CALDWELL AND BEYOND

Mom and I had been talking about making a trip up to Idaho to see my grandparents for a while. Of course, I would just keep filling my calendar with photo shoots and other events so time kept slipping by. However, I left this last week open on purpose just in case we decided to go on a last-minute trip, and it worked out great because, guess what, we did! And guess what else, I took pictures!

On our drive up, Stella kept talking about getting to Idaho so she could swim in the pool. It was a much longer drive to the pool than she thought though. So when we finally arrived we didn't wait any longer to head to the pool. Stella was thrilled to be in Idaho where the pool was located. Thankfully she was not aware of the hundreds of pools we passed on our way.

The next morning we headed to the very fancy Karcher Mall. Mom loves it there because there is a Macy's outlet that she has this fascination with. It causes a little conflict, because I don't faint at the prices like she does. She almost feels like she doesn't know me anymore because I don't like the Macy's outlet as much as she thinks I would. But guess what, I'm not that into Macy's and the prices aren't all that crazy. But I still found some things of course (I am a professional shopper after all). Still, since we met my grandparents at the mall for lunch we spent WAY too much time there and I had to take a picture of the mall's cool sign to prove that we had conquered it.

We then headed to my grandparents house in Caldwell. We visited and hung out on the back porch. Stella enjoyed playing with her new princess balls, and harassing Charlie (the coolest cat ever according to my mom). Stella called him "Grandma's friend."

On the way to our hotel that night we drove past the COOLEST abandoned hotel from the '60s. I loved it and said I would kill to have a photo shoot there, and before I knew it my mom was turning around to go to the hotel to make my dreams come true. Sometimes a place fascinates me entirely so please forgive the immense amount of pictures. But I'm sorry, this hotel was just TOO COOL! Did I mention that I thought it was COOL!? BTW, my dad took the pictures with me in them, and I was very impressed with his composition.

The next day we drove to Boise to take my dad to the airport and while we were in town we hit the mall for some more shopping. Then we headed to Caldwell again. We hung out and then headed to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. We took a couple of silly pictures in the parking lot.

Our last morning we drove up to Caldwell to have breakfast at Mr. V's before we headed back home to Salt Lake. Here are some more parking lot pics.

Stella is a pretty good traveler obviously, which is why she has been lucky enough to be taken so many places. She was very good in the car ride home today as well. She spent some of the time rocking out to Grandma's music in the car with her baby doll.

And now we are home, and Stella thinks that there is only one whole pool in the entire state of Idaho.