Surprise Getaway

Since Josh made me vow not to throw him a surprise party for his 30th birthday... I decided to surprise him in a whole different way... a getaway to Cascade/McCall for just the two of us! My mom took the girls Saturday night and Sunday. Then my sis took the day off work on Monday so she could stay at our house with them Sunday night/Monday morning. Do I have the best family or what?

So I should give you a little history first. In the 7 years that Josh and I have been together, I have never (not once!) been able to surprise him with anything. 1) I have a horrible time keeping anything from him 2) He can read me like a book. (And once he thinks something's up, he will NOT let it go.) Okay, in all fairness I've ruined my share of surprises too, but still.

Anyway, I was bound and determined to keep this a surprise. I started planning a couple weeks ago and had to work pretty hard to keep it all from him. By Saturday he knew SOMETHING was going on... but to THIS he had no idea. I kept bugging him about what time he was going to get home on Saturday (so I would know what time to drop the girls off) and finally just told him that I wanted to go on a date that night so that I had a reason to be asking him.

As my luck typically goes, Josh got off super late on Saturday from his Twin Falls run (8:30pm) - but when he got home the girls were already at my moms and our bags were packed. He walked in with a suspicious look on his face... probably because he didn't hear the happy little squeals of his baby girls greeting him at the door. His genuine expression of surprise made me know that I had pulled it off... yay me!

I decided to plan a pretty low key weekend but we still had tons of fun! We stayed at the Bears Knight Inn in Cascade. It's nothing fancy, but they really give it a cabin-y feel... and you can't beat $55 a night! On Sunday we stopped for some yummy burgers in Cascade then headed up toward Brundage to test out the Goose Creek Trail that my cousin Stephanie recommended to me. It was about 1 1/4 mile each way and had a beautiful waterfall at the end... which made the steep incline on the way back all worthwhile. The hike itself was actually easier than we expected - that is, until I misjudged the last stretch thinking we were almost to the top and decided to "sprint" past Josh in an effort to beat him. Well, he got the last laugh since we still had 15 minutes or so left and I was ridiculously out of breath. I'm pretty sure I'll never live that one down. :-)

Oh, and I'd love to show you pictures from the trip, but in my rush to get everything ready on Saturday, I left my memory stick in my computer... and didn't realize it until I had already lugged my camera half way down the trail. (I'm pretty sure it's times like these that Boise State might regret giving me that Top Ten Scholar award!) Thankfully, my gentleman husband carried it back for me... though truthfully he probably just figured I didn't need one more thing to throw me off balance and send me tumbling down the hill. (Insert 20 "Bella" references from my husband here... perhaps tricking him into reading the Twilight Series wasn't such a great idea afterall!)

Since we burned off our 1/2 pound burgers from lunch during our hike, we decided to stop for a second lunch at Panda, a Chinese restaurant in McCall with an awesome lake view. I forget just how pretty it is up there!

After catching the last half of Josh's Steelers game (he's lucky this trip was for his birthday), we drove up to Gold Fork Hot Springs in Donnelly. It has 6 pools with different temperatures that are landscaped with river rock, water falls, and tiki torches (looks super cool at night!) Its alkaline, mineral-rich waters are supposed to have all these "healing" powers, which we kinda laughed about, until we got out and our skin was like silk. My hands get super dry come autumn and I swear it healed them. Weird!
It was such a fun weekend! Josh is truly my best friend in the world and I love hanging out with him. We laugh so much together and it always makes me remember all the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place. Though... we missed our little girls like CRAZY! Both nights that we were gone our little Kaylee would call to tell us good night and it was all I could do to not tear up. She sounds so grown up on the phone! I know it's good for the two of us to remember to be husband and wife and not just Mommy and Daddy, but it's like a little piece of me is missing when I'm not with my girls. Heaven help me when they move away to college!