Melissa & Jason in Idaho

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Summer has started!

The weather is starting to feel like summer! My family came a couple weeks ago and brought the warm weather from the east coast with them :-). I was nervous because everyone here kept telling me June was the worst month for rain and cold weather when I told them my family was coming, but it turned out GREAT!! Mom, Dad, Heather and Julie came on Saturday the 18th. We left for Yellowstone on Sunday. It said 70% chance of rain so we packed up all the rain gear ready for a good time. It never rained on us :-) We spent Sunday and Monday touring Yellowstone and then drove down to Teton National Park on Tuesday. We went on a hike to inspiration point which was supposed to be around 4-5miles, however the bridge was closed and we ended up walking closer to 9 miles through an avalanche field and up through snow covered trails. It was a new experience and we all survived haha. On Tuesday night we drove back to Idaho Falls and spent the rest of the week enjoy the 80 degree weather and relaxing. Everyone left on Saturday and then Jason left on Sunday for his ANS conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I spent the week cleaning up the house and getting some more things in order. I have also started playing my flute regularly which has been fun.

Jason had a good time in Florida. He presented on Tuesday and said he got to talk to lots of people. He got to see his adviser from NC State as well. He drove down to Miami one night to see the sights. Jason got back late Thursday night.

This past Saturday we went on a 14 mile hike up to Upper Palisades Lake. It was about an hour drive to the trail head from Idaho Falls. We started off at 9am and it took us 3 hours to get to the lake. There were lots of little snakes on the trail, which frightened me every time. Jason was like stop screaming haha... There was so much run off from all the snow that the river was very fast and full. There were spots where the trail was flooded. We spent an hour at the lake eating lunch and enjoying the view. On the way back we saw a lot of horses on the way up (since it is a horse trail as well) We also saw some people with two pack lamas that was kind of neat. We also saw 3 moose. One male by itself, then a mom with her baby.

Sunday we spent the morning weeding the landscape and mowing the lawn. Our strawberries are getting ripe. I have picked 3 bowls full and make some strawberry shortcake. I'm going to have to find something else to make with them. I didn't think we would have so much, but they keep coming out. We also have a cherry tree that has tons of cherries on it. Once they are ripe we will have to pick them too. It is finally a reality that we own a house. We are enjoying every minute of it. We keep thinking we should have a house warming party but it hasn't happened yet. We will see :-)

For the 4th of July we walked to the parade in the morning. It was a 2 hour parade. Had lots of different things to see. After the parade we went downtown to the greenbelt. They had lots of food and different booths. It was a great day. Sunny and 90 degrees. They had a small car show and we looked at all the old cars. We spent the afternoon and evening at one of my friends house for a bbq and drinks. The fireworks were at the greenbelt and it was a good night, not too windy. It was a good 30 minute show. Overall a great 4th celebration!

This week I am trying to do some projects that I had planned for the summer and get ready for our trip to California next week. We are heading down to Salt Lake this Saturday for the Kenny Chesney concert. Then on Monday we are leaving for California. We are flying to San Francisco and staying with Jason's grandma who lives in Livermore. We are looking forward to taking a little trip together :-)

I will try to do better keeping everyone up-to-date. It seems that once a month I think about updating the blog...I will try to update after California, because then in a week after that I will be heading to NY for 2 weeks :-)!!!

Here are some pictures of the past month.

The cabins we stayed in near Yellowstone

It was a little chilly at night

We rented an expedition, all cozy in the back seat

Roaring moutain

A falls in Yellowstone. Julie, Heather and I

Everyone near lower Yellowstone Falls

Grilling some food

Eating! YUM

View from our cabin

Mom and Dad at Old Faithful

Buffalo on the trail we were walking on

Everyone near a geyser

Tetons. It was such a great sunny day

Tetons

Hidden falls on our hike to inspiration point

views on our hike to inspiration point

Dad in the avalanche field

Heather and Julie in the avalanche field

The palisades river on our hike to palisades lake.

Beginning of our hike

Some views alone the way.

a chipmunk on the trail

Lower Palisades lake

views of the valley

Upper Palisades Lake

Where we ate lunch on the side of the lake

Me in front of the lake

Moose one

Moose two, the baby is in the bushes behind her

Thursday, June 2, 2011

New House

Well it is June already....crazy. We spent the rest of May dealing with house stuff and trying to motivate ourselves to pack. In the end our packing wasn't very organized and it was more of just a transfer of all our stuff haha. It has started to try and get nice some days here. We were able to get outside some weekends and visit the farmers market and walk the greenbelt around the falls. School ended last Friday for me so now I am trying to organize the new house and keep myself busy. After this week I have two weeks of classes and trainings so that will keep me busy. Jason and I are so happy about the house. After a week of waiting for our loan to be finalized we got the keys Friday night. We spent memorial day weekend moving. We love having space for everything. Jason mowed the yard yesterday and said he now feels like a true home owner haha. The kitties are getting used to the space. For the first day they both hid behind the toilet and wouldn't move, but now they are taking full advantage of the space to run and chase each other. The neighbors seem friendly and ironically the people across the street are from Texas and the lady grew up with Jason in Canyon. Small world.
We made our third beer a couple weekends ago. We are bottling it tonight. So far they have all turned out pretty good. We hope this last one made the move alright.
Last week Alive after Five started. It is downtown and there is live music, food and drinks. We went last week and this week. It is nice to get outside and listen to music and visit with people.
Here are some more pictures of the house. It looks pretty empty right now but hopefully in time it will start to look more like home.

Backyard with our new patio set

Back of the house

side yard

view from the back door

Kitchen was the first thing unpacked. I love how open it is

Living area. We are going to put our new furniture in there when it comes.

view of dining area and other living area where all the boxes are. The fireplace is behind the door

dining area looks out in the backyard.

Jason's office downstairs

my office upstairs

guest bedroom downstairs

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Yellowstone in May

Well today we went to Yellowstone for the first time since moving to Idaho. We had been to one waterfall last fall but that was just inside the park and we didn't see any of the other sites so today was the day. It wasn't the greatest weather wise, but it turned out alright. There was also still a considerable amount of snow in the park. Some of the roads are still closed, but I got a good preview of some things that we can do this summer when our parents come to see us :-) We started out about 8am and got to the park around 10. We stopped and looked at a ton of gysers. They have nice little paths around the gysers so you can see the different kinds. I thought it was amazing! I didn't realize there were so many of them. Then of course we stopped to see Old Faithful. There are a lot of trails around there to walk around and see the sights. We got to see Old Faithful go off. Pretty neat! The Old Faithful Inn is very cool to walk around in as well. The whole lobby is made of beautiful wood. After Old Faithful we drove to see some waterfalls. On the way we also saw tons of buffalo. They like to take over the road in many spots so it was fun to see them up so close. We even got to see a baby buffalo. We were done with the waterfalls around 5 so we drove into West Yellowstone to have some dinner before heading back to Idaho Falls. We had a great day and it was nice to get outside for the second weekend in a row!
We only have two more weekends after this one before we are in our new house! It is crazy how fast time is going by. We have already been married for 2 months :-)

Baby buffalo

hot spring

Buffalo taking over the road.

small gyser

Jason in front of Castle Gyser

Me in front of Old Faithful

My attempt to capture Old Faithful going off but
I stopped because I wanted to see it without the camera in front of my face.

Still lots and lots of snow around.

Upper Falls on Yellowston River

Lower Falls on Yellowstone River

The Yellowstone River

Buffalo in the road take 2

Another small gyser

Sunset on the drive back to Idaho Falls.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Spring

Easter went well. The ham turned out good and we had some potatoes, black eyed peas, fruit and dessert to go with it. I did alright playing the flute at my friends service. It made me want to play more, who knows maybe one day I will try out for the symphony here. (maybe after some months of good practice.) Jason left last Monday for a conference in Albuquerque, NM. He got back late Thursday night. He said he had a good time and got to hear some good talks. I also went to a public hearing on Thursday about the budget cuts in our district. It's not looking good for a lot of people. It is sad it comes to cutting so many things. As of right now I think I am still ok with my job. Special Education is federally funded so it hasn't been affected too much.

We are still finalizing some things with our house and getting all the paperwork filled out. We still plan to close on May 24th so we will keep you all informed.

Yesterday it started to feel like spring a little bit. It was about 52 and once you got walking around it felt nice with the sun. We went out to see Shoshone Falls which is near Twin Falls, ID about 3 hours away. They call the Shoshone Falls the "Niagara of the West." It was neat to see. With all the run off from the melting snow there was a lot of water flowing over. We spent a couple hours walking around there; there was a trail the followed the Snake River up aways. After Shoshone Falls we drove another 40 minutes to get to Balanced Rock. It is just on the side of rt 30. It is a big rock that looks like it is balancing. We hiked up to it and took some pictures. Then we drove by Thousand Springs, which is an area where the water is coming out of the Aquifers through the canyon walls. It was all pretty neat to see and it was a great day for driving. On the way back to Idaho Falls we stopped in Pocatello to have some dinner at a small Greek restaurant.

Today we have just been relaxing and doing the usual...grocery shopping, gym and watching some tv. We were going to go outside, but it started to rain/snow. I'm hoping that is is almost done with that; however people keep saying it isn't nice until July. We will see. Until next time :-)