First and Second float of the season down the Boise River

So because I work for dentists who like to take time off during holiday weekends, I got to have some extra time off this week. Wednesday Me, Annie, and Heidi decided we wanted to float the river. With some persuading, we convinced Heather to put her school books away to come with us and she invited Matt along as well. It was a perfect day for floating because it was nice and hot outside and there wasn't a massive hoard of people floating that day. Annie bought a 4 man raft that us four girls sat in and Matt was in Heather's one man raft. Everything was going good until we got to the second "water fall" (not quite sure what the correct term is for the Boise River, cause it's not a water fall, but it's not really a rapid either.) Heather and Annie were working the oars and Heidi and I were in the middle relaxing. We didn't quite navigate the rocks as well as we thought we had and we ended up going right over a big huge rock. Heidi and I tried to lift our butts, but the rock was just too big. Poor Heidi got hit pretty hard on her tailbone. Then Heather and Annie had themselves a good laugh as Heidi and I were bailing water out of the raft. Heather and Matt decided to switch rafts, so then Matt was in the raft with Me, Annie, and Heidi and Heather was in the one man raft. There were a few times that we just about had some run ins with the trees cause Annie would tell Matt to paddle and he would paddle for about two seconds and then stare off like he was watching a butterfly. All the while the rest of us are still telling him to keep paddling. Overall we had a good time and no major injuries which is always a good thing. Thursday I ended up working, but got off at 1, so Me, Annie, and Heidi decided we should float the river again. This time we parked our car at Ann Morrison and took the shuttle up to Barber Park instead of taking two cars. It wasn't a bad ride, but it was really hot and crammed full of sweaty people. It was nice to not have to drive all the way back to Barber Park to pick up a second car though. This time Annie and Heidi were the navigators of the raft, mostly Heidi and Annie would jump in every now and then when the steering required two people. They did a great job and Heidi said it's because their "profesh" :) The water felt really good because it was in the 100's that day, but it was still cold enough that I'm glad I wasn't in a tube otherwise my butt would have been numb. Everything was good again, until that second "waterfall." This time we were better prepared to watch out for the rocks, however, there was a big group of teenagers in tubes in front of us and instead of getting out of the way so we could navigate ourselves through the rocks and the huge tree hanging over the edge of the river, they just sat there and went with the flow. So because of this, they threw us off course and we didn't have much choice but to run into the tree. I think that "waterfall" has it out for Heidi, cause she was the one on that edge and got knocked into the boat. Fortunately she wasn't hurt and the raft didn't even get a scratch on it. The rest of the trip was smooth sailing and I think we're all looking forward to the next trip down the river.

Brian Regan

Me, Heather, Sheena, Brandon, and Annie went to Brian Regan at the Morrison center and we had ourselves a good time. The guy that opened for him was Kermet Apio and he was hilarious. Some of the best jokes were the ones he did about cops. Brandon kept leaning forward to look at Annie to see her reaction. One of the funniest ones was when he talked about how there is no law that says how long it has to take you to find your license, when it's the dead of winter, and freezing cold outside. We got to listen to Kermet for about a half hour and then Brian Regan for an hour and 15 minutes. My jaw was so sore from laughing. I love listening to Brian Regan because the stuff that he talkes about is so true, and his stuff his just good clean humor. The best part was getting to see his facial expressions which adds to the humor of it all. One of my favorite jokes he did was when he talked about signing a mortgage for a house and all of the papers he had to sign. He started saying are you stealing from me? Will I actually own anything when I'm done? Are you taking something from me that should legally be mine? It was a good night out with friends and totally worth the money for a good clean 2 hours of laughter.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

So last week my friend Annie and I went to a Boise Hawks game and we had a blast! Annie's Aunt and Uncle have season tickets to the game and were not able to go opening night, so they gave Annie the tickets. (Thanks Aunt Sue and Uncle Bill!) So because Annie's Aunt and Uncle have season tickets, they have their own parking spot with their name on it, and they also have their names on their seats. The best part was that they have really good seats, second row from the field right next to the other teams dug out. It was a great game with the Hawks winning by one point with a home run. Then they had their fireworks show, which is always fun cause I love fireworks! Here are some photos of the fun we had.

Humphry the Hawk
Reggy the Purple Party Dude doing the charleston with one of the other teams players
Hawks up to bat
They had a race with some fans dressed up as a potato, a fry, and a tater tot. The potato won.

Greek Food Festival

So for the last 3 years that I have lived in Boise, every year at the beginning of June I always see some kind of event going on at the Greek Orthodox Church. My roommates and I have always wondered what was going on, and we could tell there was food involved, so of course we wanted to be a part of it. Well this year we finally figured out what was going on, the annual Greek Food Festival. The church holds the festival as a fundraiser and a way to share their culture. There was Greek music as well as Greek Dancers for entertainment. Instead of dealing with a bunch of cash to pay for the food, there is a booth at the front of the church where you buy tokens (pictured below) with values of 50 cents, $5, $10. Me, Heather, Brandon, Sheena and Matt all went and enjoyed some good eats. Then we headed to the basement of the church where they had all their pastries set up and they were delicious. We had a good time and I look forward to next years festival.

Food token
My yummy gyro
Sinking my teeth into my gyro
Matt, Heather, Brandon, and Sheena having a good time
The Greek Orthodox Church

So sorry...

I know, I know it's been a while since I've posted and now I'm getting scolded over e-mail. :) So here it is an update post. Enjoy.

Last weekend I went camping in Brownlee with Annie and her family. Every year around this time they get together with friends and camp and fish for the weekend. If you've never been to Brownlee, it's about 2 1/2 hours North West of Boise, right on the border of Oregon. The campground was very nice, clean, and well taken care of. There is a big huge reservoir there for fishing and boating and a mix of RV/Tent camping spots. It was a lot of fun for the first camping trip of the season, but I have to say that it was also the coldest camping trip I've ever been on. It really wouldn't have been so bad if the wind hadn't been blowing, but we still had an enjoyable time. We got up there Thursday around 7:30 and set up the tent, then enjoyed some delicious lasagna for dinner and some much needed time around the camp fire. We also got to have some yummy s'mores made by Aunt Sue for dessert, and I'm not gonna lie, I went back for seconds. When we decided to call it a night one of the couples there offered their extra sleeping bag to us and I willing accepted. I'm so glad that I did too because it's possible that I would have frozen to death without it. :) I guess I should mention, that Annie and I were the only ones sleeping in a tent at this point of the trip, everyone else was snuggled up all cozy in their RVs. Friday we did some fishing with Annie's cousin Lisa and her husband Brian, the water was really choppy and I had about 10 layers of clothes on. Brian is the only one that had any luck with catching a fish and we stayed out for a couple of hours before heading back to camp. Because it was so cold, we decided to hang out in the tent where we would at least be protected from the cold and Annie proceeded to beat me, more than once, at the game frog juice. I finally threw in the towel, cause I just couldn't take the humiliation anymore. :) That night we had a yummy potluck dinner. There was so much good food, I just wanted to keep eating and eating. My favorites of the night were Aunt Sue's yummy green rice and Lisa's pistachio jello salad. Mmmm. After dinner we hung out in Aunt Sue and Uncle Bill's RV cause it was just too cold to be outside. It was a lot of fun. They are two of the coolest people you will ever meet. They are always good for a laugh and they both have the most infectious laughs, that you just can't help but join in. As we were headed to bed we were informed that we would be going fishing at 7:30 the next morning, which caused to me to think "What are you nuts?" I mean fishing was enjoyable and all, but not when it's ridiculously cold outside and in the wee hours of the morning. I so did not want to wake up the next morning when we had our wake up call at 7 AM. I loaded on the layers again and we got back out on the water and stood around for about an hour and a half, freezing, trying to catch a fish. I don't know that I was doing any good anyway, because my hands were shaking so bad. :) One good thing did come out of it though. Annie caught a double tagged fish and according to Brian she can mail the tags in and get some money for them. Not sure why or how that works. When we were done fishing, we had to pack everything up so we could drive back to Boise. Go figure that today would be the day that it was nice and sunny and warm and no wind. We also had to miss out on what was going to be a delicious lunch with more of Aunt Sue's good home cooking, and the much anticipated fish fry later that night. We got in a game of Yahtzee before we had to take off. It was the first time I've ever played and I have to say that it was a pretty fun game. I totally stink at it, but I'm glad that I could make everyone else feel better about their scores by being the low end of the totem pole. And Aunt Sue didn't have to eat her words, she won the game just like she told Annie and I she would. Sorry for the lack of pictures from the trip, but it seriously was super cold and I just didn't want to take my hands out of my pockets. :)

This is a view from the boat, waiting for the anchor to take hold. Isn't it beautiful? I don't know if you can see from the picture, but the water was really low.

Funny little sign on the way up one of the trails.

So this next picture, obviously is not from the camping trip. :) It's old news really, about a couple of months old, but I got a new book shelf and I absolutely love it. Even though it's just a cheepy one from Target, I still love it. I also love the fact that it's big enough to hold all of my books. I know it doesn't compare to your collection of books Allison and Jeff, but come on, there are two of you and only one of me. :) None the less, it was a welcomed addition to my room and a much needed purchase that I'm glad I made.

And last, but certainly not least in my attempt to update my blog. I finally got my Switzerland books printed! Yeah! I know, you're thinking, didn't you go to Switzerland 6 months ago, and you just now got your pictures printed? Yes, I did and I have to say, it's not my fault it took so long. :) So when I went to Switzerland and was staying at my Aunt Susy and Uncle Bruno's house, my cousin Dani was showing me a picture book she had made of her trip to Greece. She had used an online publishing website that lets upload your pictures, then you choose from a bunch of different themes for your book, then you choose the layout you want for each page. The website is called mypublisher.com and now that I have my books finished, I have to say that I absolutely love this website and I'm so glad that I had my pictures printed up this way. I actually had these books finished about a month after I got home, after I had moved stuff around on my computer, gotten an external hard drive so I would have room for all my pictures on my computer, downloaded the program, uploaded my pictures, organized and captioned the book the way I wanted it. I had to make two because of all the pictures that I took, and if you're thinking, "how on earth could you possibly take that many pictures in a weeks worth of time?" Well, when you love taking pictures, and you're in a beautiful place like Switzerland, you just can't help but be a little snap happy. Anyway, whenever I tried to order the books, it kept taking me to a page saying that it was processing my order, but that it would take a few minutes, but then it would never do anything. It also never gave me a spot to put my address in, or billing information. Needless to say, I gave up and kind of pushed it to the back of my mind. Occasionally it would creep back to the front and I would give it another shot, but always to the same conclusion. Then my mom had mentioned that Costco had an online photo publishing thing they were doing and that I should look into it. I admit I never did, only because the thought of having to start all over from square one was not appealing to me in the least bit. So again, the books were pushed aside, life went on, my office cruise came and went and still the books weren't made. Then one of the hygienists that I work with was asking for some formal pictures of me and Colette from the cruise so that she could make them into a photo book that she was doing through Costco. I started asking her if she knew what company they were using, but she didn't know. So I went online and finally checked it out and it turns out that it is the same website I was using. Of course then the books are screaming at me to be finished and I had to give it another go. This time around though when I went to open the application, it prompted me to download the lasted version before I could continue. So I did and that was the solution. As soon as I did that, it let me print my books and a week later they were on my doorstep! The other cool thing is that I had some coupons that they had e-mailed me to buy one get a copy of the same book free. Which I thought was perfect because now I can send the copies of the two books to my Grandma Bitsch, which I think she will really enjoy. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be price wise either. I got two books for $75 and both books had 72 pages. They turned out really nice and I absolutely love love love them. I can't wait to get some of my other pictures printed up this way.

Back from the CARIBBEAN MAN!

Sorry it's taken so long to post this, but I got sick after we got home and didn't really have the motivation to post as quickly as I would have liked to.

So I was lucky enough to go on a week long cruise with the office that I work for. It's the doctors way of saying thank you for all the hard work that we do. We went to the Eastern Caribbean and stopped in Nassau, Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten, both are part of the U.S. Virgin Islands. We flew out from Boise on the 15th of February and I have a really embarassing story to share about that. So I stayed up way too late Thursday night trying to pack and make sure I had everything ready for my trip and didn't get to bed until 2:30. I had set my alarm for 5 in the morning, but when it went off I decided I needed just a few more minutes of sleep. I thought that I had reset my alarm for 5:10, but apparently didnt, because I got a text from Annie at 6:20 that woke me up. Panic mode set in and I was running around the house trying to shower, finish throwing the rest of my stuff in my bag and waking Heather up to take me to the airport. Needless to say I got to the airport at 7:32 and the lady at the counter said I was too late and couldn't get on the plane. Then she proceded to scold me, "why weren't you here on time, you have to be at the airport 30 minutes before the plane leaves, etc." Like I'm the first person to ever sleep through their alarm and get to the airport late. So now I'm getting frustrated and starting to cry, thinking that I'm going to get left behind and I'm not going to make it to Florida to get on the cruise. Fortunately there was another lady at the counter that was a little nicer, and they got me booked on standby for the next flight. I had to call Heather to come back and pick me up because the plane wasn't leaving until 2:00 p.m. And as if that wasn't bad enough, when Heather and I were driving home, around 8:15 or so, the plane that I was supposed to be on, that was supposed to leave at 8, was still sitting at the airport! I kept in touch with Stacy throughout the day to let her know what was going on with me. When I got to Minneapolis I went to the counter to double check that I had been put on the standby list to Orlando, and what do you know, I wasn't. So I explained to the lady my situation and what I had already been through, and bless this sweet woman, she took pity on me and bumped me up to first class! I could have hugged her! I still had to wait in the airport forever though because the flight had been pushed back and we had to change gates 2 times. I finally flew out of Minneapolis around 9 at night. It was great to be in first class though, I got to get on the plane first, was actually served a meal instead of having to pay $2-5 for a snack back in coach and I had plenty of leg room to stretch and sleep and I got to get off the plane first. :) I got into Orlando around 12:30, had to wait 30 minutes for my luggage, and then called the hotel to have the shuttle come and pick me up. About 1:45 a.m. I still hadn't seen the shuttle so I called the hotel again and was finally picked up around 2:15. Then the driver said the hotel didn't even tell him that there was someone there to pick up! I got to the hotel at 2:30 and when I went to check in the lady said she couldn't find me in the system! I so did not want to deal with this right now. I had to pull out my hotel voucher to prove that I was supposed to have a room there, told her who I was rooming with, and then finally she found my name. When I saw everyone the next morning when we were getting ready to take the shuttle to the ship, they all hugged me and said, "oh our lost sheep finally made it, we're so glad, we were so worried!" It's nice to be loved. :) I'm never going to live it down though. So here's some pictures from my trip, enjoy!

Hanging out in the hotel lobby, waiting for the shuttle to pick us up.

Me, Natalie, Colette, and Stacy

Everyone's so excited to be getting on the ship. Sorry it's blurry, we were moving.

Marilyn, Kenney, Krissy, and Dr. Moss

The water slide on the ship. It's not as fun when you have salt water splashing in your eyes and mouth.

Getting ready to set sail!

Colette, Stacy, and Me

Anyone recognize this building? It's the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida.
Waiting to be instructed on the safety procedures.

Colette, Stacy, and Me

Get your own Stacy!

Enjoying a nice walk on the deck, sippin on my virgin pina colada, waiting for the ship to leave.

First sunset on the boat. It was so beautiful!
First night on the boat. It was super windy, but we had a good time walking on the deck.
Welcome to the BAHAMAS!
Anne, Colette, Me, and Marilyn

Colette and I taking the ferry over to Atlantis.

Aquarium at Atlantis
Don't you wish you could live here?

Who knew I would find Switzerland in the Bahamas?

View of the Bahamas from the ship, Atlantis is in the distance.
Our first formal night.

Colette, Me, Stacy, Jason

Dr. Hess and his wife Tammy

Dr. Moss and his wife Krissy
The whole group on formal night.

L-R front row: Krissy, Tammy, Michelle, Marilyn, Anne, Stacy, Me, Colette, Ellen, Jackie, Debbie, Natalie, Courtney, Sherry.

back row: Dr. Moss, Dr. Hess, Caleb, Kenney, Brian, Jason, Jake, Phil, Hunter, George, Chip, Andy, Tony, Randy

Stacy and Jason

Me, Colette, Marilyn, and Kenney. Trying to get some sun, but it was really cold and windy.

Dinner time! Mmmmm!

L-R: Kenney, Marilyn, Brian, Anne, Jason, Stacy, Me, and Colette

Our Elephant towel animal. When the cabin stewards turn down the beds, they leave little towel animals. This is one of the few that you could actually tell what it was.

St. Thomas.

We took a gondola ride up to the top of the mountain for this view, and it was amazing. Such a beautiful island.

In the gazebo at the top of the mountain. Me and Colette
There was a parrot show with all these parrots performing tricks. There was one riding a bike and another one that was racing to put rings on a pole. It was so cute to watch.
Another view of St. Thomas and our ship. Ours is the one in the middle.
Me, Stacy, and Jason, snorkeling at Coki beach.
Taking the taxi back to the ship. The drivers on all of these islands are crazy! They also drive on the opposite side of the road on Nassau and on St. Thomas.

Our taxi driver stopped to give us a photo op. The island of St. John is in the distance.
Sunset at St. Thomas, getting ready to set sail for St. Maarten
Colette, Stacy, and Me
The lights of St. Thomas
There was a show every night after dinner. They had singing and dancing, a magic show, a couple of comedians, and a talent show that guest performed in. This was us waiting for the magic show to start. The guy was kind of cheesy, and he totally messed up one of his tricks, it was pretty funny.
First view of St. Maarten. We docked on the Dutch side of the island, the other side is French.
Me and Colette
Driving to the beach!
Welcome to Baie Rouge Beach! This is on the French side of the island. It was fun to hear people speaking in French.
I could have stayed on this beach all day.
This was supposed to be a non nude beach, but there were quite a few people who were not following that rule. Needless to say, we saw way more flesh than we wanted to. :(

Taking the taxi downtown to do some shopping.
Me, Stacy, Marilyn, Colette, and Jason

Getting back on the ship. Ours is the one on the right.
Colette, Me, and Stacy

Stacy, Me, and Colette at dinner.
If you look close you can see the necklace and earring I bought on St. Maarten. They have a Larimar stone in them, which is a beautiful blue stone that is only found in the Caribbean and is called the stone of Atlantis.

Taking a picture with our server on our second formal night. He was so much fun and when ever you said Thank you to him, he would always say, "my pleasure." We're laughing here because we each had to have a picture with our camera, and Martin kept saying, take your time man, I'm ok standing with these pretty ladies.

Colette, Me, Martin, and Stacy

Mini Golf on our last day at sea.

Me, Stacy, Jason, Phil, and Colette

Picking Stacy and Jason up for our last dinner on the ship. :(

Colette, Stacy, and Me

Mmmm, escargot! They really taste good when they are prepared correctly.
Saying goodbye to the ship, heading to the airport.
Mmmm, I love hot chocolate! We had to get off the ship early, around 9:30 a.m. Our flight home didn't leave until 6 p.m. so we had a long time to hang out at the airport. We wandered around the shops and had a good time taking funny pictures. We had to do something to keep from getting bored. :)
Who's the fairest of them all?

Well I can tell you who's the tannest! Me! :)

Colette, Snow White, Me, and Stacy.