McCall - July 2013.

Janet, Clara, and I zipped up to McCall one Wednesday in July for a couple days, just to get away!  Brian was a fabulous host!  He showed us a few spots in McCall that we hadn't seen before.  First, he took us to the lake.  We went to a spot where people can jump off cliffs and swim.  We strapped Clara's life jacket on and he took her right in the water...which freaked her out a little.  She whined until he brought her back to the rocks where Janet and I were.  And she stood on the rocks and got her toes a little wet, but that's all!  She's a wade in slowly kinda girl, I think!

I love this pic of Clara!  She's got such spunk!

On the walk back to the car, Brian spotted some huckleberries for us to sample, and these itty-bitty mountain strawberries that were so sweet, they tasted like candy!

Later that afternoon, we headed to the beach in town so Clara could dig in the sand and wade into the water comfortably.  Brian and Janet entertained Clara, and I actually got to prop my chair in the lake and read!  It was delightful!

She was working too hard to pose for pictures.

I love her face in this one!  I'm sure she was worried that Uncle had some more crazy swimming ideas!

She loved our picnic/beach blanket...it was SOOOO soft!

That night, we walked into town after dinner to hit up Ice Cream Alley.  Clara got more green ice cream...her fave!  This is what the lake looked like on our walk back.  Just lovely!

Thursday morning, Brian took us on a drive to West Mountain in search of huckleberries.  It took a little walking to get to them, but Brain found a huge cluster of berry bushes and we picked until Clara couldn't handle it anymore!  She was ready for nap time!  I ended up carrying her through the bushes and stepped on a log wrong and tipped right over.  I scraped my leg a little and once Clara saw the blood, we were finished!  She was ready to leave!

Later that afternoon, we hit up the beach again!  It was another delightful afternoon on the water!  And for the 2nd night in a row, we walked to town after supper for a sweet treat!  Brian carried Clara most of the way to town!

On our walk, we saw four deer.  These three were all together, and another big buck was a little farther down the road.

And we saw...a BEAR!  It was so exciting!  Clara loved it, and she still asks for me to tell her about "that time and the bear".  She loves revisiting scary or unhappy stories for some reason!

It was dark on our way back from ice cream, and somehow I managed to trip on the edge of the road and I thought I stubbed my toe!  It felt exactly like my stubbed toe days of childhood.  Well, I actually managed to rip my 2nd toenail off!  Ick!  It was disgusting!  So that cut our night pretty short!  I did my best to clean it up and wrap it, but I was pretty much a wuss.  Thankfully Janet helped me fix it up.  I couldn't have done it on my own!  Then I took some pain meds and it was off to bed for me!  I was so bummed, embarrassed, and irritated!

So the next day, instead of spending the morning at the beach again, we high-tailed it home so I could nurse my wounds.  Here's a pic of the huckleberry scrape and toe mishap!  Honestly...

But we owe a big thanks to Brian for putting us up for those few days!  It is always so fun to head to the mountains and see him!