Deer in the Yard! Deer in the Yard!!

When my husband was in California last week, the normal packs of quail and little red foxes were nowhere to be seen, but a couple of baby deer came to hang out for a bit!

Sunday: Road Trip Back to Boise!

SUCH a fun weekend in Portland! But all good things much come to an end. So, we piled back into the Coopah (the one with the newly lubed sunroof and the new headlight carriage!) and aimed her for Boise. While I took the west-bound shift, we navigated back home to Idaho.

While it's a long and flat trip, there's some gorgeous scenery along the way! And a lot less snow than there was in December!

It's best to have a wiener dog to protect your iced tea whenever possible.

Speaking of which, we also spied a wily badger, who lumbered slowly across the highway, as if taunting Miss Ginger. She'd have gone to town on him...had she been awake... (this is not a photo I snapped -- tho the badger in question looked exactly like this fellow!)

Saturday: The Big Birthday Party!

While the whole weekend was a big party, the official celebration was Saturday night!

Not only was it a birthday party, it marks the 5-year anniversary of home ownership for this little lady! Congrats on a big accomplishment, sister!

The look of the night was definitely animal prints. Thankfully security was there to keep the party from getting out of control.

Without the tiny woman in yellow, who knows if we would have had any eats?!? Nice work, Mom, on all your preparation and cookery, we all appreciated it!

The good doctor?

I can't remember the last time we and the Spenglers were together! So nice!

A Quick Trip to Longview!

After a delicious dinner at the Lost Creek Tavern, we were off to Longview for a quick visit in Longview! Art has been installing hardwoods through the house..these aren't them, but his look fabulous! Debra (left) and Ludger stopped in for a bit, as did Rosemary! Such a nice visit!

I spied this in the upstairs bathroom. I can imagine a few folks who might like a bottle of this!

Friday: Tiffany Turns 35!

We arrived in Portland around 10:30 Thursday night for the fun long weekend celebrating Poo's birthday and having a little service done on the Coopah. I hopped up first thing and had her downtown by 7 a.m., then hopped on the train back to Hillsboro. It wouldn't be a trip to Portland without an adventure on Max!

Poo and Momma...35 years together!






Tiffany's younger sister with Mom. :)

Menfolk are in charge of the keg and keg accessories. Teamwork will have us in refreshments in minutes!

The Birthday Girl pours the first glass!

Miss G isn't big on birthday festivities.

Me and Jenny were like peas and carrots.

It's Not Big...It's Large!

My planning prowess again yielded us tickets to a sold-out show! Tuesday we enjoyed Lyle Lovett at the Old Penitentiary's "Outlaw Field" just 3 miles from home -- the It's Not Big...It's Large tour. It was awesome!

I have been lucky to see many of the classics: Willie (6+ times), Waylon, Johnny, Kris...Crosby, Stills, and Nash...and then later, Young...Eric Clapton...Dave Matthews (4+ times), Bonnie Raitt (PDX and Maui!)...The Neville Brothers (In Central Park!)...but I'd never seen Lyle. We just had to add him to the list.

Here's Lyle Lovett and His Large Band. He did a great job of engaging the audience and chatting -- which earns big points from me. He even had a local church choir perform a rousing gospelly backup on a couple songs at the beginning and end of the show -- nice touch!

We thought we might get rained on, but other than a few drops, it was clear, warm, and sunny! Thankfully I thought to acquire new Family low-back sand chairs!

My husband, at the moment when Lyle began singing "She's no lady, she's my wife." Uh-huh.

...And I can't remember how I met her...seems like she's always just been hanging here off my right arm...and I can't remember, how I ever thought that I just couldn't live without a woman's charm...Son, she's no lady she's your wife...

The Stampede Part 2: Mutton Bustin'

I've had a few days to muse on the spectacle that was Mutton Bustin'. I'm of two minds:


1. What are these people thinking?
Who in their right mind puts their 5-year-old on the back of a 150-pound sheep, and then lets a crazed rodeo clown give 'em a whack and a shove out into the arena for the enjoyment of the cheering fans? Sheep can reach speeds of 50 mph and more! What are we applauding here, people, that the kid stayed on until he was traveling underneath the sheep, or that when he finally tumbled off the beast he didn't snap his little neck?


2. I Could've Done That.
Despite the frightening element of this tradition, I do remember witnessing this mutton busting ritual as a wee girl (Wallowa? Chief Joseph Days? Somewhere...) and wondering, "Hmm. I wonder why I wasn't entered in this competition. I'm quite sure I could stay on longer than these doofuses."


Very few of the wheelchair-bound actually cite "mutton busting" as their downfall. Then there's the old adage, "Sheep that don't kill us make us stronger." Eh. I'm sure I'll be back again next year, 45 minutes before the official opener, waiting for the lining up of the petrified 5-year-olds, watching for that look on their faces: "Uhhh...excuse me? I'm doing what now?"

The Stampede!

Guess what! We did something besides remodeling and homework! Thursday night we were off to Nampa to experience night 3 of 5 of the Snake River Stampede!

There's some $450,000 in the purse this year, and one of the young men competing holds the record for the most rodeo earnings -- over $2 million. Whoo-wee! My deft planning skills yielded us some pretty awesome seats, just to the right of the bull chutes. This picture shows the other end of the arena, where the team roping originated.

My favorite part of arena events is the pomp and circumstance of the opening and closing ceremonies...the rodeo queens, the Pledge of Allegiance, the salute to those who are serving or have served in the armed forces...I love it!

BUT, the highlight for me, and also for the nice 80-year-old lady beside me (who was there with her sweet husband, their 6 kids, their 22 grandchildren, and their 9 great-grandchildren -- all whom were relegated to general admin while they were in reserved seating like us! Hah!) was the performance by the Snake River Stampeders! You may remember the Stampeders from their performance at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics -- they are an 18-member horse drill team that rides in formation in the dark while each girl and horse is wearing a coat of red, white, or blue lights, ala Rhinestone Cowboy. I ain't horsepeople, but it was spec-tac-u-lar.

I Heart Craigslist!!

For those of you who have had the tour and had to listen to me rant about this very cool, yet overly large and stupidly placed sink cabinet, it's gone! Some nice man came and gave me 100 smackers for it! May he wash and store in good health. I looove Craigslist!!

Ground Broken on Bathroom 2!

Tired of my remodel posts yet? I am! But, as we do nothing but work, sleep, do homework, and hang or destroy drywall, we both best get used to it. ;)

With the arrival of plumbing contractors on Saturday, what was once my basement office will henceforth be referred to as Bathroom 2, to differentiate it from Bathroom 1 on the main level.

The contractors began cutting a maze of trenches into the concrete in the basement to lay the pipes for the enhanced laundry room/Bathroom 2's new toilet, shower, tub, and two sinks (one for the bathroom, one for the laundry).


Removing the old sheetrock and plaster. To the right in the photo is the newly exposed concrete foundation of the house! There have been no Basement Monster sightings to date.












Our (dusty) washing machine has its own moat!

















The basement is now full of dirt, removed from the trenches to make room for the pipes. While we have had a few bug encounters, it hasn't been as bad as I might have imagined, given that pile o' dirt. The wall to the right is where my desk used to face.

Despite frequent attempts to clean up the area, our back space constantly looks like this.

Bathroom 1 update: Black vinyl decor? No! "Vapor barrier"! This room has been permitted and replumbed. Hopefully the inspector will come in the next week or so to approve both sets of new plumbing so we can seal these walls back up!

Dierks!

After a light dinner downtown, we went to the sold out Dierks Bentley concert last night! SUCH fun! The show was awesome! Dierks performed all his big hits, plus a couple of songs from Hank, Waylon, and Johnny. The show was at the Knitting Factory, just a mile and a half from our house, which was AWESOME! We enjoyed the opening band too, which isn't always the case.

[While our show was indoors, I snagged this photo illegally off the 'net because Dierks was wearing this outfit, and because I'm a law-abiding citizen and I didn't take no cell phone pictures during the show.]

Me-ow.

A Day at the Pool

We brought the long holiday weekend to a close with an afternoon at Paula's pool [at their temporary condo] and hamburgers! So nice! The wee Gustafsons were a good time at the pool, showing off their excellent swimming and diving skills. After my husband's cannonball into the pool, Helena's cheer of "LET'S GET ON HIM!" like he's a raft, still makes me laugh!

Look sister! You don't have to make Barbie sleeping bags out of washcloths anymore -- Coleman makes them for her! Complete with plaid flannel lining! So fancy! Barbie did not get to go swimming though.

I Love a Parade!

My husband is not a big parade go-er, but he took pity on me this year and agreed to attend the Boise Independence Day parade with me! The parade was a very late 6:30 p.m., so it was pretty warm by the time it rolled through. Little did we know, the parade would devolve into a big water fight [see gang of little desperadoes over my husband's shoulder in pic]. Oddly, the biggest showing was by the Hare Krishnas! Who would have guessed that! My favorite part was the throwing of popsicles near the end. The one I got was grape.

We had dinner downtown then walked back home to save our wiener dog from death by fireworks. We were able to see the fireworks from the cities of Boise, Star, and Eagle from the top of our property! Happy Independence Day!


My grandmother would have loved this entry!








This pic's for you Marie..."the Conservative Express!" HAH! Just a little self-promotion. You may remember Mister Rammell's unusual baboon commercial from the Super Bowl...

Can you make my head a little bigger?

I loved these shots of America's youth sporting these random banners reinforcing our rights.

Not during peacetime, anyway.

The union trick/teamsters had the biggest arsenal that fought back. And based on the position of my photo, yep, I got a little wet.