Thanksgiving in Utah

We came to Salt Lake City for turkey day. We drove down on Thursday and my old roommate Philip flew in from Raleigh to join us. We are staying at the Residence Inn in a 2 room suite. Joanie made an entire Thanksgiving in the apartment sized kitchen, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, fancy green bean casserole, pecan tarts, and I made stove top and homemade cranberry sauce. We should have take pictures but we didn't.

On Friday, Philip and I went to Snowbird while Joanie went to Nordstrom. It was a fair trade. The conditions here are better than we have in Idaho (currently still brown) but not great. There are some rocks and tree tops sticking through. It has been cloudy and windy but we took the tram to the top of Hidden Peak (11,000 ft). It was blustery and cold up there.

We wrapped up the day by going to the Red Iguana for dinner. We had to wait over an hour for a table but it was worth it. They are famous for the Mole dishes. I had mango mole enchiladas with carnitas while Joanie had a combo plate with a sour cream enchilada (cinnamon & chile in the sauce) and a shredded beef taco with a homemade shell. This place is great, it's been featured on Food Network a few times. I recommend going if you are in town.

On Saturday we went to Park City and hit the outlets instead of riding. We cleaned up there and had dinner downtown in the historic district.

On Sunday Philip and I went to Brighton while Joanie hit Nordstrom Rack. We had a good day, they had more snow coverage than the Snowbird though it was cloudy and cold there as well. No good pictures of me though Philip was doing some jumping.

It was a great trip overall, we have one day left since we took Monday off as well.

Sonogram Photos

I think everyone who reads this blog knows that Joanie is pregnant and due in April. If not, I'm sorry we missed telling you. We had our big 22 week sonogram last week. We have chosen not to find out if it is a girl or boy. This makes it more fun and challenging for the people buying presents!

This one was taken on August 5th. Baby doesn't really look real yet.

Here is a shot from August 27th. Baby is a little bigger but no definition yet.
The rest are from our 22 week Sonogram on November 21st. It actually looks like a baby. I'm a little concerned about the size of that nose. She appears to have a Crosby nose.

Here's a side view with a leg. One leg was behind his head and other laying more normal.


Another profile view.

The sonogram was very cool. We got to hear the heartbeat and watch her put her arm above her head (a Josh trait by the way). We'll post more if we have another sonogram. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

Huge Squash

It was a quiet weekend in Boise. We went to see an indoor lacrosse game on Friday night. It was an intra-squad scrimmage from a team in Edmonton. Joanie went to a knitting class on Saturday and I played volleyball on Sunday.

We took some pictures of huge pumpkins and squash at Williamson Orchard.

First Snow in Boise!!

Today is the first snow of the year!!

It's not really sticking but coming down very hard. Hopefully we are in for a good snow year, we need it for the Games and for my snowboarding season.

Peaches & Plums

I know long time no post. It's been a busy summer and as Fall approaches we are enjoying the last of the local fruits & vegetables. We have been going out to Caldwell, ID to a local place called Williamson's Orchard. They have tons of fruit and a good garden selection. Last weekend we bought a box of peaches & plums while we could.
Joanie is going to make plum jam while I am freezing peaches for later. I did make 'Peach Mush' today. It's from an Eating Well Recipe that we like as popsicles, on top of yogurt or vanilla ice cream. While making a double batch I was able to use my lone lemon.

Joanie bought me a Meyer Lemon Tree for our Anniversary in 2007. This is the only lemon it ever produced. We tried putting it in the front yard, the back yard, shady, full sun and it just doesn't want to produce. Oh well we will try again next spring.

Coeur d'Alene

Once again we are bad bloggers. It takes a level of commitment that I am not sure we have to keep this thing up to date.

We went to Coeur d'Alene, ID last weekend. The fastest way to get there is actually fly to Spokane, WA and drive over. Because of it's proximity to WA the whole area is actually on Pacific Time though it is in Idaho (they don't show that on the time zone map).

We had a lovely bike ride on the lake and followed it up with a trip to Northern Idaho fair. Which is where we took the only picture of our trip (from my cellphone no less). This is a Subaru Forester that has been converted to electric. There was a whole pavilion dedicated to eletric/hybrid vehicles at the fair.

The fair was fun though the food was a bit lacking, no fresh roasted corn though they did have elephant ears and lamb wraps from the Spokane Sheep Raisers organization.

On our last day it actually rained so we went to Nordstrom in Spokane instead. We don't have a Nordstrom in Boise so it was a nice but expensive change.

We have tons of photos from our prior adventures to did out and post. I'll try to work through them in the next week or two.

Idaho Rally

My friend Jared and I went to the Idaho Rally on Saturday. The 2nd stage was in Featherville, ID. It was a great reminder that you can get lost in the woods real quick in Idaho.

View Larger Map

This was my first rally and it was pretty cool except for the dust. I can't even begin to describe the amount of dirt these cars spit up as they go by. I took the big camera and shot in 'sports' mode but I had lots of pictures of dust only. Here are some of my better shots.

For the first pass we sat in the specator area where they set-up a chicane so that we could see the cars drift. Most of them were able to almost straight line it through there.
All I got of this one was the rear end but we were really close!

Did you know a 2008 Subaru WRX STI starts at $34,995!!! What happened to affordable performace!

Who needs All Wheel Drive!

Who needs front wheel drive?

For the second pass we moved up the hill over the spectator area and got some totally different shots.


Talking to the racers they said they topped out at 91mph on the straights.

They really changed the look of the 2008 Impreza from the prior years.

Nice drift on this pass.

If you have never been to Rally I suggest going. The cars are fast and fun to watch, all the drivers and crews were great, and it's a great way to be outside.