It's winter out there, folks! Time to party in the cold and make the most of those mittens, scarves and gloves!! That's what we did a couple of weekends ago, when we went to the annual Winter Carnival in McCall. (For those who don't know Idaho very well, McCall is a smallish resort town, set on a beautiful mountain lake with very expensive real estate.)
Schedule of events included: delicious pancake breakfast, Mardi Gras parade, AMAZING ice sculptures, hay ride, and tubing on the lake. Brian and I took our kids and Brian's parents, plus we met up with Mark and Dalana and their kids, as well as Reed and Alysa. Here's most of our group, in front of one of the sculptures...
It was quite the celebration. For those "in the know," it somewhat reminded me of Maplefest, (a lovely, frostbitten March-time celebration in New England to announce the beginning of maple season, when all the trees are tapped and syrup is brewed.) The Winter Carnival was it's own festive celebration (no stealing from the uniqueness of Maplefest). I guess the only real similarity was that we started with a grand slam pancake breakfast at the Senior Center. I didn't get pictures, but you can imagine the eggs, sausage, all-you-can-drink o.j., biscuits and gravy, and piled-high stacks of pancakes with syrup. (No, it wasn't real maple, Randi. But it was still tasty stuff.)
After breakfast, we headed to watch the parade. It was one of the only winter parades I've seen, and was quite entertaining, for all the freezing fans. My favorite float was the cabana dancers...
They were all 50+, and totally into their dancing! This lady (below) had 3-inch long fake lashes, and a whole cornucopia on her head...
Here's our group watching the parade...
Since it was a Mardi Gras parade, they were throwing out all those funky beads, along with tons of candy. We came home with a whole new collection for Sammie's "princess" jewelry! Here she models her new necklaces...
Poor Spence couldn't stop sucking his little finger, so his hands got icy cold. But he was a good sport about things, even taking a nap during part of the VERY LOUD parade. Look at those blue eyes...
I just can't get enough of him...
After the parade, we finally met up with Mark and Dalana's family (so sad there was so much mis-communication all day long -- they missed the breakfast and parade, rats!) and we went to look at the sculptures. They were AMAZING!
This is the best shot (below) of the grand prize winner, though it's not a great shot. It was called "Camelot" and featured a knight, fighting a dragon, a king and queen inside a castle, sitting on their thrones holding court, and a very slick mote with drawbridge. As I said, not the best shot, but you get a bit of a feel for it...
Here was another favorite, called "Fantasy Castle" or something like that. It was sooo tall, with little caves carved in the trees below the castle. The group...
We thought this one was quite creative...
There was one that had a huge slide for the kids, with a really slick, twisty ride onto a huge sheet of ice at the end. Here you can see Sammie's head as she zooms past, and I think that's John in the black coat at the top, waiting his turn?
We were really surprised to see Cooper coming down head first, because it really was quite a steep, slippery ride. But he said it was fun, little daredevil!
My personal favorite was a whole yard set up to look like the Candyland game board. They had gumdrop mountains, peppermint stick forests, lollipop woods, etc. It was really fun, wandering through... they even had a little path with pieces carved to look like the game board. Here's Sam, on the slide at Gumdrop Mountains pass...
And here she is on the rainbow trail bridge...
Look at how huge the lollipops were in Lollipop Forest! And so detailed, too!
These little two-foot gingerbread guys were on the wall surrounding the entire display, so cute!
And this little candy shack was probably 10-12 feet tall! Wow! I thought Candyland should have won first prize, but they were fourth place.
After looking at the sculptures, (and piling 13 into our van to get Mark and Dalana back to their van. shh, don't tell), Grandma and Grandpa thought a hayride for the kids sounded like fun...
All the kids seemed to love it. (I personally was ready for a foot heater by that point.)
We stopped to watch people tubing onto the frozen lake for a little while. (This was before the Lake Erie icy fiasco last week, so no one felt too threatened to be out on the ice, I guess!) John and Cooper had brought their tubes, so they got to go down a few times. Our little family was too cold to stay for that part, so I didn't get any good pictures of them, but I heard they had fun.
I had to include a shot of this one-man-band guy that we watched for awhile. He had quite the set-up, and Sammie was completely mesmerized by his performance. She's watching, (with her purple coat and red pants). She clapped after each song, and even danced along for a bit.
That's all the pictures for now. It was a fun and memorable outing, even Samantha said so when we got home. I do have to say that my feet were WHITE and NUMB by the end of the day, despite my warmest shoes and two pairs of thick socks; I don't like to be cold. Samantha doesn't either -- she did more than a little bit of whining and crying about cold feet and hands, poor thing. But we will probably do it again -- next time with warmer shoes, a better cell phone connection (sorry again to Mark and Dalana), and a thermos of hot chocolate!
This seems to be very typical Spencer behaviour right now. He LOVES our plants, or at least loves EATING the dirt out of them. I have tried repositioning them, but with 15+ plants, I have run out of "high up" spots to put them. He will just have to learn. And I will just have to watch him. Or the plants will just have to go?
It's a little sail boat cake, if you can't tell. Nothing too creative, but sort of fun anyway.
He wasn't really thrilled with the candle-blowing part. I guess we didn't really explain it, and all of a sudden the lights were out and a flame was in his face... can hardly blame him for crying.
But he recovered, and fully embraced the experience of eating chocolate cake for the first time!
All done!!
We did cake on Sunday (his REAL birthday), with just our little family. Then, on Monday night, we had a fun party with all the Bishops, celebrating both Spencer's and cousin Seth's birthdays. My parents surprised us with a spontaneous overnight visit for the occasion. Yay! Good times all around... A pinata, musical chairs, more cake and ice cream, and tons of fun presents. Here are some highlight shots...
Samantha's turn...
Ella really got into it!
Cooper hit it hard enough to break the string twice, and then the handle!
John gave it a good smashing, as well... 
Spencer even got to have a go, batting at the pinata with his hands...
And he LOVED watching all the action! Here he is, laughing with Grandma Karen...
Scrambling for candy, after Cooper finally broke it!
Spencer wasted no time claiming HIS tootsie pop!
And left a trail of stickiness all over our living room floor!
Some happy party-goers...
He seemed to like his new Nemo ball best, but was also really interested in his new blocks, car, and sippy cup! Yay!!
Spencer has been such a fun, easy baby. He gave us some sleepless nights right at the beginning, but once he learned to sleep, (6-8 hr nights at 2 months -- 12 hr nights at 3 months), he got on a great schedule and has been so pleasant and easy going.
His first smiles were hard to come by, but once he got the hang of it, he became such a friendly little baby, and loves to smile for almost anyone, anytime.
He's also been a champ at eating, right from the start. He has always loved whatever we've fed him -- except this rare occasion where he rejected strained peas. (Can we really blame him?)
Baby lasagna! Yum!!!
Who can say no to that gorgeous grin....
Spencer is our little cuddle bug, always willing to lay his head on our shoulders and have a little finger suck...
I love, love, love those baby blue eyes! Just recently, I learned that my grandpa, Lynn Hone, had the same piercing blue eyes. I've always said he got them from Brian, but maybe they're a Hone trait after all?
Apparently the finger sucking is also a Hone trait... something that Grandpa Dennis and Uncle Blaine did...
It's winter out there, folks! Time to party in the cold and make the most of those mittens, scarves and gloves!! That's what we did a couple of weekends ago, when we went to the annual Winter Carnival in McCall. (For those who don't know Idaho very well, McCall is a smallish resort town, set on a beautiful mountain lake with very expensive real estate.)
It was quite the celebration. For those "in the know," it somewhat reminded me of Maplefest, (a lovely, frostbitten March-time celebration in New England to announce the beginning of maple season, when all the trees are tapped and syrup is brewed.) The Winter Carnival was it's own festive celebration (no stealing from the uniqueness of Maplefest). I guess the only real similarity was that we started with a grand slam pancake breakfast at the Senior Center. I didn't get pictures, but you can imagine the eggs, sausage, all-you-can-drink o.j., biscuits and gravy, and piled-high stacks of pancakes with syrup. (No, it wasn't real maple, Randi. But it was still tasty stuff.)
They were all 50+, and totally into their dancing! This lady (below) had 3-inch long fake lashes, and a whole cornucopia on her head...
Here's our group watching the parade...
Since it was a Mardi Gras parade, they were throwing out all those funky beads, along with tons of candy. We came home with a whole new collection for Sammie's "princess" jewelry! Here she models her new necklaces...
Poor Spence couldn't stop sucking his little finger, so his hands got icy cold. But he was a good sport about things, even taking a nap during part of the VERY LOUD parade. Look at those blue eyes...
I just can't get enough of him...
After the parade, we finally met up with Mark and Dalana's family (so sad there was so much mis-communication all day long -- they missed the breakfast and parade, rats!) and we went to look at the sculptures. They were AMAZING!
Here was another favorite, called "Fantasy Castle" or something like that. It was sooo tall, with little caves carved in the trees below the castle. The group...
We thought this one was quite creative...
There was one that had a huge slide for the kids, with a really slick, twisty ride onto a huge sheet of ice at the end. Here you can see Sammie's head as she zooms past, and I think that's John in the black coat at the top, waiting his turn?
We were really surprised to see Cooper coming down head first, because it really was quite a steep, slippery ride. But he said it was fun, little daredevil!
My personal favorite was a whole yard set up to look like the Candyland game board. They had gumdrop mountains, peppermint stick forests, lollipop woods, etc. It was really fun, wandering through... they even had a little path with pieces carved to look like the game board. Here's Sam, on the slide at Gumdrop Mountains pass...
And here she is on the rainbow trail bridge...
Look at how huge the lollipops were in Lollipop Forest! And so detailed, too!
These little two-foot gingerbread guys were on the wall surrounding the entire display, so cute!
And this little candy shack was probably 10-12 feet tall! Wow! I thought Candyland should have won first prize, but they were fourth place.
After looking at the sculptures, (and piling 13 into our van to get Mark and Dalana back to their van. shh, don't tell), Grandma and Grandpa thought a hayride for the kids sounded like fun...
All the kids seemed to love it. (I personally was ready for a foot heater by that point.)
We stopped to watch people tubing onto the frozen lake for a little while. (This was before the Lake Erie icy fiasco last week, so no one felt too threatened to be out on the ice, I guess!) John and Cooper had brought their tubes, so they got to go down a few times. Our little family was too cold to stay for that part, so I didn't get any good pictures of them, but I heard they had fun.
I had to include a shot of this one-man-band guy that we watched for awhile. He had quite the set-up, and Sammie was completely mesmerized by his performance. She's watching, (with her purple coat and red pants). She clapped after each song, and even danced along for a bit.
That's all the pictures for now. It was a fun and memorable outing, even Samantha said so when we got home. I do have to say that my feet were WHITE and NUMB by the end of the day, despite my warmest shoes and two pairs of thick socks; I don't like to be cold. Samantha doesn't either -- she did more than a little bit of whining and crying about cold feet and hands, poor thing. But we will probably do it again -- next time with warmer shoes, a better cell phone connection (sorry again to Mark and Dalana), and a thermos of hot chocolate!