When my elementary school parent/middle school parent/zumba buddies and I were discussing spring break, Laura said she might go have a staycation at a McMenamins hotel. I had been thinking along those lines as well and suddenly, my family found ourselves spending the night at a beautiful hotel in Bothell, hanging with lots of friends.

McMenamins is a destination hotel built in an old school building--lots of pretty lamps, decorative touches, nice restaurants, and one hell of a pool. They have a movie theater on campus (we didn't go) and lots of bars (we had a drink with dinner.) Laura's family and my family spent the night, and two other friends' families came for the afternoon swim and dinner. Lots and lots of kids to play with.

The pool is almost as warm as a hot tub. We ended up playing there before dinner, after dinner, and after breakfast. I'd say that's good use. I had a really good time playing Marco Polo and making up silly noodle races with the kids.

The food was ok. We didn't have any trouble getting enough gluten-free options. John came for dinner and left after breakfast (the advantage of staying in town), and then after that morning swim, Laura and I took our families to a nearby park. Laura's family are like us, camp folk. In fact, Laura runs the day camp that we all are involved with, so really camp folk. We got to the playground, and one of her girls had designed a tag game called predators and prey. We all gave that a shot. I like playing when the fact that I'm slow and have to stop and laugh a lot does not ruin the game. None of us are highly competitive. Then we moved on to poison dart frog and mafia. We had a picnic there based on breakfast leftovers and the random food I had managed to throw into the snack bag. Even when we got home, there was no horrible post vaca crash. T.V. can do that for you, but still, amazing.