Here are a few pictures of my Garden, well, from a few weeks ago. I have to go up there this week and get to weeding. Unfortunately, summer is just beginning to hit Moscow, so my plants are not very happy plants.



We've got our flimsy little fence, but hey the neighbor's plot doesn't have one, so hopefully the bunnies will hit first.



-- Those little tiny plants are lettuce! I was pretty excited they sprouted so I had to take a picture.

Whirlwind California Trip

Wow - I'm exhausted! Last week, I flew to California to give out the Davey Davis Outstanding Athlete Award at the Foresthill Divide Middle School Graduation. The award is named after my pop who taught in Foresthill (where I grew up) from 1979 - 1989 when he passed away.

I got into Sacramento Thursday evening, and stayed with close friends Nancy & Ryan Rivers, and was really excited to see their son Kyle who is almost 10!!! Crazy how time flies. Friday morning I drove to Nevada City, CA and had lunch with a distant cousin that I had never met. My Great Grandmother is her Great Aunt. She had a bunch of genealogy books and papers to look through. It was really funny because I had a bunch of the original photos that are photocopied in the genealogy book and she had some original photos that I had photocopies of! It was just fun to put it all together.

After a fantastic lunch, I made my way up to Foresthill and spent a couple of hours with my cousin Brent. He's 10 years younger than I am, so we haven't really spent much time around each other, so it was really fun getting to know the adult that once was the 3 year old I used to cart around.

Following along the nostalgic road I'd been following all day, I went over meet the people who live in the house that I grew up in. They had been renovating the house, and had saved a piece of concrete that had my name in written into it! The house mostly looks the same, but its just different you know?

Then off to Foresthill High School to give out the award. I saw some people I hadn't seen in years and then others who I see once a year at the graduation. It was so much fun catching up with people!!

Friday was the longest day, but it really was a great day.

Saturday, I drove up to Paradise to visit with Mike's sister and parents and to see my nephews who are now 2 1/2 and almost 5!! They are just adorable, and the 2 1/2 year looks so much like Mike its just funny! After heading back to Roseville, I had a FANTASTIC evening hanging out with Nancy, Ryan, and Kyle. Nancy and I enjoyed two very yummy bottles of wine while we chatted like we did when we were kids... just different topics ;-)

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures because Mike has our camera, and I just forgot to take some using my phone. But it was a crazy whirlwind weekend... but it was GREAT!

Gardening

When we found out Mike was going to be heading to Oklahoma for the summer, I realized I would need something in addition to work to keep me busy since I tend to become a couch potato if given to much free time. My neighbor has had a plot in a community garden here in town for a few summers now and I've helped her out here and there, so I thought maybe I'd get my own. Last week the group that runs the garden let me know they had one available for me if I wanted it!

So, it's been a busy week. The plot is about 12 x 12 feet, but it wasn't planted last year, so the soil was a little hard and there were WEEDS, WEEDS, and more WEEDS. I took out two wheelbarrows full of dandelions alone! It also had volunteer onions growing all over too. I felt bad taking out the onions, but I had to roto-till the plot or I never would have been able to do anything!

Sunday my brother Ryan brought over a roto-tiller and tilled the plot for me! It was awesome. Then last night Mike and I went up and built a little fence around it. There are bunnies that love living up there because they get to eat all sorts of yummy veggies all summer! I'm not sure our fence would keep out a bunny if it really wanted in, but we are hoping that they will just move along to the next plot that isn't fenced.

I also planted some lettuce & spinach! And I have tomato, squash, and pepper plant starts at home. I'll probably plant them in the garden next week, we've still had some mild frosts the past few weeks up here.

I'll go up to the garden and snap some pictures to post on here so you can what it used to look like and what it looks like now, just a week later!

Exploring Idaho!

We've been in Idaho now for about 2 1/2 years, we've done some exploring, but there is a lot more to do. My mom, brother, Mike and I went for a long hike to see Elk Creek Falls. It's about an hour drive from home, but just a beautiful drive getting there even.

We started at Mom's house with a super yummy breakfast of biscuits & gravy. My mom makes the most fantastic breakfasts, but generally you are ready to go back to bed after eating them. But we said "Nope, we are going hiking!"

There are three falls, Upper, Mid & Lower. We hiked out to the Upper Falls first. Mike and Ryan did a little fishing. Ryan caught a rainbow trout that was a keeper, and Mike caught a little brook trout he released back into the water. Then, he caught a nice sized rainbow, but when he went to grab it off the line the fish got away. If I hadn't seen it myself I would have considered just a fish tale, but it was the big fish that got away!

We then hiked down to the middle falls, which were amazing. You can see all the columnar basalt that is part of the Columbia River Basin. The falls are about 90 feet and were just so amazing to see. We then followed a little 'goat trail' up to the viewing area as we had kind of hiked a little off trail to get closer.


-above is a far away shot from the viewing area

- a closer picture

The little 'goat trail' we hiked.

Then we hiked down to the last falls, Lower Falls. The rainbow on the Lower Falls was so pretty! Below is a picture of the Lower Falls, it was a great day, and boy was I sore from the mile+ hike of the canyon, but I would love to do it again!

Oklahoma!!!

Summertime in Oklahoma! Mike will be participating in a REU (Research Undergraduate Experience) and the University of Oklahoma this summer. The REU program is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) . He'll be working in a lab at the University on a research project all summer.

Now I'm not sure that Oklahoma was his first choice, but he applied to quite a few of them all over the country. And they can be really hard to get, so we are really excited for him! One of his professors taught there for a while and says that he will be in for a warm summer.

The downside of course is that he'll be gone for 9 weeks. He leaves the end of May and won't return until the end of July. I'm going to try and fly out to Norman, OK to visit him for a week or so around the 4th of July. Probably wasn't my first choice for a summer vacation - but I'm sure glad that I it is where I'll be going because it means Mike has this GREAT opportunity!

Kittens!

Yep - we got kittens. I am please to introduce you to Dexter (grey kitten) and CJ ( white & grey tabby).


They like to sleep all intertwined on our chair, its pretty darn cute!! Dexter is 6 weeks older than CJ, but they are about the same size. They both have such funny & different personalities.

Dexter is kind of 'the boss' of the two. He's not much for being held, but he will curl up on your lap and sleep for hours on end. He loves playing with toys, chasing toy mice, chasing ropes, and of course wrestling with CJ. I've never been around a cat that was as vocal either. He just talks to us all the time. It just cracks Mike and I up!

CJ has quite a personility, he just discovered the joys of toy mice, but give him a basket, box, bag, he's in heaven. He likes being held and curling up in your lap to sleep. But if he wants to play... he's been know to give a little nip at you as well. On the upside, he nips VERY slowly so he never actually makes contact with you, it's kinda funny. Here is CJ hanging out in a shopping bag.

He would not get out of the bag, even when we picked it up and moved it! To funny. We are enjoying our new kittens!!

Movin & Groovin

Triathlon - I finished the swimming pretty easily, no surprise there. And I have finished the running as well, but the bike... ah the bike.... I dread the bike... I've biked a total of about 60 miles... so I really do have 52 left to go. I haven't biked in a few weeks, so maybe I should start again. I think I might enjoy the bike better if I had a real bike and didn't have to use a stationary one at the gym (however that might just be an excuse). Mike on the other hand is awesome!! He finished the whole triathlon in 28 days!!! Unfortunately this whole thing was sponsored by the triathlon club here at Univ. of Idaho and they seem to have disbanded midway through the program - so no T-Shirt or awards celebration... but hey it got us moving!!

Speaking of getting moving - Mike and I ran in a 5k with some friends on Saturday! Neither Mike or I had done anything like this before so it was really a great experience!! Mike hung out and ran with me, we finished in 38 min 17 seconds -- Yeah! We probably ran 2/3 of it, so next time we'll try to run the whole thing!

We had a blast too, I won a nice cap in a raffle, Mike won a long sleeve T-shirt and of course we got the race t-shirts. It was actually sunny and I got a little pink on my nose, but boy does the wind blow out here!!

There is another run in a couple of weeks we are thinking about doing. I can't imagine with Mike's back/hip problems and my horrible knee we'll ever become 'runners' but I do really enjoy getting out for these shorter runs!

Oh - and if you look closely at our friends John & Kelly's (#196) feet -- they have these really cool, barefoot running shoes. The are supposed to allow them to run barefoot like, but still protect their feet. They were quite the topic of conversation.

Mike just had his 35th birthday -- but I haven't uploaded the pictures yet, so I'll do that soon! And tell you all about it. -- Have a great week everyone!