Jason and Shelby Come to Town!

            Well what an exciting two weeks! Since my wonderful birthday picnic I have been creating all kinds of havoc in the wilderness! BUT I have had plenty of help thanks to my wonderful friends and family!! It all started last week when Samuel and I went huckleberry picking in Ponderosa Park. The bushes were laden with the sweet little berries and despite eating half our crop we still managed to fill two large Tupperware containers AND leave some for the bears! Of course we took our purple stained fingers straight to the grocery store to buy vanilla ice cream (as any decent self indulging huckleberry picker would), and you can imagine the sundaes and milkshakes that ensued. Delicious. That is all.

            A few days later Samuel and I returned to Ponderosa, not for a second go at the berries but for a swim in the lake. Although it was pretty cold still, I enjoyed it immensely and it marked my first time in Payette Lake in over two years! Thanks Samuel for being such a fabulous adventure buddy!!! What would I do without you?!

            Mom and I decided to have or own adventure last week as well.  For years my wonderful mother has known of a top secret airstrip in the Idaho backcountry that is of PARTICULAR interest to me….It was once a homestead and although now abandon for quite some time has apricots, apples, tiny plums, grapes, logan berries, and cherries still growing wild. After Mom scoped it out last week she informed me that the apricots were ready and it was the biggest crop she’d seen in years!! Well we packed the plane immediately and flew back together to see if we could get a few buckets for jam canning, and did we ever!! We picked until our buckets were full and our arms were jello. Much of the fruit was still too green but the cherries, plums, and apricots were just right…this is what 20 gallons of ripe wild apricots look like…Holy. Moses. What a happy girl I am!

            Some where in the middle of all that shenanigans I managed to take myself on a hike up to Hazzard/Hard Lake, which was very nice except for the horrific mosquitos!! Charlie and I were eaten alive by swarms of the angry buggers, but the view was worth it.

            With all that fun under my belt I suddenly caught word that Jason and Shelby were planning a spur of the moment trip from St. Louis!! I collected them at the Boise airport on Thursday and after a quick fuel stop we were off to McCall to give those two city slickers a decent dose of redneck. We started with the Roseberry Music Festival. The food was awful, the music was decent, and the weather was fabulous. After a few hours of the “bluegrass” music from the Ukealadies we bailed and closed the day with a nice dinner on the deck while Charlie and Shelby roughhoused like the old friends they are.

            The next morning after a walk with the dogs in Bear Basin Jason and I packed the car and headed up to Boulder Reservoir for an overnight camping extravaganza!  For the first time in my life I purchased a fishing license and after setting up camp we spent the evening fishing for our dinner. It was a bit touch and go to start but we ended up catching more fish than we could eat (3)!! Jason even convinced me to let one go because it was a little guy and we already had enough! Being the fab team we are, upon our return camp Jason gutted our prizes while I prepared dinner. We cooked scallion polenta, roasted cabbage, and paired the fish with carrots and homemade mushroom chutney. What a feast!! Even the pups each got a small leftover piece of rainbow trout! Nothing beats food prepared in a campfire, especially when you’ve caught it yourself!!

            The next morning after some coffee and oatmeal Jason and I rallied the dogs and hiked up to Louie Lake. We never actually made it to the lake due to our directional imparedness, but we had a fabulous time chatting and breathing fresh air nonetheless. Shelby even tried to swim across a huge creek on her own! She had to be recued from the current halfway and seemed less than amused. Way to go girl!!

            Also during the visit we did a half-day raft trip on the Salmon River! It was Jason’s first time ever and my first time in many years. We were joined by a mother-daughter team and an out of this world guide who told us we rowed like a well-oiled machine. We had a ball and didn’t even getting ejected from the boat or sunburned. Yahoo!!

            While the weather was still nice we snuck in a bike ride in the park by the lake, and sadly their last day in town was dotted with thundershowers. But I had a plan B! We abandoned our kayaking idea and went to work canning instead! We pitted all the cherries Mom and I had picked and canned half the apricots!! What a trooper!

            The next day although exhausted, I was sad indeed to drop them off at the airport. Until Holland Sir!! Well, I think that about covers it for now! Love and miss you all! xoxo

Sweet Summertime in McCall

            Oh gosh, I am behind again!!! So much has happened in the last month and a half since my return from India that I’m afraid if I try to type it all out it will take me days and be so long no one will read it! So instead of many details, I will give an overview and include more photos than usual! Yey less reading for everyone! Haha So here we go!

            After the longest flight series of my life (nearly 50 hours!!), I arrived safely in McCall after a reunion in St. Louis with Jason and to collect this little guyIn a mad frenzy the next day Mom and I unpacked, repacked, loaded the car, and headed off to California to for my cousins graduation weekend celebration! Congrats Kylie and good luck out there!  Our mother/daughter road trip gave us plenty of time to catch up from our many weeks apart and we even stopped at a friends CO-OP farm on the way where we were served the best eggs and sundried tomatoes I’ve ever had in my life! I was great to see all my California family and even though it was a hectic event-packed weekend, we still found time to chat, go to the farmers market, and do some strolling in the nice weather. Even with the overwhelming jet-lag, much fun was had. Love you all!!

            Upon arriving back to McCall I began working for Mom at the airport which means 4am wake-up for seminar breakfast, schedule organizing, question answering, a bent tail wheel here and there, and lots and lots of squabbling pilots….I quite enjoy it though :) In between work days I managed to participate in the Ponderosa Park Fun Run the second week of June and even cram in a few hikes now and then! At the end of June my dear friend Patrick came to visit for about a week from Florida and we had more fun than I can describe!! We filled our time with biking to North Beach, paddle boarding (where I was HORRIBLY sunburned!! Ugh!), hiking, chatting, canning chutney, drying fruit, cooking, watching Napolean Dynomite, and we even took a trip to Stanley to visit my grandparents! Whew! What fun and I can’t wait to see you again soon Sir. Patrick!

            Shortly after Patrick’s departure, Mom and I celebrated the 4^th of July by holding an enormous yard sale! About 2 months ago Mom sold our old house in town, so it was time to clear it out for the new owners (whom I met and are very sweet people!).  I threw in some things I wanted to be rid of, and we incorporated all the furniture from Grams’ house which had been living in a pile in the garage…..Yeah….there it was a ton of stuff…and we sold nearly all of it!! Yahoo!! A special thanks AGAIN to Patrick for helping me move and sort and set-up everything before hand. I really couldn’t have done it without you!

            Then the best day ever came! My birthday!! Haha just kidding. I worked most of the day, but I did have a wonderful evening with my friend Samuel who joined me for a birthday picnic at the lake! We had cheese and crackers and just enjoyed the breeze after a long week of work. I couldn’t have asked for a better time :) On Saturday as is our birthday tradition Mom and I piled the dogs in the kayaks and headed up river. The weather was awesome and all the dogs took turns falling/jumping in. It was quite a sight. Thanks everyone for all the wonderful birthday wishes and making me feel so loved!

            Ok so now, as promised, here are more pictures of all of these events. Enjoy!

 

Love and miss you all and I can’t wait to see you! Please email me with the latest in your lives so I am not out of the loop!!! And last but not least here are some cute pics of Charlie!! xoxo

India II

            I am so shocked to be writing this as I fly back to the USA! It seems like I only arrived in India a few days ago and now here I am desperately trying to cram all my belongings back into my suitcase (it seems to be getting more difficult the more places I go!!). So to fill you all in since the last time we chatted, more adventures have been had, more friends have been made, and more places explored!

Mumbai is a very large city. Did I mention that before? Like real big… I enjoyed living the city life but found myself looking for a different scene on my free days. A few weeks ago I spent a Sunday at the National Park. The park sits about 30 minutes (by train) outside the city and home to a large variety of birds and plant life. I was joined by three friends Georg, Neha, and Pratik and we hiked up to the parks famous Canary Caves. I was about 4 hours round tip and unfortunately unknown to us it was also the hottest day of the decade on record….no joke. At the end of our hike we were coated in sweat and utterly exhausted.  We then took a refreshing ferry ride to the Global Pagoda before utterly succumbing to the heat and dragging out sun-stroked bodies to Neha’s house for a delicious home cooked lunch. Thanks Neha for feeding us and being our guide and Pratik for being our personal photographer!!!

            The following Sunday a friend invited Georg and I to her family farm which sits about 3 hours outside the city (also by train). I was so incredible to really get into nature for a day and the farm itself are beyond words. Mansi grew up there and they pretty much grow every fruit you can imagine from coconuts to chikoos to mangos to lemons to lychees! It is much more beautiful than the photos can convey and we spent a day and a night with her family chatting about our different cultures and eating their homegrown/ home cooked food! I of course was in absolute heaven and didn’t want to go back to the Yoga Institute! We walked through the orchards, strolled around her small town, and even visited her cousins nearby textile factory. It was complete relaxation and bliss and I hope to return at some point to “apprentice” in her mothers kitchen for a while. Thanks for everything Mansi and family! It was by far one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had!

             After such fun the thought of returning to a boring lecture the following week was far too disturbing, so my trusty adventure friend Georg and I played hooky from class one day and went sight seeing around the city with our personal guide and dear friend Franziska. Franzi has been living and working as a journalist/freelancer/communications agent in Mumbai for nearly four years now. She has more knowledge about the city and its history than most locals and was kind enough to share it with us for an entire day free of charge! We visited Dhobi Ghat (the cities largest outdoor laundry facility), Mahalaksmi Temple, Chowpatty Beach, Victoria Station (where Slumdog Millionaire was partially filmed) and even squeezed in a few fabulous markets around town. By the time we returned home Georg and I agreed that although our bodies were covered in eight layers of dirt and grime our minds were refreshed with interesting Mumbai facts and we were ready to return to class the following day. Thanks Franziska for all your help while I was in Mumbai. I miss you already!

            In between these day outings I was able to sneak in a few mini-adventures as well such as my first (and second) motorbike ride in India! A classmate teaches a nearby Zumba class and offered to give me a ride a few times. It was a great way to see the city and the class was excellent!!! Thanks Serin!! Near the end of the course a Chilean couple in our group kindly asked a few of us to join them for dinner at the local Hare Krishna temple where we all spent the evening eating too much and laughing too hard. It was such a great night and not one I am likely to forget soon!

            Last Friday the course drew to a close. We had our final exam, received our graduation certificates, and said our goodbyes. A few of us went out for afternoon drinks to celebrate and agreed it was a good experience for all even if it wasn’t what we had expected.  It felt like the class had become a family and although what seems like a thousand photos were taken, I will miss them dearly. I spent my very last day in India with Franzi and Georg doing all the last minute things one should do in India, such as eating dosa, having our hands hennaed, cursing the humidity one more day, and chatting about what we liked and disliked about Mumbai. In case you were wondering what was on the list, here is an overview:

THUMBS UP

-Indian street food

-cheap cost of living

-fruit variety

-aliveness of the culture

-my awesomely tiny but friendly gym

-meeting wonderful people

-the confusing head wag

-traveling by rickshaw

-street markets

-being barefoot all the time

THUMBS DOWN

-exhaust filled air

-traffic/honking

-construction/dust

-summer humidity

-the caste system

In the end we decided it was all worth it and we would each leave a tiny piece of ourselves there. For now I will head home to my Mr. Charlie Pants (thumbs up) and prepare for my unavoidable jet-lag (thumbs down…). I also wanted to officially announce (to those who don’t know…), I have chosen to attend Groningen University of Applied Sciences this fall in their Masters of International Communications program in the Netherlands. I am very excited to be back in school and of course to get back to the Europe for a bit. Wish me luck!!

Also, on an overly proud elder sister note, Neil has gotten a wonderful job for Red Tail Aviation as a guide pilot in Moab, UT for the summer! It is such a cool opportunity and I could not be happier for him! You go Spud! You’re the bomb!

Well I think that is all to report for now! I have a busy summer ahead and am looking forward to seeing as many friends and family members as possible! I will see all you MacNichol’s at the wedding of the century (Hoorah Sara and Ross!) and all you Foster’s at the graduation of the century (Go Kylie, go Kylie, go, go!) I truly can’t wait! Hugs and kisses to everyone and please forgive my out of touchness for the past few months! If any of you have time please send me an email about how everything is going and what you are up to!! Until next time….xoxo