Cascade/McCall

Last summer at a pastor's golf outing sponsored by the Christian radio station Russ won a night's stay in Cascade along with a lunch/dinner for two at Bistro 45 in McCall.  They both expired a year from the date of issue (August).  Blackout dates for the hotel included the entire months of July and August.  Since we knew we would be gone to Iowa half the month of June, we realized we needed to make a last-minute trip up north if we wanted to make use of these gift certificates! 

We left by 8:30 on a Thursday morning and were in McCall by around 10:30. 

The Payette River was running super fast.

Payette Lake in McCall

What a beautiful day--sunny and around 70 degrees!  We walked by the lake for a bit and just enjoyed the scenery before heading to Bistro 45 for lunch.  The Yellow Warblers serenaded us as we ate our lunch al fresco. After lunch, we drove up Brundage Mountain Road until we came to the parking lot where the trailhead for the Goose River Falls was located.  This was a lovely hike through the woods to a beautiful waterfall.  The hike to the falls was mostly downhill so the hike back to the car raised the heart rate a little (at least for me 😏).

Selfie #1--Squinting in the sun

Caught a glimpse of a Western Tanager.  Wished I had my better camera.

 

Selfie #2--Not looking in the sun

Drenched with waterfall spray

The uphill hike back to the parking lot.

After the hike, we headed back to downtown McCall for some ice cream.  All the shops required masks and had social distancing quotas for the number of people in the store.  Since this is a huge tourist town, I guess that made perfect sense.  Anyway, we enjoyed our Wells Blue Bunny ice cream cones as we again walked along the Payette Lake.  Since we had had a communication snafu and left any and all games at home, we stopped at the Ace Hardware store to pick up some dice, a deck of cards, and a double nine tin of dominoes. 

We drove back down to Cascade (McCall and Cascade are about 30 minutes apart) to check into our hotel.  After settling in for a few minutes we headed out to Cascade Lake to walk a bit on Crown Point Trail along the lake.  

Thought this tree looked pretty cool with its roots just hanging over the water.

After enjoying the lake for a bit, we drove to the Payette River and walked The Strand (a pathway along the river) and thoroughly enjoyed the wildlife, especially the nesting osprey.  

The ospreys left their nest just as I took this picture.  

We ended up at Kelly's Whitewater Park and watched the kayakers tackle some whitewater on the river before picking up our pizza that we ordered before we started out along the river. 

We ate our pizza outside on the porch at the hotel and then played a round of "O Shucks."

 After the game, we all changed into our suits and enjoyed a dip in the hotel pool and hot tub.  We took our turns in the shower, went back down to the hotel eating area for the hotel's fresh cookies and tea/coffee, and played a game of dominos.  We then headed up to our room to watch the first Indiana Jones movie which the kids had never seen.

The next morning we ate breakfast down in the dining room area--fruit, yogurt, and a pastry I had brought from home knowing that the hotel was not yet serving breakfast due to COVID-19.  We played another round of "O Shucks" before checking out and heading home!

COVID-19 #3 Reading Books

Besides walking the neighborhood, playing pickleball, and baking new recipes we did loads of reading while quarantined.  Here are our favorites from April/May!

We read this for family worship in the weeks prior to Easter.

After Easter we read this and watched the videos for our devotional time

Read this book along with watching Ferguson's teaching on the Ligonier App.

Love the truths in this book!

A delightful love story that is so rare in our "modern" age

After studying NK with Seth in homeschool, I decided I wanted to learn more and read this book. 

Both this series and the one below tell the creation, fall, redemption story in a wonderful fantasy type of way.

After reading this, I think Anna has read most of Austen's works

The kids have also been dabbling with the paints

Seth made us a lemon cake with a whipped cream/lemon curd frosting!😋

Our first time in corporate worship was not with Cloverdale URC, but with a church that met outdoors at Kleiner Park.  Josh Bales, the pastor of The Well, is a good friend of Russ and does the weekly radio show with him.  We met with this church the first two Sundays in May (after listening to Russ' taped lessons) and have now met in our church for the past two Sundays.  We sit every other pew, only socialize outdoors, and do not pass a collection plate.  It has been lovely to be in church worshiping again!

Lest you think all the kids and I  have been doing is reading, we have kept pretty busy at home.  On nice days we have been doing lots of yard work--trimming trees, planting herbs, fighting aphids on the roses, mowing the lawn, etc.  On not as nice days we've been organizing closets, sorting ten years of homeschool materials, and painting/freshening up rooms in the house. Now that things are opening up we have lots of appointments in the next few weeks--haircuts, dentist, physicals, mammogram.  We have a senior track dinner planned at our home next week and we have a former seminary friend of Russ' staying with us next weekend.  Life is getting back to a kind of "normal"!

Anna's Graduation

Anna not only has the distinction of being the sole Bleeker/Herman cousin to graduate from high school in 2020, she can also someday reminisce about being a COVID-19 graduate.  She would agree that this is definitely not how she pictured her senior year.  Finishing up her senior year online, taking modified AP exams from home, not wearing her beautiful prom dress, no graduation, no state track meet, no grandpa and grandma visit, no brothers home, etc.  Most missed things haven't bothered her too much, but I know she was pretty bummed that grandpa and grandma and Caleb and Nicolas could no longer come to Idaho for graduation.  She was also immensely disappointed she wasn't able to run her senior year of track.  She looked forward to being coached by her dad and running relays with her sister one more year. 

The school took pictures of the senior spring athletes and highlighted them.  At least Anna got to put on one of the new uniforms!

Cole Valley Christian rescheduled graduation for June 28, but that is smack in the middle of our trip to Iowa.  Once she found out that there were others in the class that would not be able to make graduation, she felt a little better, and we do have plans to Livestream the event from grandpa and grandma's house.  

We are all in need of haircuts!  Thankfully, things are opening up and we can cut our "quarantine" hair soon!

This girl loves her watches, so it was fun to give her a nice watch as a graduation gift.

CVCS has done a great job of making the seniors feel special in the midst of all their losses this spring.  When Anna drove through the school parking lot to pick up her cap/gown the teachers lined the parking lot, taped signs to her car, and threw candy in the backseat.  

On graduation day (May 17) one of the teachers dropped by with a bunch of balloons and a bag of goodies.  The school also had a sign-up for families to "adopt a senior" and was blessed with another balloon bouquet, a lawn sign, and more gifts. 

 More recently as things opened up, the school sponsored an "Amazing Race" type event for the seniors that began in downtown Boise and ended at the Parma drive-in theater.  Parents were invited to meet the teams at the drive-in theater where they showed the senior tribute video and the senior video that they will show at graduation.  

Lydia did Anna's senior tribute--made me cry.  The spots are raindrops on the car windshield.  If you look a few pictures up you will see the ominous dark sky just prior to the downpour.

We were all thankful that Anna scored a dozen free donuts from Krispy Kreme as a 2020 graduate!

Our church plans to recognize their graduates after the morning service on July 19 with a small reception. Longest graduation celebration ever!