Sharing the things we love

While Matts parents were in town we took a day trip. We had originally decided not to drive up to Stanley because of weather but ended up going anyway and missed nearly all the bad weather going up and coming back. We went through Emmett to Horseshoe Bend, through Garden Valley to Stanley, stopped for lunch at Smiley Creek Lodge and then home through Sun Valley, doing very little window shopping because EVERYTHING was closed by 5 pm... We stopped at several places to look at waterfalls and white water and what not. It was beautiful and I was very glad to share the parts of this state that I love. I took a bunch of pictures so you are getting the condensed version.
This is as close to the river as Matts mom got. :)
Hell Roaring Creek, right by where we camp.
Abes Chair right near Smiley Creek Lodge
At Galena Summit Overlook
At a gallery in Sun Valley
A baby swan with its parents at the Sun Valley Lodge... so cute!!!
And finally us at the Sun Valley Lodge.

Memorial Day

Matts parents flew in from Denver on wednesday so we spent most of the week spending time with them, going to galleries, out to dinner and visiting with some of my family. The Saturday before Memorial day we went and put several bunches of flowers on Granddads grave. He is in the veterans cemetary so there were tons of flags everywhere, it was very neat and a very special experience.
On monday we had a big BBQ at our house. We had several friends and lots of family. The house and back yard was full!! Fortunately the weather held out for most of it but right around dessert time we took everything inside and just enjoyed everyones company for several hours.
I am so blessed to come from a family where in one way or another, several of them fought to keep our country free. I am in the middle of typing up my grandfathers history during WWII. It has been very humbling reading what he wrote, in his own words about his time on Omaha Beach on D-Day, fighting the Battle of the Bulge, and liberating a death camp. We were talking with Matts mother, who is decended from Jews and she thinks she recalls some of her family were actually in the camp that my grandfather liberated. Somethings are just meant to be I guess. Its just proof that Heavenly Father has His hand in all things.

Here are a few pictures from the BBQ.


Our friends Rick and Bob



M.A. and some of the boys playing in the yard



Matt manning the grill



Some of the family



Kandyce and Matt playing in the rain



We hope everyone was able to celebrate and remember all of those who served and died in order for us to live where, and how, we do.

White Water Rafting Anyone??

The Other day Matt, Katie, Piper and I drove up to Garden Valley with a little pit stop in Banks to check out Staircase Rapid and whatever Rapid is on the Other fork that is huge. It was awesome. So much water is running through right now because of run off. I would have loved to hop on a raft and gone for it! It was nice to just get out of Boise for a bit too. We stopped for lunch just outside of Garden Valley at a take in point and played in the river a bit.

Now and Then

This is really Matts post but he doesn't want to actually learn how to update the blog, so I am doing it for him. Basically he wanted to post some before and after pictures of the house to show how much we have done to it. So first, here is what the Kitchen looked like when we first bought the house. You couldn't even open the refridgerator door all the way because of that cupboard.



And now... Its a bit cluttered now and I don't have it decorated the way I want it yet but bear with me. I love the turquoise!!!







And here is the front yard and back yard. We don't have a before picture of the back yard, but trust me, you think it looks bad now, you should have seen it then. It was completley overrun with huge weeds and icky bushes. It has taken us three years to get anything resembling grass to grow and take over the weeds that were there. We are just glad it kind of resembles a normal lawn. Just wait until next year. Its gonna be boomin!! We also replaced the entire front and back fence. It was literally falling over!


You can see our new Japanese Maple that we just planted, its doing awesome!





If you look really hard you can see our baby apple trees on the left and at center.


And here is our new Hawthorne tree.

Happy Birthday Chante and Doug!!

Chante is 22 today. Happy birthday sis! We love you and can't wait to see you and meet your new little one!


Also, today is one of my very best friends, Doug a bug's 26th birthday.... man you are getting old!!!! :) Love you!!!

Us and our garden

One of the things I love doing when the weather gets warm is work outside beautifying our yard and planting a garden. There isn't much that is more rewarding that cooking and eating things you have grown yourself. The weather has finally started staying warm enough at night to be able to get our plants in the ground. We were so excited!!

We planted 5 tomato plants, 3 eggplant plants, 2 cucumbers a butternut squash, a pumpkin, some corn and some sweet pea plants. We have had rhubarb there for a couple of years. Thats only a handful of what is going to end up there and it doesn't even touch what we are also growing in the garden at my grandmas.

On top of the garden plants, We also bought a few trees. There were NO trees on the property when we bought it so we are slowly adding them. Last year we planted a maple in the front. This year we totally scored and got 2 apple trees for 30 bucks and a Japanese Maple and a flowering Hawthorn for 45. Very excited to say the least. Here is one of our little apple trees.

Happy Birthday Danielle!

On Sunday, we not only celebrated Mothers Day, but Danielles 18th birthday as well. We met up with the family she is staying with at P.F. Changs.. not ideal dinner for a Sunday but it was the only time we would be able to see her and Makayla for a while. We had fun though. She has grown up so much in the past couple months, I am really proud of her.

Please ignore my heinous hair in this shot, it was either my ugly hair or a cleavage shot down danielles shirt. :) This was the lesser of two evils.


We also talked to Shiara and things are going well in Hilo. Chante is feeling good for the most part and life is moving in the right direction. Shiara admitted freely that this is exactly what she needed to grow up and be independent. We are so proud of her too!!

Here are a few pictures we took sunday in the back yard.


Matt and our hopefully pregnant *fingers crossed* little dog Piper.

I only "Liked" the Piano

So, I said I was going to write about the latest show we had, "I Love a Piano" but I am sure you all get tire of hearing us ramble on about work so I will give you the short version. Basically it is from a a brand new production company that obviously don't know what they are doing. These poor technicians get paid pretty much nothing and get no support whatsoever from this production company. They had all gotten sick in the last town and we were their last venue before the tour was over. We were also the only performing arts hall that really knew what we were doing. We actually sent their wardrobe lady back to the hotel to sleep off the stomach flu and ran the show ourselves. Being a musical revue of Irving Berlins most famous songs, it was an enjoyable show, and the cast was great. Props to all the technicians who stuck with it through to the end.

The highlight of the week was without a doubt, Tony Bennett. He is amazing. He hasn't aged at all in at least ten years. Performers these days don't have half the class that he does. He was here for a 100 year celebration benefit for the Childrens Home. His daughter Antonia opened for him and then he sang for a good hour. It was AWEsome tot say the least.

The "Kids"

Don't let the sad face fool you, Piper is VERY spoiled and VERY loved.

This is Echo, he was in a VERY loving mood the other day. He was a rescue we got as a kitten so it is rare that he is like this.

This is why I have blankets on my furniture. Thanks Caliban and Baghera. If we didn't love them.......

Random Pictures

We are so excited that it is starting to get warm. We still have frost warnings every other night so we haven't gotten our garden in the ground but we have our plants! We have, as you will see in the following pictures, that we have some tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and a few different kinds of peppers. Its a start anyway! Also, I love my African Daisies, they make me smile, so I thought I would share.

Another CRAZY Week

Its been far too long since we've gotten around to updating this thing. We do have a good excuse though, I promise. As soon as we got rid of the ballet, we built Singin in the Rain for Boise Music Week. What an adventure, let me tell you. It is quite the challenge to try and successfully make it rain onstage without ruining the beautiful maple deck. But, we did it, and it turned out great. Music week is always a hit or miss as to how enjoyable it is to be a part of it. Last year was incredibly stressful. We did Beauty and the Beast and I somehow got wrangled into helping design and make some of the costumes for about 70 people. It was nuts, this one however we had a lot of fun with. The cast was great, no divas... yay!!! And all of the technical staff, both paid and volunteer, got along very well. In total we dumped about 21 gallons of water on the stage every night... it rained anly twice during the show, once right before intermission and once during the finally. All in all I was kind of sad to see it go even though Matt and I aquired about 30 hours of overtime each that week alone. Next year, BRIGADOON!!

Testing out the Rain Stage, it works!!!!! I would have loved taking pictures during the actual performance but seeing as how I was so far away and running spotlight it just couldn't be done.


Pre-show view from the Spot bay, where I lived for 6 days running spotlight :)


Springtime in front of the Morrison Center... to accompany the Winter picture posted earlier.


This week we are working on Irving Berlins "I Love a Piano." Basically its a musical review of several of Berlins most famous songs. Pretty cute show.... I will post about how everything went later... way too much to write and its getting late. It will be entertaining, trust me. :)