Boise

I flew up to Boise last weekend to spend time with some of my nieces. We went to a place with Chinese pedicurists. According to one of my nieces(who is a beautician), their business practices are not in line with the state licensure practice(so for example they use razors to shave off callous'). But they sure do a good job! I got a design put on my big toes for the first time ever. After the pedicurist meticulously painted my design, I left my chair and brushed one of my toes on a table. She was very kind and redid my toe(but I think she was a bit rougher handling my foot)! And I did like that the seats massaged you mechanically! Felt good! Afterward, we went shopping but when you bring a carry-on as luggage, you can't buy much! I did have to buy a new carry-on since the one I brought started falling apart at the seams! Then we saw movie "Despicable Me". I thought it was rather funny and cute! Later we went to a Halloween farmstead place---there are different activities and food to enjoy. It's very kid-oriented so it was perfect for my nieces kids. And because of the kids, we did not go into the haunted corn maze. But we did find our way out of the non-haunted one all by ourselves(with no help from the corn police)! Had a great time! Thanks goodness for planes so it only took me 45 min to get there instead of 5 hours to drive!

44th Birthday

This year for my birthday dinner, we had paninis and soup. We made homemade clam chowder & I bought some organic creamy tomato soup. Then I bought ciabatta bread squares and various meats, cheeses and spreads(all panini recipes from Zupas) for the paninis. For dessert, my sister made me a striped ice cream cake. It seemed like a lot of work getting it all together that night, but it was worth it having all my family(that could come) around me!

New on TV

It's been a transition thinking there will not be any 24 or LOST this year! Plus I have no channel connections(tv for Netflix or hooking up computer). So when I want to watch a tv show I watch it from the broadcasting website(and the full episode usually remains for a few weeks) with very limited commercial time--like it takes up 1-4 minutes of whole show. Needless to say, I have found 2 new shows that look promising: The Event and The Whole Truth. The Event is a bit LOST-ish---more questions than answers---so it keeps me captivated(involves aliens with great powers). The Whole Truth takes you through the the court process/jury decision and then the last 5 minutes of the show they let you find out what really happened---was the jury correct in their verdict. Or if I choose I can always wait until the shows come out on Netflix.

The Zoo: Part 2

I had another chance to visit the zoo again with another nephew and his family! We got to see the baby elephant, Zuri, playing and running around! It was soooooo cute!! We also got to watch as the gorilla tried to arrange his blanket and himself to take an afternoon nap! It was funny to watch! And the monkeys that look almost skunk-like were chasing each other around the pen! Why are we so fascinated with animals? It was great to yet again enjoy a day with the animals!

Canadian Rockies

During August, my friend and I drove up to see the Canadian Rockies for a week. We stopped in Glacier National Park first before heading up into Canada. Then we hit Waterton Lakes Park, Banff Ntl Park, Columbia Ice Fields and Kootenay Ntl Park. We wanted to explore Jasper Ntl Park more but the rainfall was so heavy we couldn't see anything. So that's one place I'll need to go visit again! One thing I especially loved seeing were all the waterfalls(I was truly in waterfall heaven!) and the turquoise coloring of the glacial lakes! With our lodging, we would camp for 2 days and then motel it every third day so we could re-charge our electronic stuff and ourselves! We did get to see 2 bears(at 2 different times) crossing the highway we were on---luckily no one hit them! There were lots of short hikes to enjoy and even waiting during construction was ok because we were surrounded by beautiful areas to gaze at. It was simply gorgeous! It needs to be on everyone's "must see" list!