WEEKEND IN CASCADE
Ryan's company has a cabin rented in Cascade, a mountain community next to a reservoir. The company has two employees living in the cabin during the week while they work on some projects up there. But they go home to Boise on the weekends, so we went to stay there on the weekend!
The cabin was pretty cool. It had nice furniture and a super kitchen that made me not want to come back to our little duplex! Well, that and the beautiful scenery! We decided that the company should have sent Ryan up to work in Cascade. Because our kids aren't in school and I don't have a job, we would have just gone up there to live for the three months!
We arrived after dark, and were shocked when I opened the window blinds the next morning at breakfast. Our jaws dropped, and the only word for it was, "WOW!"
We went for a drive to see all the Fall colors. We were on a very nice dirt road on the edge of the lake and at the base of a mountain. The forest is mostly coniferous, but there were pockets of bright yellow and even some orange aspens, making a great contrast with the dark green of the firs and pines.
When I got out of the Jeep to take a picture, Ryan was approached by a cyclist with a flat tire. He asked for a ride to his race, which started in half an hour. With our back seat full of car seats and cargo area full of picnic supplies, we didn't see how we could help. The cyclist went on ahead, but we caught up with him again. I said we should at least try to help him, and so we figured that he could sit on the tailgate and hold his bike. We drove him to the Tamarack ski resort, where he got his tire fixed in time for his race. There happened to be a picnic area complete with a fire to keep us warm, so we ate lunch there and watched the race. Turns out "our" cyclist is pretty good! The race went all over the mountain, but every time he rode past our picnic area, he was in third.
After lunch we drove to McCall and the Scout Camp there. We found some people Ryan knew from getting involved with Venturing here in Boise, and he was introduced to some other big Scouters. We hiked 1 1/4 miles around the camp, then found a state park where we could get right down to the lake. The boys threw rocks into the water and we took some pictures. Unfortunately, Zach was a bit over zealous about the rock throwing. He wanted to get his rocks farther into the water, and what better way than to wade in? He didn't seem to mind how cold the water was.
Back at the cabin, we ate dinner as we watched the sunset color the mountains across the lake.
The next morning, we found the LDS chapel so we could watch General Conference. We tried unsuccessfully to find the Saturday sessions on the radio, so we only got to see one session.
After church, we were very sad to have to pack up our things again. Jared half-thought we had moved to the cabin! Before we left, though, we drove up the mountain and saw snow! Jared was so excited! We got out and threw a few snowballs, and Jared was shocked by the pain that bare hands on snow can cause. He suddenly wasn't so excited for winter, at least until his hands warmed up.
After an uneventful return to Boise, Jared said our family prayer and thanked Heavenly Father that we got to go to Cascade and that we got to see some snow.

Be sure to check out the rest of our photos here!