Congrats Camille!

Just wanted to say congratulations to my friend Camille who was married this evening. The ceremony was pretty, the bride was beautiful, and the food (catered Hawaiian and Costco cheesecake) was delish! I wish you both the best!

Biking and Bagels

Katrina is my mountain biking buddy :-) I can always count on her when I want to go on a Saturday morning ride in the beautiful Boise foothills (and on her husband to watch their kids - thanks Matt!). I have been wanting to go mountain biking for a couple months now, but the weather in Boise has been so weird this year. It was like we had three winters. Just when we thought spring was here for good, the the wind and the rain and the 40 degree temperatures would come back. Ugh! Well, now that it's almost summer, we are having some beautiful weather! Katrina and I took advantage of the sunshine and took our bikes out on the trails this morning. We stopped and took this picture along the way - can you see beautiful Boise in the background?!

This is our third season of riding together, and we started a new tradition today - biking and bagels! We decided that after each of our rides that we would stop at a local bagel shop and split a bagel as a "reward" for working so hard on the trails :-)

Office Remodel

For the last six or so months, our office at work has been under construction. That's what happens when the University President's office moves upstairs and the new emergency exit stairs come right through the middle of the office! In order to fit everyone back into our office, almost all of the hard walls were removed to make way for extra cubicles. I was lucky, and was able to keep my private office (I only had a short stint that I stayed in a temporary cubicle). The best part of the remodel for me was that I got new carpet, new paint (I love the warm beige color!), and new hardwood blinds! And they even cleaned my windows :-)

Bike Riding

I've made some great new friends lately that have some of my same interests. One of the things I have been doing more is bike riding (I'm still trying to convince them to come mountain biking with me). We rode down to the Farmer's Market again this morning... this time I rode all the way from my house which is about 21 miles round trip. I think we'll ride to Barber Park for one of our next rides, and eventually to Lucky Peak and back (about 50 miles round trip). I've definitely been enjoying my summer so far! This picture is of us chilling in a downtown bagel shop before our ride home.

Opa!

Last night some friends and I attended the annual Greek Food Festival at the local Greek Orthodox Church. It was a blast! I had a delicious gyro and tried a couple of yummy desserts that I have no idea how to spell or pronounce. We also watched some Greek dancing and got a tour of the church. I learned a lot about the Greek Orthodox Church in the short tour - they like a lot of incense, their churches have lots of pictures or decorations, and only men are allowed in the room where the alter is at the front of the church. One of my favorite things I learned was about Easter - in the Greek Orthodox Church, they dye eggs, but only the color red (to symbolize Christ's blood).

Here's a picture of some of the kids who were in the dance group. They encouraged the crowd to yell "Opa" while the dancers performed, and throw them money :-)

Training for a 5k

So I've read on a few of my friends blogs lately how they are running and training for marathons or half marathons... Well, I'm training for a 5k :-) You see, I've never been much of a runner. I get tired and out of breath quickly when I am running, and that's not what I call fun. I've never actually run an entire race without walking some (well, maybe like a mile race, but that's it). I've done longer races - 5ks, 10ks, and even a half marathon, but each race has involved at least some walking. A group of friends and I decided that we want to run an entire 5k. To many, I'm sure that would be a piece of cake. For me, I'm hoping to be there in September for the Women's Fitness Celebration.

So a couple weeks ago, my friends and I met with Werner Hoeger, who talked to us about training for races. He even put together a custom training schedule for us so we would be ready to run the Women's Fitness Celebration! We are training 4 days a week, and started out super easy. For example, last Wednesday, we walked 10 minutes, then jogged a lap, walked a lap, jogged a lap, and ended with a 5 minute walk. Today we ramped up a bit and jogged two laps in a row in the middle. By mid-August, we'll be up to jogging 12 laps in a row (5k distance). So, that's my plan. I'd also like to do Barber to Boise in October (10k), and maybe even to Zeitgeist again in November (half marathon). Guess we'll see how ambitious I feel this fall :-)

Stomp!

On Saturday I attended the performance Stomp. I had actually never heard of Stomp before, but a group of my old Albertsons coworkers were going and invited me to go with them. It was absolutely fabulous! The group uses everyday items such as brooms, water jugs, a sink full of soapy dishes, etc. to make amazing percussion ensembles. We had awesome seats in the Morrison Center (right in the center of row B!), and I loved watching the facial expressions of the different performers. Each of the performers played a different role, from ring leader, to wacky guy, to the stupid guy that nobody really liked. Even though not a single word was spoken during the entire show, the performers totally told a story, and it was hilarious! If you ever get the chance to see Stomp, I completely recommend it... Even the cute little 2 year old boy in front of us enjoyed the show!

Here's a clip from a different tour that I found on YouTube. We had different performers and a different stage setup, but you get the idea!