Visit with the parents and the Dirty Dash!

The Thursday after we got back from Yellowstone, Taylor and Athena came down from Boise to go to the Bob Dylan concert and stay at our house. We got to babysit their 10-month-old border collie/lab Reginald. Luckily, Sophie's opinion of Reggie has increased a bit since they first met, but she definitely showed her dominance a few times.

Curious little Reggie also learned that our kitties can kick his butt too. Dustin and I took him to Parley's Historic Nature Park and he had a blast in the water. He pulled a lot on his leash in excitement and forgot who he was with (AKA who he was supposed to listen to!) but he did pretty well and made best friends with a black lab who shared his bumper toy.

So sad that his parents left him

Dog park fun!

Reggie and Jade sort of became friends by the end of the visit

My parents came down that same weekend to hang out with us for my mama's birthday weekend. We all went to Brewvies for dinner and a movie Friday night. Saturday, Taylor and Athena headed home while Mom, Dad, and I went to the downtown farmer's market. We found plenty of fresh, tasty things to take home for lunch and I finally broke down to buy some of the drinking glasses from 40N Glassworks that I had been eyeballing for over a year. The glasses are made of recycled High West Distillery whiskey bottles (they are even stamped with 'Park City Utah' along the bottom of the glass!).We ate dinner at the Bombay House and successfully introduced my parents to Indian food.

Sunday morning we met up with Mishael and her boyfriend Santiago for breakfast at the Park Cafe. Then Mishael, Mom, Dad, and I headed to Ikea and Cabela's, with some geocache stops thrown in. Instead of cake, we celebrated my mom's birthday with rum, cinnamon, and nutmeg-marinated grilled pineapple and vanilla ice cream (Tillamook of course!).

She thinks I'm silly for putting a candle in pineapple!

Last weekend Dustin and I drove to Boise so that I could run the Dirty Dash. I had put a team together with Britni, Ashley, Shawna, Athena, and Britni's friends from Pendleton April and Amy. Our team name was the Filthy Femmes and I even had Dustin design some shirts for us! Unfortunately, Shawna had some sudden complications with her fur-baby Sandy and couldn't make it (Sandy Loo is since doing pretty well, but she definitely needed some mama-lovin'!). My friend Gudrun was able to make it on short notice to run with us in Shawna's stead. 

I was pretty worried about running the Dirty Dash since it was almost 5 miles long and I hadn't been running more than 2 miles consistently the past few months (it was hot, dang it!). The race was held up at Bogus Basin Recreational Area and a lot of the trail was uphill, so it was definitely hard. No, I did not run the whole time. Not even close. I seriously got my butt kicked by that race, but it was a lot of fun too. I loved the muddy obstacles! There were tubes to crawl through, mud pits with pipes to crawl over and under, walls to scale, and a big mud pit to swim/slog through at the end. We had a blast, got a little scraped up and got mud EVERYWHERE! I had such a blast with these ladies and am so glad they all agreed to play in the mud with me! I think I may have to do this team race thing more often (after I get a little more in shape, of course!)

Britni, Ashley and I got to meet up with my cousin Sarah, her husband Kevin and their little girl Layla for dinner on Saturday night. Sarah and Kevin recently moved to Boise and it was fun to see them more than once a year! We went to a local restaurant called Locavore and both dinner and dessert were delicious! We had so much fun visiting, I'm pretty sure the staff thought we had decided to move in.

That night Dustin, Taylor, Athena, Jake, and Gudrun had an outdoor movie in Athena's backyard, but Brit, Ash and I were exhausted and, instead of making the short drive across town, fell asleep early. Ashley headed out to nanny her super-cute charges the next morning while Britni and I picked up some bagels and headed over to Taylor and Athena's. We scarfed said bagels before we girls headed out to the mall for a bit of shopping. We also met back up with Jeremy and kiddos Tate and Camille as they came through Boise to pick Brit up on their way back from Blackfoot. We all went to the old Boise Penitentiary, which I hadn't been to since I was a little kid. It was fun to brush up on some history, but sometimes a little challenging to answer awkward questions from Tate and Camille.

Modeling our team shirts!

We're excited for another fun-filled weekend!

No trip ever happened unless it has a photo of Sophie thinking 'are we there yet?'

We could see the fire east of Boise on our drive in Friday night

Sophie slept on the couch next to our air mattress and liked that she could reach her paw out to smack me in the face

She also liked that she could look out the front window to check things out

7 clean ladies pre-race

We are ready to get MUDDY!

Those are definitely some Filthy Femmes!

Our super-fake running photo makes me laugh!

Grrr!

Muddy, muddy shoes

I got most of the mud off my face

Tired but happy! 

I even sported some U of U Hospital pride during the race!

Reggie just loves to be held.

Camille is trying to wrap her mind around the fact that there were 4 people crammed into these tiny cells!

Contemplating death row

Idaho Kid is a little nervous around Battle Axe...

Tired baby ready to head home!