I fell in LOVE with......

October 17-19, 2014

Boise!  I fell in love with Boise and more particularly, Boise in the fall.  For our Fall Break adventure Whitney, Susie, and I decided to spend some time visiting Whitney's family in Boise, Idaho.  We began the five hour drive after Susie got off work on Thursday evening.  There was a pit stop for dinner at the Arby's in Elwood and then we were on our way.

Due to a late arrival Thursday night, our Friday morning didn't start quite as early as we had planned. But we were on vacation so there is nothing wrong with being a little lazy and adjust the schedule of things.  Once we got up and moving for the day we headed to a session at the Boise Temple.

One cookie + 3 fortunes = Lucky Me

After the temple and a quick wardrobe change, we ate some yummy Mongolian BBQ and headed to Camel's Back Park for a little hike/stroll.  This is when Boise really showed off how amazing it is in the fall.  The area around the park is residential with lots of trees.  All of these trees were in varying shades of fall colors...yellow, orange, and one beautiful dark red.  We spent a far amount of time taking pictures along the way.  Many a jump picture was taken due to some technical difficulties with a scarf.

#7 - Farmers' Market

Saturday morning we spent wandering around the Farmers Market in downtown Boise.  I sampled delicious guacamole, added a spoon ring to my collection, enjoyed delicious african food (can't remember what it's called), and just enjoyed the beautiful weather.

#45 - Ride a Bike

One of my favorite parts of the entire trip happened when we rented cruiser bikes and spent a couple hours seeing Boise.  McU rentals hooked us up with some great bikes for the afternoon...mine was green.  Off we went to ride along the Boise River Greenbelt bike paths.  In our adventures, we crossed over the river a few times, rode past the zoo, had a photo shoot while riding, laughed, and had a fabulous afternoon exploring beautiful Boise.

#43 - Play at a Park

During the bike adventures we rode past a couple parks.  I convinced Whitney and Susie to stop for a bit so that I could play in the park.  Confession: My "playing" in the park consisted of me having my picture taken while sitting at the bottom of a slide I didn't go down.  Since this felt like cheating, we found a spot on the grass to play a few rounds of Heads Up! before leaving the park and continuing the adventure.

#74 - Create a Pinterest Craft

This adventure item was a surprise addition to our trip.  Whitney's mom, Gina, hosts a Witches' Night every year at their house.  Our visit coincided with this year's party and ended up being a lot of fun. We all dressed up like witches for the occasion.  Our costumes were made more authentic with the $4 brooms we purchased at Target the night before.  There was a perfect field in their neighborhood that we were able to use for some prime picture taking.  As part of the party, Gina had planned to make some Halloween crafts that she had found on Pinterest.  The craft was making silhouettes of Halloween related items (bat, witch, crow, etc), mounting them on cute scrapbook paper, and framing them.  I chose to make a bat silhouette and put it on fun paper that looked like an old newspaper. 

#115 - Play the Bagpipes

It's a little hard to believe that I forgot to include "Play the Bagpipes" on my original list when I created it back in August.  Clearly that was an error on my part because who doesn't play the bagpipes on a regular basis.  :)  Thanks to Whitney's little brother, Samuel, I completed this adventure and then added it to the adventure list.  Samuel is a legit bagpiper who wins international competitions each summer.  He was kind enough to play a few songs for us and then graciously taught me how to play (after I assured him I didn't have Ebola, that is).  Man is it hard work!!  The breath control they need to play is incredible.  Samuel assured me that I didn't do too badly because I was able to make it squeak.  Pretty sure that was him just trying to make me feel good about my meager attempt at playing the bagpipes.  Lucky for you my entire bagpiping performance was recorded so you too can be awed by my pure beginner's talent....

Fall Break went way too quickly but we made the most of our time in beautiful Boise.  We were able to finish the roadtrip with the best surprise ever.....a Primary program.  It just happened to be the Primary program sacrament meeting in the ward we attended.  The Sunbeams that sat on the front row (we were on the second row) were my favorite part.  The whole thing was like herding cats trying to get them all up to the stand for each of the musical numbers and then back down to their seats.

YSA wards really need to look into borrowing a Primary or something so we too can enjoy the awesomeness that is the Primary program sacrament meeting!

-Em

This is what happens when you give Samuel your phone to take pictures :)