Bronco Victory!

What. A. Game.  I know it's been almost a week now since Boise State beat Virginia Tech in the season opener at the Washington Redskins stadium, but I'm still thinking about how awesome the game was.  With over 86,000 fans in the stadium, the energy and excitement were off the charts.  I have never been to a game that big, and I had the best time... especially considering my Broncos pulled off a 33-30 win with a perfect touchdown pass the last minute of the game (isn't Kellen so cool under pressure!)!  It was also great to cheer on the Blue with my Virginia friends - Drew, Corinne, and Tim.  Thanks for coming to the game with me guys!  I had the best time!!!

More to come later on the rest of my DC trip (I just got back in town at 11pm last night).  For now, I'll leave you with my favorite picture of the trip!

Ponderosa State Park and Pancake House

I went camping with the Mountain View Branch this last weekend up in McCall at Ponderosa State Park... yes, this was my third camping trip in four weeks!  I couldn't leave until after work, so Emily and I got up there kind of late on Friday evening, but enjoyed good food and great company as we sat around the campfire chatting away.

Saturday morning, a handful of us got up bright and early to grab breakfast at Pancake House.  Gotta love those plate-sized cinnamon rolls and pancakes!

Lance, me, Emily, Carsten, Lindsay, and McKay

We got back to camp just after 8:00 because Lance and McKay were in charge of making breakfast for everyone!  Emily made Deidre a plate-sized pancake since she missed out on the Pancake House... I'm sure it was almost as good :-)

After breakfast, a handful of us decided to head out on a hike to a lookout over Payette Lake.  Emily, Sam, and I ran the trail (about 3.5 miles each way).  It actually felt good to be out running, but boy were my hips were sore on Sunday!  I have decided I'm starting a running regimen back up!

We ended the afternoon with lunch and some card games, then stopped in Donnelly and Rosebury on the way back home.  Thanks for letting me tag along with you guys this weekend!

College Game Day Commercial

Check out Coach Pete on this College Game Day commercial!!  Can't wait for Bronco football!!!

The Ten-to-Six Experiment

A couple weeks ago, Jen, Brooke, and I decided to try something new... going to bed at 10:00 pm and getting up at 6:00 am.  Eight straight hours of sleep a night.  We decided to try this for one month.  We would be a little lenient on weekends - like maybe 11-7, or even 12-8, but making sure we're not going to bed excessively late and that we're still getting in 8 hours of sleep (not less, not more!).

Well, the going to bed at 10:00 has been decently easy for me.  It definitely has been weird when I've had something going in the evenings (like tonight - I just got home from visiting teaching at 9:30) and thinking I don't have time to do much before it's bed time.  I previously had given myself a 10:30 bedtime (which meant I was usually in bed between 11 and 11:30!)... but it's been good to be disciplined and just go to bed instead of dawdling away my evening.

The mornings have been a little harder for me.  I have always loved my sleep, and pushed it to the last minute to get up.  I was even to the point where sometimes I would get up at 7:15, when I needed to be across town for work at 8:00!  But I have been doing well most mornings, getting up pretty close to my 6:00 am wake up call.  And it has been wonderful!  I am not rushed in the mornings.  I have had time to eat breakfast, make my lunch, clean the kitchen, do laundry, harvest my garden, etc.  I've even been to work early almost every single day.  I feel like my mornings have gone so much smoother, helping start me off on the right foot for the day.  And I've felt so productive!  Even on weekends, I've been doing better.  Take Sunday for example - I have 2:00 church right now (I know, that sucks!), so it was easy to really sleep in.  Sometimes I felt like I slept away my entire morning.  Well this Sunday I was up around 7:00 am, and rode bikes around downtown with Jen, enjoying the beautiful Sunday morning.  I was home and changed and was able to finish a book I was reading before church.

So our experiment isn't over yet.  We're only about 2 1/2 weeks in to our month.  But I've felt good, and I plan to continue with this routine.  So here's to a good rest of the month, and to one more healthy lifestyle change!

Second Shower

The other morning I was driving to work on my motorcycle and got a second shower when the car in front of me on the Connector decided to spray windshield washer fluid as they were driving down the road.  This isn't the first time this has happened to me.  At those speeds (well at most speeds actually), there's nothing I can do but get covered by the overspray.  So just a friendly request... if there's a motorcycle on the road behind you, will you please spray your washer fluid while you are stopped instead of when you are driving down the road???  It's not like I have windshield wipers on my face mask!  Thanks!

Quote of the Day

"I am fulfilled by my own life on an hourly basis." ~Julia Roberts

I love this line.  I want to live my life so I can say the same thing.

Life is All About Memories

I decided that one of the reasons we are here living on this earth is to create memories.  How boring would life be without those happy, funny, sad, scary, proud moments in our lives?  And without important people to share them with?  Beki and I certainly made memories together this weekend!

Beki and I had been planning to hike Mt. Borah this weekend for what seems like forever.  Unfortunately, everyone in our group dropped out, but we still wanted to do something to fill our weekend.  I plotted a trip for us to explore the touristy areas in south-central Idaho, and we set out Friday night after work.

The trip started out well.  Beki and I jammed out to music as we made the 2 1/2 hour trip westward.  As we got to Shoshone, and saw that the ice caves were only 16 miles away (the first stop I had planned for Saturday morning), I started to worry.  Where the heck were we going to camp?  All I could see for miles and miles was flat, sagebrush covered land.  I guess I should have already been a little leery when I googled "shoshone ice caves camping" and nothing came up... but the website did say the caves were near the Sawtooth National Forest, so I thought we wouldn't have any problems finding a camping spot.  Beki and I joked about which sagebrush plant we wanted to camp by.  A few miles past the caves, though, we saw a sign for Magic Reservoir, and it had several pictures indicating the amenities, including a boat and an RV.  Perfect - we decided if there was a place for RVs, then we could definitely camp at the reservoir.

Shortly after we got to the reservoir, we eyed a spot up on a hill that looked like a campsite.  As we were driving along the road to the site, we laughed because the GPS showed us driving on water.  We were completely on dry land!  We even took a picture because we thought it was funny.  Well, less than a minute after taking the picture, we were stuck in the mud - where did that mud come from???  Guess it wasn't as dry as we thought (come to find out later, the area we were driving on was covered with water only two weeks ago!).

Beki and I were resourceful and pulled out our camping shovels to dig out the mud and placed some wood under our tires in an effort to get unstuck.  No such luck.  A few minutes later, a man came walking by - he said he was stuck just on the other side of the hill.  We all decided to walk to town (a mile or so away) to see if we could get help.  Beki grabbed the shrimp and brownies she had brought us for dinner to take into town in case we got hungry... only the shrimp juice spilled in her purse all over the brownies so we had shrimp-flavored brownies!  Not the tastiest thing you've ever eaten.  You probably had to be there, but it was pretty hilarious :-)

We didn't even make it all the way to town before a couple men (one in a truck, one on a four-wheeler) from town came out to see if they could help us.  They said they had been watching us the entire time from their telescope (Beki had already decided before this that we were in part of a horror movie, and this only solidified her concerns)!  The men said people get stuck out there all the time.  To make a long story short, the truck that tried to help us out got stuck (you seriously got stuck in like an inch and a half of mud), and two more trucks of people and another four-wheeler came out with rope and chains and we were finally successfully pulled out of the mud.  I think the entire town of West Magic was there enjoying the show!  We drove up to the higher ground where we saw the campsite two hours after we arrived at the reservoir!

Beki and I had a great night laughing and laughing about the adventure we had had and talked about the nice people of West Magic who spent their Friday night helping us for free (thanks Jim, Jerry, Mike, Heather, Gordon, and Varmit!).  We ate dinner and made smores and were happy there was a bathroom right by our campsite :-)

The next morning we took a couple pictures before we headed out for our next set of adventures.

The leftover mud on my Blazer

See - I told you we were driving on a "road"!

Next stop was a private guided tour of the Shoshone Ice Caves (it's amazing how the cave can stay so cold in the middle of the desert!) followed by a self-tour of the Mammoth Cave.  We were given lanterns to take through the Mammoth Cave - which was 50 feet high and 50 feet wide in some places... It was so gigantic - I wished there wasn't a designated path because I would have loved to explore the rest of the cave!

The final stop on our adventure was the Little City of Rocks (which I had a hard time finding and almost turned around about 100 feet before the entrance - so glad I didn't!).  Beki and I had a blast climbing all over the rocks.  We even named our favorites: The Challenger, The Sisters, The Lookout, The Crack, The Cave, The Porthole, and The Face :-)  We took TONS of pictures on the rocks.  Here are a few of my favorites:

We made it back to Boise safe and sound, and with 22 hours of laughter and memories.  Here's to our next memory-making adventure!