last half of summer

So it's just about mid-September, there are clouds covering the sky and the temperature has backed off from the summer's consistent mid-90s to 60s and 70s.  Bummer.  I wish summer would stay around longer.  Hoping that our careers take us to southern California one day so I can have eternal summer and no feet of snow to deal with.  Yuck. 

So we left off with Jed working 45 hours in 3 days for the ElGene's booth at the Madison Fair.  I spent a lot of time stopping by, hanging out, taking food, and watching some of the rodeo games (I'm a fan of pole-bending especially and other equestrian skill games but not a supporter of calf-roping etc).  It was long and often boring work but hey, a few extra hundred dollars is nice.  

best thing ever: a potato spiraled out and deep fried on a stick

parrots like rodeo games too .. i guess

The following weekend we drove out to Nampa, ID for my grad school orientation.  It was unfortunate that we had to go all the way out there (325 miles) when the only thing I needed to physically be there for was to get my ID, which I'll never use because I won't be on campus.  It's a distance program for which we seriously won't go back until I graduate.  Anyway, we left Thursday night, orientation was all day Friday and most the day Saturday and then we drove back that night.  Jed got to play with his old mission companion and roommate, Josh, while I had to sit through not super useful presentations.

yay i'm a student .. again (this makes my 4th college/uni student ID)

My roommate from 2009, Tami, graciously let us stay at her place while we were in town so we made sure to take her out and party Friday night.  We went to Boise Fry Company and sampled 3 of their 6 interesting fries, with burgers on the side (although full-sized they only had choices of bison, beef, and vegan).  Don't forget the 8 dipping condiments and numerous shakeables.  It was pretty fancy.  We then hit up Yogurtz in Meridian where they have 20 flavors of ice cream and sorbet and over 80 toppings.  Oh man what a treat.  We were stuffed.

thanks Tami!!

Boise Fry Co

so many toppings, it blew my mind!

mmmm...

After we got back Saturday night from Nampa, my dad showed up on his way back from moving stuff from IA to WA.  He stayed the night and then we went backpacking to Palisades Creed Trail (I know we've done it 3 times this summer now but it's the closest and prettiest hike with a lake) Sunday and Monday.  It was good weather and we saw a pet goat though no mountain goats, and deer but oddly no moose.  The night we camped it rained pretty hard as there was a lightening storm right above us.  That woke us up or kept us up a few times as the thunder was pretty loud, lol.  We survived though.  It was a whirlwind trip that we were pretty tired for but it was nice to see my dad briefly.  Pa left Tuesday morning after some pancakes and I went back to work.  :(  

Lower Palisades Lake

the grocery bag on my pack eventually was filled with garbage we found up there

yay Papa!

deer buddy in camp

Wednesday Daniel and Maddy took us out for my birthday.  We were going to go to the Cellar but by the time I had wrapped up all I needed to for work, it was like 8pm and they had closed their kitchen over an hour early because it was a slow night.  This is the 3rd year in a row that dinner plans have fallen through on/for my birthday, so I'm getting used to it, lol.  Also, the backup always ends up being burgers, it seems.  So we went to Red Robin and pigged out.  I also got to be sung to by staff at a restaurant for the first time, ha.  Love D&M so much for being sweethearts.  The next day was my actual birthday and Jed took me for Thai, mmm...  Also, I got some sweet gifties from family including a himalayan salt lamp.  :P  Thanks all!! 

chomp!

besties!

more chomps!

The weekend after my birthday we took a day in Idaho Falls and I got my new phone!!!  I had been drooling over the Samsung Galaxy S3 for months before it came out in July and am so happy that I finally got my paws on it.  Jed was actually able to get his a week before me, but his Motorola Atrix 1 had lost use of many parts of the screen and mine had started to bug out in different ways.  Anyway, this is seriously the most fantastic phone I've ever had the privilege to use or try out.  It has so many customizible and unique features and a beautiful large HD screen that makes me want a new monitor, it's light and flat, has a quadcore processor, and is just beautiful!  I really don't think I'm materialistic about much anything except cellphone technology.  Then again it's a tool that I'm literally using just about constantly throughout the day for work and play.  

*drool*

As for work, all my clients are back on track and now that school is in session I can easily track them down by picking kids up from school, mwahaha.  I got a review (finally) and a small (but appreciated!) raise.  I will submit my CAFAS certification test this week and my boss is going to pay for half ($300) of my MRT certification in October.  Trying to move up in life!  I will be doing about 30 hours a week now that I am in school.  I don't think I'm one of those people who can work full time, go to school full time, and raise 3 kids as a single mother or whatever amazing people do.  So part time work and full time school it is (and no kids).  

Class for me started on Sept 6 and I'm taking 4 classes/10 credits this first semester.  I was luckily able to have half my classes for my foundations year waived because of my classes from my undergrad but have to "retake" several because of below-par grades due to extenuating circumstances.  Ah well, some is better than nothing.  It doesn't allow me to graduate any earlier but does save me thousands and allow me to comfortably do dual concentration like I wanted (addiction studies and mental health) or possibly add admin and triple (I know, I'm just that insane) as I am taking half the concentration year classes this year.  I am hitting the books and shooting for a 4.0 so that I can get in the 3.0 range, haha.  

Class for Jed starts Sept 10.  He's taking the remainder of his generals as well as hopefully a new media ventures class and has 3-4 semesters left until he graduates.  He's had (more) issues with the school lately that we are trying to iron out.  Any student that went here can tell you that they don't make it easy to just do what you need to do to graduate.  Hopefully good news will come out of that though.  :S

And in conclusion, our garden is finally slowing down a little but had a burst of produce the last few weeks.  Pa gave us his spare AeroGarden so we will be doing some miniature hydroponic gardening over the winter as well as doing starts in late winter/early spring so we can get our garden for next summer going as soon as possible.  Oh yea, we're making this into a year-long hobby.  Can't wait til we have a house with land so we can really go nuts with veg, fruit trees, greenhousing, and hydroponics.  :D 

they overwatered a bit..

finally got 2 eggplants growing!

monster lettuce

this and the next picture were hauls from the same week..

we're pros!