*sigh* of relief

Hello everyone.

I am finally officially done with Fall semester. Now we wait for grades which will come out on Christmas Eve... tomorrow! Ah!
We drive to Utah tomorrow after Chad gets home from work (boooo...), then fly to California on Sunday.

So - Thanksgiving.

Mollie came up from Provo, and we made Thanksgiving dinner by ourselves. What else did we do??! I don't even remember now! I think Mollie posted a sort of play-by-play, so check there.

Thanksgiving:
Trying to prep the turkey -



The finished product - We did it!






We went shopping and mini-golfing and Who-Christmasing the day after Thanksgiving at the town park.
We were walking our way over to the park when we heard a fire engine down Main Street, but could tell it wasn't going very fast. It pulled up on the corner, with Santa aboard. Then anti-climactically, Santa got off the fire engine and walked all the way across the park to where the festivities were. It was kind of awkward. My camera was taking a video but when I went to look at it, it was gone. I do have a video of the group singing Christmas carols down Main Street on our way to the Tabernacle. The police stopped traffic!

Mollie and Chad eating free chili.


Waiting for the horse-drawn carriage - Mollie told me to take this picture


On the horse-drawn carriage ride around the park -




Horses




Singing our way to the Tabernacle.


Picture with Santa


Now we're officially ready for Christmas!

Carnegie Hall Here I Don't Come

Hello all.

I have an update on the Carnegie Hall expedition. Since I will be graduated by then, the school won't give me any money. To be expected. But they haven't told me that yet because I guess they don't want to hurt my feelings? I found out from Brother Holman.
So that answers that question.

Oh well. If you know the recent drama in that story, you'll know that this is probably a good thing.

Updates from Thanksgiving to follow when my senior recital is finally over!!!

Weekend Update

I owe you a quick update.

I had my senior recital hearing on Friday. I played excerpts of my music for Bro. Holman (there were supposed to be two other professors there - one came for a few minutes and left) and he was supposed to decide whether or not I was allowed to go ahead with my senior recital. He decided I passed. Yay! Not that I was worried - I've been practicing!

Anyway - I also heard from the student teaching people. There's a choir teacher in Idaho Falls who wants to set up an interview with me. Don't ask me what that's all about, because I really don't know. Neither do any of my professors.

In other news, I am now officially on Thanksgiving Break!!!!!!!! I am SOOO glad. This semester will be over before I know it!

Also, it snowed about 2-3 inches today. Hopefully the roads will be cleared up by Tuesday when Mollie comes up with some guy in her ward and we have to go pick her up in Blackfoot.

We bought ourselves a turkey yesterday, and are preparing to make our very first Thanksgiving dinner together. It could be scary... There's always KFC.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Weekend Update

Hello everyone.
It's been a while since I posted anything.
Some updates:

The FBI has completed my background check and I am officially approved to do my student teaching somewhere. (Location yet unknown)

We began using our baseboard heaters in October when it got really cold. We turned on the one in the front room and the one in the bathroom. We decided we'd see how much it cost and determine if it was worth it. We got our power bill. It is lower than last month's when we didn't use the heaters at all. $11.00. I think we'll be using the heaters.

We had an AMAZING (if I do say so myself) Halloween party with some friends of ours. It was really fun. We began with a spider web thing through the other apartments. It was creepy enough in the dark without adding anything. Chad decorated the hallway with Porter's stuff, and we had donuts on a string, pin the tail on the cat, build a foam haunted house the fastest, and a candycorn count. We had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures:














(This is a "mister" Chad bought at Porter's, not dry ice. We discovered (too late) that they do in fact sell dry ice at Broulim's.)



Chad and I dressed up for the Halloween Concert (which I, thankfully, wasn't in this year) Here is our dorky music costume. (To which the usher said - Oh, you must be choir people. ... because only choir music has repeat signs?)
One of the choir girls saw us in the lobby and said "Aww - together you go on and on and on and on and on and on..."




My friends bought guinea pigs a few weeks ago, and we went over to visit. They are so cute!! (The guinea pigs, not the friends... ) I'm sure mom is rolling her eyes.




My senior recital is exactly 3 weeks from today. *sigh*
My hearing is supposed to be next Friday. I will be so glad when it is over.

It is snowing.

I leave you with a picture of a sunrise taken from our kitchen window a while ago.

Carnegie Hall Here I Come!!! (...maybe)

Hello all.

About two weeks ago, Sister Soelberg told the band that she received information about the National Collegiate Wind Ensemble - a group put together of college students across the country. They rehearse and perform in NYC for a week in May followed by a concert in Carnegie Hall. The girl who played bass clarinet here when I was a freshman and sophomore went one year, and really enjoyed it. No one from the college has been since.

It sounded a whole lot like one of those "if you pay enough money, you can come" kind of deals, and it is. But I sent in audition materials at the last minute to lengthen my decision time. The girl who went before got a grant through the school. I thought I could try this as well. (The 5 days/5 nights trip is about $1500 plus my own travel expenses to get to NYC. Yeah. That's why I said maybe.) Anyway, so I threw together some audition materials, and sent away my application. I realized just after that that I will be (better be!) graduated by then, and will probably not get very far in getting the school to pay for me. But anyway. Now I have until Nov. 27 to decide - when the first payment is due to "ensure my spot". I could bring Chad if I wanted, but he would also have to pay the $1500 and get time off of work. We are taking his one week of accumulated vacation time the week after Christmas to go to California. (I'm sad it won't be to Connecticut, but he needs to go home sometimes too...)

Anyway, as I said, the event is in May, which means we could be in Connecticut by then, and then our travel expenses wouldn't be so high, but who knows what will happen between now and then. We have no official plans.

So here I sit. Carnegie Hall (for the low low price of $1500) is so close! And yet so far away. The only reason I'm even considering it is because I'm a musician and this is most likely going to be the only time I'm ever offered the chance to play in Carnegie Hall. Oh well. Brother Holman played there (with the MoTab?) ... maybe I'll just grow up and join the Orchestra at Temple Square and then I can play in awesome venues across the country. Cuz that'll happen.

That's my story.

Have you listened to the sound clip I posted yet?! I don't think so... or you would be commenting.....

Music to drive you crazy

Yummmmm.

I was perusing the fresh-baked donuts at Broulim's the other day when I came across a "Texas Donut". It was towards the bottom of the case, so I crouched down and involuntarily let out a "holy moly!" when I saw what was there. Naturally, I had to have one.

The Latest and Greatest

We went out in search of a pumpkin between sessions of General Conference. (It may have spread into the second Sunday session...) It had rained all morning, and it finally let up for a while when we got to this pumpkin patch. This place was in Idaho Falls. We hit it after finding the first place where "pick your own" meant "we picked them all and then put them in a pile - pick your own." This place was a "leave your money in the box" place but most of the pumpkins had been picked off their vine as well, but at least they left them in the field. We took the tall pumpkin so we could put it on our windowsill.



Here is the video of my performance for the Chairman's Honor Recital. I had my hair done at the beauty college for 9 bucks. It was fun. Interesting fact: the first movement I play was written as a tribute to Karen Carpenter.



Enjoy!

Fall is in the Air

Hello everyone -
As the family posts seem to be revolving around fall, I figured I'd add my own. For my opinion of fall, see Mollie's post - or Erin's post. However, I do have something to add.

Remember those framed pressed leaves mom gave us for Christmas? I was pretty sure all of the girls got one - maybe not. But anyway, I took mine out of my bedroom and moved it into the front room as an official decoration for the fall season. Chad hung it on the wall for me, and I was pretty sure none of the choir people would even notice. (The only people we have over regularly - Sunday mornings we have choir at our apartment.) Anyways, people started showing up for choir and nobody had said anything. It's okay - they're up more for me than anyone else. So I can imagine walking home through leaves like that, or raking them, or seeing them on trees. Fall is not Fall in Rexburg, more of a pre-Winter. Anyways.

Then about half way through choir practice someone spots my leaves.
"Where did you get those?!"
I explain that I'm from Connecticut and my mom gave me the framed leaves. Those leaves are from my backyard.
"No way! You should have your mom send you some and you could sell them!"

Oh what a sad, season-deprived town Rexburg, Idaho is.

The Forecast for Today is....

(sorry it's so small)
...why am I not surprised?

... that one week of fall sure was nice.

It's A Small World

So we just got home from church. As you may know, it was fast and testimony meeting because General Conference is next Sunday.

One of the new girls in our ward got up and was talking about how they spent their summer in Connecticut... Really??

So after Sacrament Meeting, I went up to her and asked where they lived. She said they were there working with Apex (alarms) and lived in ROCKY HILL!!! THEY WERE IN THE CROMWELL WARD! I was so jealous. They spent their summer in my home ward! Anyway - mom and dad - they were Tyler and Kim Muir - in case you remember them.

New Post

Hello my dear readers.

I should be doing homework or laundry or something, but here I am writing on the blog. Mom informed me yesterday that she anxiously waits for new posts - so this one's for you mom.

For all you readers out there who are wondering, we did get the car fixed. The guy from our ward was taking a long time to get back to us, and we didn't know how long it would take him to fix it once he actually had the car. So we just took it to the shop in town that was recommended to us by Grease Monkey and Les Schwab. Chad called them Wednesday, his day off, they told him what the problem probably was, he took it in, and got it back a few hours later. Yay! As I told mom - when the car first started having problems, I put on my internet sleuthing hat and found some forums that said it was probably our brake booster. Then we talked to Les Schwab and they said we were probably right. Then we talked to the guy from our ward who came over and looked at it and said he thought it was the master cylinder. Then we talked to my automotive teacher who said it could be a disconnected hose or the ABS. Let me just say, that my internet sleuthing skills were right all along. I was pretty proud.
Anyways, so we got it fixed, it cost us a few hundred bucks out of our "emergency fund" but that's what it's for! And we have a working car again! I am SO happy about that. Today is laundry day and I'm glad we don't have to 1) risk our lives trying to drive to the laundromat or 2) do our laundry in the sink.

Well, as I said, school started. Somehow I got really busy.
Here are my classes:

Music Literature 3: I learn about and study the music literature of the 20th century - everything from Copland to Stravinsky.

Teaching Strategies: I learn about philosophies, leadership techniques and teaching strategies specific to the music classroom.

Motivation Management: I learn discipline and teaching strategies for the general classroom. Mostly geared toward elementary education teachers, but it's interesting.

Reading in the Content: A silly class where I learn about how to teach reading. Required for all education majors. As music students, we wonder how this really applies to us. We understand that we will have to teach music terms, but how often are we going to have to sit down and teach reading? We think there should be a separate class for how to teach reading music since music is it's own language.

Piano Pedagogy: I learn the ins and outs of teaching piano lessons. Could be a handy skill when I'm stuck at home with kids.

Wind Ensemble: Same ol' same ol'. First chair for my last semester.

Clarinet Lessons: Preparing for my senior recital!!! December 5th.

Marching Percussion: This class replaces the BYU-I Marching Band program. Instead we have a drumline and color guard. I'm playing in the front line, meaning I stand on the sidelines (don't march) and play mallet percussion/auxilary percussion. (Bass drum, wood block, suspended cymbals, etc)

And finally Automotive 100: I learn how to clean and maintain my car. So far it's been pretty fun. Did you know that you should always look for tire pressure information on the placard in your glove box, not on the sidewall of the tire? See how much I'm learnd-ing?!

I'm also "mentoring" for the basic theory/ear training class which is making me work 8 hours a week for which I get paid. I'm doing it for the teaching experience, not the money, so I might trade some of my hours to someone else so I'm not crazy this semester.

In other news - Yesterday I got asked to play for the Chairman's Honor Recital - a concert in the Barrus (the big concert hall) on October 6th. I'm excited. The Sinfonietta will play a piece (or two?) and then student soloists will fill out the program. Not really sure what the point of the recital is - they said they used to do it, but haven't in a long time, and they're trying to bring it back.

Also - Last night we went to a show by Jason Hewlett. We were tired when we got home, and were in bed by about 11:00. We were woken up around 1:00 by a group of about 4 guys hanging out on the sidewalk across the street. (In front of the new "Craze" fun center - right below where we used to live.) We were woken up by their yelling obscenities at passing cars and people, throwing beer bottles, climbing up the side of the building and just generally being stupid. The police came around 1:30 but by then they had gone upstairs across the street. Not realizing that they live up there, I was concerned about that, and glad that we no longer lived over there. So the police came and left without talking to anyone because they had gotten off the street. However, 3 of the guys came back down about 2o minutes later and again began drinking and yelling on the sidewalk. (We live in Rexburg!! What the heck?!) The police came again and talked to them for a good 10-15 minutes on the sidewalk. Apparently one of the kids gave two fake birthdays, because the cop couldn't find him in the system. (We could hear this all from our window.) Anyways, then they followed them upstairs to their apartment, and talked up there for a while. The cops finally left around 2:30 and we fell back to sleep. We don't really know what happened, but we're guessing someone was underage. Perhaps that kid who lied about his birthday... twice?!

They were also having an 80s dance party at the beauty college right next to our building. The beauty college went out of business a few weeks ago, and apparently someone rented it for the night and told all their friends. Because of the minigolf/laser tag place, we also regularly have teenagers hanging out on the sidewalk across from our apartment, yelling and genearlly being obnoxious, though last night was especially so. On Thursday night (around 9:00) we also got to listen to a band that they decided to bring in in order to drum up business. It was ridiculously loud, and the singer just screamed for about an hour. You can imagine what kind of people that attracted. We had to close all of our storm windows and inside windows to even attempt to drown them out. Even with the door across the street closed, we could hear everything perfectly. We had heard the Craze was going to look for bands, but we were surprised by their choice, especially considering that there are apartments directly above the "stage". Did I mention that I am SO GLAD that I don't live across the street anymore?!!!

We liked when our little downtown block was ignored and quiet. With the Craze across the street and a makeshift dance hall on the next block, we were overrun with obnoxious people last night. It was so weird! And we didn't like it. We're hoping we'll get back to normal. But that would mean that the Craze would have to go out of business. And since none of my money is invested in it, I wouldn't be sad to see it go. The occasional round of mediocre black light mini-golf and ski-ball is not worth the sort of crowds it's drawing. And the manager of the fun center is the same manager of the apartments, and he's kind of a push-over, so people can get away with pretty much whatever they want as long as they're paying. His apartment is in the back of the building, so I guess he doesn't care.

That's the story from Rexburg for now. I'm planning a Halloween Party for a group of our friends, because last time we got together we were talking about how we never have anything to do on Halloween anymore. I'm so excited! It won't be as good as Mom's parties, but none of these people have ever been to one of Mom's parties, so they won't know the difference. :o)

The Beginning of the End

Hello Everyone.

I daresay, it has been quite a while since I have posted anything. Well, anything exciting. I want to post some pictures of our last few days of summer, but right now I'm at school and that is not an option.

(There are a couple of guys sitting at the computers across from me making comments about how fast I type. It could be worse. They could be making fun of my hair.)

I digress. I'm in the library right now, enjoying a free moment, which doesn't happen very often and probably won't happen again in a long while. I've started school, obviously, without much fanfare. It's my senior year! My last semester on campus!

It sucks to have all of the students back in town though, because everything is busy again. Not as busy as Provo. But still.

On Saturday Chad and I went up to the new school cafeteria that they've been working on for about a year now. It is HUGE. And it is way better than the CougarEat. Finally something we're better at. Eating. Anyways, I would post pictures but they don't even do it justice. You just have to come see it for yourself! ;o)

Sometime in the last little bit of summer, Chad and I went to the Titanic Exhibit at the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls. We each got a passenger ticket at the beginning of the exhibit with the name of a real passenger. We were both rich hoity-toity people, but I survived while Chad did not. Chad's name was William Butts. Hehe. Mine was Molly Brown. Yup! Can you believe that?! I can't remember now what her real name was, but I was feeling pretty uppity. They said a cheap ticket on the Titanic would be the equivalent of $600(+) today. How did even the poorest people afford that? I guess they were using their life savings to get to America and when they got there wouldn't have very much more than the clothes on their backs. It was really fun. They had replicas of a state room and a third class bunk room, and lots of artifacts and stories.

On Labor Day, Chad and I went to the East Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot. Blackfoot is sketchier than either of us thought, but we made it out alive. The fair was everything a fair ought to be. Except it didn't have Footsie Wootsies and I was sad about that. I made sure to bring quarters just in case. We ate lots of deep-fried fair food and looked at giant vegetables. It wasn't as good as the Big E, but it was the closest I've gotten so far. One of the vendors was even selling a back support item for $10(+) that we bought at the Dollar Tree earlier that day. And people were buying them! I bet they felt stupid the next time they went to the Dollar Tree.

However, on the way to the East Idaho State Fair, we were cruising along on the highway when some guy cut us off and Chad had to hit the brakes pretty hard. From that moment forward there was this awful hissing air-leak noise whenever Chad pressed the brake pedal. As scary as that was, it didn't seem to be affecting the brakes, so we decided to continue on to Blackfoot (10 miles). Not to mention there is nothing between Idaho Falls and Blackfoot and we were closer to Blackfoot at this point. Chad called his dad when we got there and spent a good 20 minutes under the hood, on the phone, trying to diagnose the problem. He couldn't hear the noise under the hood though, and we discovered that it was coming from inside the car, right behind the brake pedal. Greeeeeat.

We enjoyed our time at the fair and didn't worry about it. We got in the car to go home, and all was well, except the noise. It seemed to get louder the faster we accelerated and the harder we braked. But still, no affect on the brakes themselves. When we got home we looked up some stuff on the internet and found that it sounded like our Brake Booster went out. Don't ask me what that is, because I'm not entirely sure. We talked to a guy at Les Schwab who told us the same thing but that they don't do Brake Boosters there. He directed us to a mechanic in town who probably would, so we went over there and they were closed. 0 for 2. We stopped at Checker to see if they could help us. They had the part (with trade-in) for $75. Not too bad, assuming we'd install it ourselves. They don't do installation. And the guy said it was probably a 2-3 hour job for a mechanic. Then I remembered that a girl in Relief Society was talking about how her husband was trying to start his own mechanics shop and had been working on cars all summer. So Chad called him but he never called back. The automotive department on campus sent out an e-mail looking for cars to work on in their classes, and one of the topics they were studying was brakes. So we e-mailed them yesterday, but haven't heard anything back yet. The students decide what projects they want to do, so it may not get picked. But they might also not get to it for a month or two, and we can't wait that long. Here's why:

As we were driving around town trying to figure out how much this is going to cost us, we were on our way to WalMart when the brakes decided to start acting up. Now when you press the brake pedal you get the incessant hissing noise, followed by a quick jerk of the pedal, bringing the car to an abrupt stop, and then letting it roll forward. It was like riding in a car with someone learning how to drive stick shift. I didn't like that very much, so we decided that we would get home and not go anywhere until we got it fixed. But last night we needed to do laundry. Chad kept telling me he'd rather live than wear clean underwear, but I could not be convinced. We made it safely to the laundromat. The trip, which should take less than 5 minutes, took probably 15. We drove the whole way with our flashers on, hoping people would keep their distance and not cut us off or follow too closely. Once our laundry got done, we knew we were out of milk, so we ventured a trip to Broulim's as well. If it wasn't 10:00 pm, we might have asked someone to take us or let us borrow their car. But we thought it was a little late for that. We drove to Broulim's, choosing our route to take right turns the whole way there so we wouldn't have to stop abruptly at a stoplight or stop sign. As I said, the car was fine as long as we were not using the brakes.

Anyways, that's what's going on with us. It looks like it's gonna cost a couple hundred bucks at least to fix the car, so it's a good thing that my Pell Grant money came in. Until then, we're without a car. I won't drive it at all but Chad might brave it for emergencies. As long as we're never going downhill. He won't even drive it downhill. We won't be able to do anything with it until at least Friday, Chad's day off. Hopefully we can get someone to call us back and take a look at it.

I guess I should do homework, or something more productive than blogging. Pish Posh.

- Rideless in Rexburg

NO! Stop telling my kids to work hard!!!

Shouldn't someone (or quite a few someones) feel pretty stupid right about now?

Read the speech here.

The great state of Idaho

If you haven't heard already, a candidate for governor for the state of Idaho made a comment at a Republican rally earlier this week about hunting Obama. When asked to follow up, he stated "Anyone who understands the law, knows I was just joking, because Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tags in Washington, D.C."

Though he says it was a joke, and hopefully (though not obviously) he won't be literally "hunting" Obama, could this comment have been in poorer taste? From a state whose school children chant "assassinate Obama" on the school bus? Gee, I wonder where they get that from...

In an article in today's paper, Rammell, the aforementioned "long-shot" candidate, expressed his opinion that while the publicity is negative, it's publicity and it will help him in his campaign. And in a state like Idaho, it will probably win him more than a few voters.

Lucky for all of us, there are more than a few people leaving comments on this on-line article who say the "hunting Obama" comment was made because Rammell is a Mormon - a white supremacist who believes black people are inferior to himself. Oh joy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/27/rex-rammell-idaho-goper-j_n_270751.html

Vacation Day 16: Saturday Daycation

(Caution: Long post with lots of pictures and several videos.)

Well, Saturday has been marked up on our calendar for weeks now. Mom called me a few weeks ago to tell me that my Uncle Tom was going to be the Grand Marshal in the Chubbuck Days parade and we had to go and take pictures.

Then I saw a commercial for Zoofari, and I decided we were definitely going to that since we were going to be in Pocatello anyway.

Then our friends told us about the Duck Race and other festivities that were going on in Idaho Falls.

So I made out a schedule for the day to make sure we didn't miss anything. Let the good times roll!!

7:00 am - We were up bright and early to get ready to go to the Chubbuck Days Parade.

8:15 am - We were on the road on our way to Pocatello! It was pretty chilly and cloudy, and once we hit Blackfoot, it started to rain, so we were worried that it might be cancelled.

9:20-ish am - We pull into Chubbuck, and easily find the mall whose parking lot was being used to line up the parade people. When we drove by, we saw Aunt Karen and Uncle Tom standing around at the front of the line. We went and parked, and then walked over to say hi. It was drizzling and actually cold! (Chad was happy I made him bring a sweatshirt.) They showed us the car they got to drive in, and boy was it fancy! Mercedes-Benz convertible with heated AND cooled seats. (Not at the same time... though I wouldn't be surprised if it could do that too!) It was a $100,000.00+ car, and they had a lot of admirers checking it out before the parade started. (See the video!)






10:00 am - We walked down the parade route a little ways and found a place to scope out the parade.

10:30 am - By now it was pretty much raining. The parade finally started.
I have never seen people throw out so much candy! I was telling Chad though, maybe it was because we were relatively close to the top of the parade route, and it was not the nicest weather, so attendance was probably down. But we were showered with candy by pretty much every float. There was a little girl (maybe 6?) on one of the floats who looked at me (cuz I waved to her), zeroed in on me, and chucked a piece of taffy at my head with all her 6-year-old strength. You can see her in the video! She's riding in the little cars painted like animals.
Anyways - there was so much candy these boys stuffed each other's pockets.


What am I protecting from the rain? A baby? A puppy?


Nope! 2 rolls of free toilet paper from CostCo with attached one day passes to CostCo!!
I had to protect that toilet paper! We all know it's no good if it gets wet prior to use!



11:00 am - After the (short) parade, we found our way to Office Max because I had a coupon that got me Sharpie markers for a penny each, and it expired that day. After much deliberation, I picked out my Sharpies and they only cost me 3 cents and I have the receipt to prove it!!!




11:30-ish am - We stop at WalMart because Chad wants a snack, and we both have to use the bathroom. We make another amazing find at WalMart, but we're saving it for Christmas, so we can't tell you what it was.

12:00 pm - On the road to Idaho Falls for the festivities there.

12:30 pm - We get to Idaho Falls and find a table selling ducks for the upcoming duck race. We bought a duck for $5 and crossed our fingers that we would win something in the duck race at 3:45.

We walked around the greenbelt and watched some speedboats drag race on the river, and checked out the car show. (The pictures are mainly for you dad...)








2:00 pm - The Tug-of-War across the river. They got local football teams to participate, strung a rope across the river, and played tug-of-war.
Our team: The Shelley Russets

The other team on the other side of the river:


They had the police boat in the water to start the race - it went something like this:
(To our side of the river) Are you guys ready?
We're ready!
(To the other side of the river)
Are you guys ready?
Ready!
3-2-1 GO!!!
(3 seconds later) SNAP! and everyone falls over and the tug-of-war was over.

They took yellow nylon rope, tied two pieces together, and as soon as there was that much weight pulling on either side, it snapped right where it was tied and nobody won. ... Nobody saw that coming except us? Oh well - it was entertaining nonetheless.

2:10 pm - We set out in search of food that doesn't cost as much as carnival food. We call Mollie and find out that there is a Subway in the WalMart a couple of blocks away. We begin walking.

2:45 pm - We finally find WalMart and its Subway and order sandwiches. I have a flashback to being in Washington, D.C. when I was little and waiting hours for McDonald's hamburgers. Guess it runs in the family. But we did only spend $10.00.

3:15 pm - We find our way back to the Greenbelt because there's supposed to be a "Duck Egg Drop". We didn't know what this was and the description online wasn't that clear.
Watch the video below to see for yourself. (Egg Drop and Duck Race are the same video)


Yes, it ended up being a helicopter hovering overhead a big crowd of people and dropping thousands of ping-pong balls. Most were white, but some were red and all got you a prize. If you had more than one red, you had to give them away because the red balls got you better prizes. We gathered some white ping pong balls off of the ground after the general crowd had dispersed. We found out from the prizes that this was generally a children's activity - the prizes were snack size packs of skittles or oreos, and the red balls got you foam arrow shooters or bubbles. After finding this out, we didn't feel so bad about not getting any red balls. We planned to give away our white balls, but all the little kids seem to have their own fair share, so we kept them for souvenirs instead.

Just after the duck egg drop, we were waiting for the duck race to begin at 3:45. We saw that there was a firetruck parked in front of the duck race area, and they were letting little kids spray the fire hose at a wood cut out of a burning house. Now, how often do you get to spray a fire hose?!! I got in line with the little kids, and waited my turn for 15-20 minutes. Chad wandered over to the river at some point to make sure he got pictures of the duck race starting. (They drop the ducks out of the air.) Just like the circus, my little heart beat with anticipation at the excitement of spraying a fire hose. Every step got me one step closer to everyone's childhood dream come true! I keep looking at Chad because I'm not sure when the ducks are going to drop, and I'm getting closer and closer to the front of the line. Finally the kid in front of me is done, and it's my turn! The EMT controlling the fire hose was an older guy and he says "Who's next?!" And looks up at me. I say "Can big kids try it too?" He looks at me, looks at the next kid in line, and says "Come on up! Give it a try."
HE TOTALLY IGNORED ME! And I look behind me, and there were only two little boys behind me, and besides that, THERE WASN'T EVEN A LINE! I wanted to try it!
I waited for a second, with the thought that I would ask again after the two little boys were done - maybe he just didn't hear me - but I decided not to lest I be ignored a second time. And I didn't have a mom there to say "Uh, excuse me, my daughter was next. She's been waiting in line."
And unlike the let-down of the circus where I was a big girl, I may have shed a few girlish tears over the destruction of all my hopes and dreams when I didn't get to spray the fire hose. If he had said "Oh, I'm sorry, it's just for the little guys" I wouldn't have cared but to just completely ignore me?!! Jeese!

And in waiting to get my picture spraying the fire hose and trying to get a picture of the duck race beginning, Chad got neither. The pictures of the duck race beginning are off the internet. Neither of us was very happy.


We watched the duck race and cheered on our duck. The first duck over the falls won a Toyota Yaris.


Here I am with the car we won!!!

No... we didn't actually win it. But I sure wish we did!

4:30-ish pm - Got back on the road to go to Pocatello Zoofari.

5:30 pm - Arrive at Zoofari.
Now - let me tell you about Zoofari. We saw a commercial for the event on TV and decided we had to go. It boasted free ice cream, an entertainer, and face painting at the Pocatello Zoo for $6.00 a person. Now, as we drove there, we contemplated all the ways they could make it more lame than the commercial made it sound. Free ice cream only for kids - free ice cream as long as you only want vanilla - free ice cream as long as you waited in line for an hour at a time.

But - I give a million points to Zoofari. It met and exceeded all our expectations and made all of our dreams come true! You don't understand - I have been waiting for Zoofari since I first saw the commercial about a month ago. And today was the day!!


The zoo is a fenced off part of a park. It had buffalo,

coyotes, bears, lynxes, donkeys and cows, a petting zoo with goats.



and this little guy.

Chad (Charlie) with Charlie the bear who is 85 in human years and has arthritis.

It didn't have that much to see - but the admission wasn't that much. (It's usually $4.75/adult.)
View from the top of the zoo.

Now. We walk up to the gate, and they have two tables set up there for people to take your money. We pay our 12 bucks, and Chad says "Now, where do we find the ice cream?" Who are we fooling - we're here for the ice cream. The guy points up the walk (It's all on the side of a giant hill/mountain). We head straight to the first ice cream table. Pistachio or Butter Pecan. Whoa - are you serious?! Those are actually good flavors!!! But they were renamed to zoo-ish things like those pictured below.


There were several ice cream tables set up throughout the zoo (which was very small, so you only had to walk about 100 ft to get to the next table) with two flavors each. In all, there were 18 flavors of Dreyer's ice cream bliss, and two sundae tables. AND IT WAS ALL "FREE". (we did have to pay admission) Naturally we ate as much as we could without throwing up.

#1: Butter Pecan

#2 - don't remember


#3
Not sure

Raspberry Sorbet

#4
Raspberry Sorbet

Bubblegum

#5
Bubblegum - trying to chew the frozen gumballs

Rocky Road

#6
Rocky Road

Strawberry Shortcake

I topped out with 6, but Chad went on for a seventh.

#7
Mint Chocolate Chip


As we were enjoying our ice cream and scoping out the animals, we came to the coyote den.

I don't know if you can read this sign in this picture - but take note of what the title says:



We overheard the following conversation -
Mom: No _______, they're coyotes!
8-10 yr. old Girl: It says right there "A Living Paradox"
Mom: They're coyotes - there's no such thing as a paradox!

I guess the zoo people should be more careful about their signs!
Watch out for bears and paradoxes!

Here I am on the slide of the treehouse at the zoo. Letting my inner child out, thank you very much.


Anyways - so there you have it. We were only at Zoofari from 5:30-7:30 and it went till 8:30 but I couldn't convince Chad to stay and try to force down some more ice cream for another hour.

8:45 pm - arrived back in Rexburg.

10:00 pm - went over to the school auditorium to meet up with some friends and retrieve a book they bought us for ward choir the next day. (Thanks guys!) Final performance of the Idaho International Folk Dance Festival.

Home for bed.

It was a great day. Wish you could've been here!