East, West, Home's Best

Two posts in a week?  Gasp!  Yes, it's true.  Now that the most stressful nine weeks of my life are behind me (complete with 10 min lunches, going home "early" meant going home an hour late, poor posture, scrambled brain, tears, and a few outbursts at the futility of it all) I'm coming back to life and happy to be here.  My workload is back to managable levels, and I got to run away from it all and take a trip home to Idaho!

Yay!

I don't make it there very often these days.  I think I've spent a collective 12 days in Coeur d'Alene in the last year and a half and most of that time was during the winter.  August is definitely the time to visit the great Inland Northwest.  Perfect weather, warm water, and still green green green everywhere. 

And then, of course, the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo!  Yep, I made it back to help out at the Elephant Ear Booth this year.  Our family worker roster was a bit lean this year, so I went home to help out.  I had a blast.  I went boating twice, worked at the fair everyday with a mass of relatives whom I love, went running and hung out with my dad at Tubbs Hill, played my harp, met my newborn nephew, hung out with friends at the fair, went to my brother's cross country meet.  I think it was so good because it was the most engaged I've been in being home and taking advantage of all the, well, advantages. 

Photo collage of the trip, because it's a lot easier than uploading pictures individually.  And it takes less time to load.  And you probably wouldn't care to look at each picture individually anyway unless you're my stalker.  Or bored.  Or my dad.  

Click on collage to see it larger.

The Summer of Firsts

This summer has been full of all sorts of "firsts" for me. I love firsts. I like the excitement and anticipation of something new about to happen but not knowing exactly what to expect, and the surprise when it goes beyond anything I could imagine up. Keeps life thrilling.

A chronical of selected summer 2011 "firsts":

First time wakeboarding (and set a record getting up on my 3rd try!)

First time visiting the CO mountains (as opposed to driving through)

First visitor

First place in the ice cream sculpting contest!

First time wake skating (Got up on first and EVERY try!  I'm going pro.)

First visit with this little guy

First time finishing an entire game of Monopoly... and winning!

Jackie Came to Play

My former roommate Jackie came to visit me last month.  We lived together our last year at BYU.  I actually wrote this post a while ago, but delayed publishing because I wanted to include pictures.  Sadly, my camera went MIA a week ago and I still haven't downloaded the pictures.  For the sake of talking about his while it's still relevant, here is the post minus the pictures.  She put pictures on her blog though, so if you're curious to see what the following looked like wander on over there.

****UPDATE 8-9-2011: The camera is found!  Accompanying pictures now posted below.********

The weekend started with an uneventful ride home from the airport (which is notable because with CO's weather, it can be very eventful) followed by pizza and a good ol' late-night conversation in the kitchen like old times.

Saturday morning we went up to Red Rocks to hike.  The area is most known for it's concert venue, but the amphitheater is actually part of a large natural park.  We walked around the amphitheatre for fun and watched crazy people exercising all over.  Then we hiked a short-ish trail below it.  No lemonade stands this time, but still legit and only about 2,000 ft lower in elevation.

After an afternoon nap and a delicious lunch of pesto pasta (where Jackie is, so is good food), we did accounting/concocted enchiladas in preparation for dinner.  Jackie did the former.  Jared and I did the latter.  Some friends from church organized a picnic-style group date, which is what the food was for.  We attended said date with dates.  Good times were had by all. 

Sunday we attended church in purposely match-y outfits, ate more delicious food at a birthday dinner for a friend, took another nap (Jackie lives at sea level, so we blame the elevation for all the naps), and had more excellent conversation per our style.

Monday I had to work, but I worked just a 1/2 day and Jackie came along.  She had work to do too even though she was on vacation because accountants are cool like that.  We did our business simultaneously then spent the rest of the afternoon around downtown Denver.  We ate at the SAME Cafe, perused books at the Tattered Cover, sunbathed on benches, played tunes on a piano, checked out the City Library (pun intended), chowed down at Mad Greens, and wound it all up with a visit to the Denver Temple.

The fun didn't end there.  After we went back to the house we couldn't decided between making focaccia or ciabatta bread, so we made both and watched Despicable Me for the first time.

Thanks for the visit, Jackie!  You're the best!