Lunch Ride

Greg, Ross, and I enjoyed a quick ride over to Red Robin for lunch today. I thought we should ride to the Red Robin in Nampa, but decided my boss might not like us to take a 2 hour lunch! Even though it was a short ride, it was still fun to get out and ride with my coworkers. We should ride on our lunch breaks more often! Here's a pic of our bikes at the restaurant. My bike is the one in the back... it still looks kinda small compared to the boys' bikes, but not near as little as my Rebel looked next to their bikes!

Market Meal

I made my first trip of the year to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. Tyler, Jen, and I rode bikes downtown and then met up with Jared once we got there. I know I've said this before, but I absolutely love the Market! I love supporting local farmers and artists, I love people-watching, I love sampling all the food. This time I came prepared with a backpack so I would have a way to carry all my food home... and I definitely needed it! Here's what I purchased:

• Marionberries - these were huge and super sweet... we ate them right then for breakfast!
• Tart apple chunks with cinnamon & sugar - this dried fruit is one of my market staples. I buy a package every time I visit the market!
• Harry's Teriyaki Sauce - This teriyaki sauce is sweet and oh so good. So far I've only tried it over rice, but I think it will be a delicious salmon marinade.
  
• Romaine Lettuce - I bought lettuce from one of the local farmers so I could make a salad
• Spinach and Artichoke ravioli - This ravioli by Ferranti Pasta is fabulous. Last year I bought some of their salmon ravioli which was the best ravioli I had ever had!
  
• Whole Grain Bread - I love Great Harvest bread, so I couldn't pass this up...
• And I had to buy a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade!

I decided I wanted to make a meal with only fresh ingredients from the market and my garden. This is a picture of my dinner last night... ...the lemon plates are a bit distracting, but you get the idea. I tossed the ravioli with some olive oil, fresh tomatoes from my garden, and some sauteed eggplant from Kate's garden (Kate joined me for dinner). We topped the salad with a pepper and some broccoli from Kate's garden and tomatoes and onions from my garden. And we made garlic bread with the bread from the market. So fresh and so delicious!

Get Out Your Kleenex!

I have never gotten into So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD). From what I gather, it is a reality show similar to American Idol, but for dancers. Last night, I went over to Erin's house to watch a movie. As we waited for everyone to show up, we watched part of an episode of SYTYCD from earlier this week. There are only 8 dancers left, so I thought they were all good, but one of the dances particularly touched me... so much so that I was moved to tears! I have never felt emotion from a dance before as I felt last night watching SYTYCD. This video is almost 8 minutes long... it's got a short intro explaining that the piece is about breast cancer, then the dance is only a couple minutes, followed by comments from the judges. Watch it - you won't be disappointed!

I'm an aunt again!

Tanner James Harris was born last night, making me an aunt again! Congrats to Mandi (who only had to push for like 2 minutes!) and TJ! Tanner is a beautiful little boy and I can't wait to watch him grow :-)

Dining Downtown

I love eating in downtown Boise and trying new restaurants. This week I was excited to try out Bar Gernika. Bar Gernika is on the Basque block (I guess Boise has one of the larger Basque populations in the US), and is just this tiny little bar/restaurant that I've never seemed to notice before. In fact, I had never heard of it until it was featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. I have a Leadership Meeting over lunch once a month with the Registrar (Kris) and the other Associate Registrar (Steve), and was excited when Steve suggested we go to Bar Gernika for this month's meeting spot. I decided I'm not a huge lamb fan, but the croquetas were amazing! Wanna see what the restaurant is like? Check out this video:

Making Connections

As I've mentioned before, one of my goals this year was to get more involved, including joining professional organizations. I started attending monthly BYU Management Society meetings in January. The meetings have been enjoyable - everyone is friendly and the speakers are interesting, but I've honestly felt a little out of place. Almost everyone else who attends the meetings are men in suits, most of which are old enough to be my dad or grandpa... not that that's a bad thing, I just didn't feel like I quite fit in. I was excited at one of the luncheons earlier this year to meet Melanie. I guess we technically met (although I didn't remember it!) in 1998 at BYU where Melanie helped a girl who lived in my dorm hall with her homework once a week (or something like that). It has been fun to get acquainted with Melanie over the past few months, and we've been able to get together a couple times to just hang out. She is really cool and we get along well. I've wondered if maybe I joined BYU Management Society just so I could meet Melanie :-)

Here we are one evening last month enjoying dinner at Good Thyme Grille, a small restaurant where my friend Stephanie works.

A Weekend of Theater

This was definitely a theater weekend for me! Last night I volunteered at the Shakespeare Festival with BYP. They only had us help out before the show, at intermission, and after the show, so during the show, we got to sit on the hillside and watch the play. Last night's show was The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The play was based on Charles Dickens' final novel. Dickens died before the novel was finished, which made for a very fun play - since there's no set ending, the audience got to vote on a couple of the key decisions at the end... kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book :-) Anyway, the play was excellent, and it was fun to meet more BYP members. I love the Shakespeare Festival - I hope to make it back again later this summer!

Tonight my ward went up to Starlight Mountain Theater. I love going up to Starlight (probably because I love Garden Valley!) Here's a picture of Jen, me, and Tyler at intermission.

The play tonight was The Boyfriend - it wasn't my favorite play I've seen there :-( The best part of the night was seeing my brick! Last year I donated money to help out the theater, and this was my first time back up, so I was excited to find my special inscription!