Some Sappy Songs for Valentine's Day

I'm a sucker for sappy songs. I don't know why. I just love 'em. So, in honor of Valentine's Day, here's a few songs to enjoy:

Everything - Michael Buble


Lucky - Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat



Love Story - Taylor Swift



Would You Go With Me - Josh Turner



All Your Life - The Band Perry



Walk Me Down the Middle - The Band Perry

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Tell Me Why. . .

Why is it that when you spend about 3 hours at the lake on a hot sunny day, everywhere you really don't want to get sunburned/tanned ends up beet red, and everywhere you wouldn't mind a little color ends up white as a sheet?

Yep, happened to me today. My arms and legs? Still white. I wouldn't mind tan arms/legs. My neck and shoulders? Red. I wouldn't care if they stayed white. I even used lots of sunscreen. Everywhere. Arms. Legs. Neck. Back. I'm sure that explains the lack of color on my arms and legs. But my neck and shoulders? Really? Oh well. At least this time my ears and nose aren't quite as pink as they like to get.

It was well worth the time spent with friends at the lake. After the initial shock, the water felt quite comfortable. And I hope to go back soon for more summer fun. :)

Stars on Ice 2010

I never did post about my adventures at Stars on Ice, so I thought I should remedy that. :)

I apologize for the lack of pictures. We were not allowed to use the flash on our cameras and my little camera did not like taking pics in a dark room. Oh well. :) I did grab pictures of Sasha, Alissa and Evan from the internet so my post wouldn't be *too* lacking. :)

In late May I had the opportunity to go to Stars on Ice when the tour came to the Spokane Arena. I can't even tell you how amazing it was - the lights, the costumes, the music, the skating, and Evan Lysacek. (*grin*)

When I first heard that Stars on Ice was coming to our area, I knew we needed to go. The U.S. Figure Skating Nationals have been in town twice, and I haven't been able to attend either time. So getting to see Olympians during this performance was a must. And I was not disappointed. When four friends and I arrived in Spokane, we were quite early (on purpose) so headed to The Onion for dinner. We had never eaten there before, but I must say that their French Onion soup was delicious. I am a big fan of French Onion Soup. It is, quite possibly, one of my favorite soups ever. So I was a happy camper over dinner. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if Evan Lysacek or Sasha Cohen had also decided to have dinner at The Onion, but, unfortunately, they had not.

After dinner and a brief walk through Riverfront Park we got in line to enter the arena. This, in itself, was torture because they played an ad for the upcoming Carrie Underwood concert no fewer than 6 times. Did I mention that I really, really, really (REALLY) wanted to go to the Carrie concert, but didn't try to get tickets in time? Yeah. Hearing the ad was torture. But I was too excited about the skating festivities to care *too* much. :)

We finally got our seats and then got *really* excited. Before long the lights dimmed and the skaters were introduced individually. This was all fine and dandy, but they did not introduce Evan Lysacek during this time (can you tell that he is the skater I most wanted to see?). I was beginning to get worried. But I was excited to see skaters such as Sasha Cohen, Todd Eldredge, Alissa Csyzni, Jeremy Abbott and Tanith Belbin/Ben Agosto, so all was not lost.

After a variety of group numbers and some individual numbers (all of which were very well done!!), and some guitar playing by Ben Agosto (he played the Olympic theme song on his electric guitar - SO COOL!), the music began to play and Olympic Gold Medalist and Dancing With the Stars Runner Up Evan Lysacek was introduced to a screaming crowd. I guess I wasn't the only one who really wanted to see him. :) He was AMAZING. My only disappointment is that a) he only got to skate one solo number and everyone else skated two (I'm sure that had to do with the fact that he had been really busy with Dancing with the Stars, so couldn't do too much with the Stars on Ice tour), and b) he skated to Michael Jackson. However....I will give him credit: he totally dressed the part - one white glove, black pants, white shirt, etc. And he was amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing. :)

Another highlight was Jeremy Abbott skating to a Michael Buble song. I love Michael Buble and I also became a fan of Jeremy Abbott's during the Olympics. Perfect combo to me. :)

Eventually (far too soon) the show was over, but it was amazing and I'm so glad I got to go. I really want to go again next year! :)

I did find a couple videos from the Stars on Ice people that they had posted on YouTube of some of the performances. Here you go! Unfortunately the Jeremy Abbot routine (skating to Michael Buble) was unable to be posted.

Evan Lysacek - Man in the Mirror


Todd Eldredge - I Want You To Want Me

Boise 2010, Part 2

Saturday was graduation day. We awoke a little earlier than any of us probably would've liked, considering it was a vacation for most of us, but that gave us all plenty of time to get ready for the fun adventures that the morning would hold. Val and her dad left the earliest of us all, but soon all of us "kids" were ready, and Val's brother, Steve, was appointed as chauffeur and the first half of our large group of people headed for Boise State. This, of course, turned into quite the adventure, as we weren't 100% sure where we were heading (Steve had never driven in Boise before, and none of the rest of us were 100% sure where we needed to be on the 4-5 lane freeway). A little too late we realized that we should've taken a different turn-off, so we ended up making some phone calls and taking a slightly different route. But we made it, finally, and really no worse for wear, and headed for the Taco Bell Arena where we met up with Val's dad. Eventually we found enough seats for 12 of us, the rest of our group met up with us, and the graduation began. I have to give the President of BSU credit for giving an interesting graduation speech. In my experience, graduation speeches are notoriously boring, but this guy actually made it interesting and threw in some humor. Bonus points for him!

After the graduation we took some pictures and then headed in separate directions. Us "kids" headed to lunch (for most of us that consisted of Baja Fresh - yummy!) and then we went to downtown Boise to the Idaho State Capitol. Last time I was in Boise, 2 years ago, the Capitol was closed for renovations. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was open this time. And wow! I was totally unprepared for how amazing it was inside. I'd never been in a capitol building before so I really didn't know what to expect. Honestly, I figured you could walk in the door, look at the lobby and that was it. No way! We got to explore the entire building! All four floors! We saw the Senate and House chambers (very cool!), more marble staircases and pillars than I could count, offices belonging to people whose names I have heard for various reasons, and did I mention the marble? Marble everywhere. So awesome. After touring to our hearts' content, we took some pictures on the Capitol steps. On the way home we stopped at Marshall's (something we don't have in Cd'A) and then we stopped at a lollipop store which turned out to just be an ordinary candy store. I didn't buy anything - aren't you proud of me? :)

Saturday night found us feasting upon grilled steelhead (a relative of the salmon, they tell me), and enjoying a dessert of chocolate orange cake. We also played some crazy games! I don't know if any of you have seen "Minute to Win It" (I've only watched it a time or two) but I am pretty sure some of the crazy games we played were from that show! We had to be the first team to pull all the tissues out of a tissue box, the first person to get 3 marbles from point A to point B with our toes, etc. Everyone was laughing pretty hard pretty much the entire time. :)

Saturday night also found us watching a Bollywood movie, and this only bears mention since I decided that I do not like Bollywood. I'm just sayin. . .it's just not my cup of tea. For those of you who don't know what Bollywood is, it is Indian film. Indian, as in, people from India. The name is a play on "Hollywood." They have made their own style of movies with crazy dances and songs, and they are in Indian so you have to read the subtitles, they are about 3 hours long, and, yeah. . .not my style. Everyone else seemed entertained, though. 

Sunday found us getting a little extra sleep and then watching another Bollywood movie. Well, I think I stayed upstairs for the first half of the movie, playing games on my iPod, and then I watched a little bit of the Bollywood movie but was rather confused and confirmed that I don't care for that genre. 

Sunday afternoon we went to the mall and walked around for a few hours, admiring (expensive) dresses and gagging at some of the current styles. :) I happen to like walking around "normal" malls, especially since the one in Cd'A (and the ones in Spokane, really) are quite pitiful. Our mall here in town is a whopping 1-level. . .with about 10 stores. And only about 3 of those are worth going in. So the "real" mall in Boise was great fun.

After the mall, we headed "home" and ate a delicious dinner of Elk steaks (I told you we ate good!) and packed to go home. We played cards for a little bit and talked a bit, too, and then fell asleep, knowing full well we would have to wake up bright and way-too-early for our long drive home.

Monday was our day to return home. The alarm went off far too early and after a quick breakfast of GoGurt, we were on the road, bright eyed and bushy tailed, by 7:15am, Boise (Mountain) time. We occupied ourselves with music (I took my iPod, and the cassette adaptor didn't cooperate as much as we wanted it to, but it did work okay), and games. 

After several hours on the road we made it to Craters of the Moon National Monument. We purposely took the long road home so we could go to Craters of the Moon, and I'm glad we did. We got to do some hiking and exploring, even got to walk through a cave. It was pretty cool (the cave was literally cool!).

After lunch and a few more hours on the road we stopped to look at Borah Peak, Idaho's high point, where I took a picture for my dad (he really wanted one). We drove some more and stopped by the Salmon River and then soon passed through the city (town?) of Salmon and before long were into the great state of Montana. I decided the prairie of Montana would be a beautiful place to live, although perhaps a bit lonely at times. We hit a lot of rain in Montana, but it had basically stopped by the time we got to Taco Bell in Hamilton for dinner. I was a bit disappointed we didn't end up stopping at Cracker Barrel in Missoula, like several of us hoped to do, but that's okay. Eventually we made it back into Idaho, and finally got home around 10:30pm, Cd'A (Pacific) time. Total time for travel/stops? 15-1/2 hours. Yep, it was a long day.

But was it worth it? Totally. And would I do it again? You bet. And do I want to go back to Boise? Oh yes.

It was a great, fun trip! Hope you enjoyed the armchair version! 

Temporary Home

"Temporary Home" by Carrie Underwood from her Play On album. Just listen to it. Once again Carrie Underwood has an album full of amazing songs. This is one of them. :) (Man, I hope it works out to go to her concert in the spring!)


Little boy, 6 years old
A little too used to bein' alone
Another new mom and dad,another school
Another house that'll never be home
When people ask him how he likes this place
He looks up and says with a smile upon his face

"This is my temporary home
It's not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through
This is just a stop, on the way to where I'm going
I'm not afraid because I know this is my
Temporary Home."

Young mom on her own
She needs a little help got nowhere to go
She's lookin' for a job, lookin' for a way out
Because a half-way house will never be a home
At night she whispers to her baby girl
Someday we'll find a place here in this world

"This is our temporary home
It's not where we belong
Windows and rooms that we're passin' through
This is just a stop, on the way to where we're going
I'm not afraid because I know this is our
Temporary Home."

Old man, hospital bed
The room is filled with people he loves
And he whispers don't cry for me
I'll see you all someday
He looks up and says "I can see God's face"

"This is my temporary Home
It's not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through
This was just a stop,on the way To where I'm going
I'm not afraid because I know this was
My temporary home."

This is our temporary home