching show after show. It's amazing how much stuff I forgot, and yet how real it still is. I know some people were upset at how much time the news was spending rehashing the whole event, but I was glad to watch it and feel all those emotions again. I love hearing people's stories from that day and I hope that Hadley understands what it was like and that we all do a good job honoring those lives that were lost.

The next morning we ate at the infamous Pancake House. Sheesh, that place is great. Levi ordered what appeared to be a shiny, buttery cow pie but turned out to be the biggest, tastiest cinnamon roll.

Don't let the turd-ish color/shape/consistency turn you off. It was delicious!
We also ate at the local burger shack and Hadley got to taste her first french fry. Yummm!

Really the only negatives about the trip were two things:
1. Hadley sleeps HORRIBLY in a pack-and-play crib and we ended up letting her sleep with us in the hotel bed, which wasn't that great either, considering she was waking up about every 30 minutes. My eyes BURNED from tiredness the next day.
2. We had amorous neighbors on both sides of our room and those walls were paper thin. On the one side was an older couple that had much more vitality than they let on when we met them in the hallway earlier that day, and the other side hosted a couple of drunk girls who brought home a guy from the bar. Classy. The best part was one girl yelling at the other girl to go sleep in the car, which the girl actually did. I'd consider that a friendship deal-breaker myself, if you ask me, but these girls were pretty hammered. Sigh. I truly love my nice, boring life with my nice, boring husband :) No drama, whatsoever!

Overall, it was a great weekend and we cannot wait to go again. We're hoping to be able to squeeze a trip to Redfish as well as McCall next year and maybe even a daytrip or two. It was a nice end to a beautiful summer. Can't wait for all the upcoming summers with our little family!