Pumpkin Spice Latte

Is anyone else ridiculously excited for Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte??

I honestly think that this might be my favorite thing about fall. I also enjoy the Gingerbread Latte. I just love anything with coffee in it.

I have been trying to drink more tea though...just because coffee stains your teeth. Plus, green tea is supposed to boost your metabolism!...so says Fitness Magazine.

BB King, Al Green, and Buddy Guy

On Tuesday evening, I went to see BB King, Al Green, and Buddy Guy play at Deer Valley. This was my first blues concert and it was amazing! I bought the tickets for my mom for her birthday (which was yesterday).

The evening started out with Buddy Guy, who is hilarious and an amazing guitar player.

We had a pretty awesome seats, too!

To start out, the crowd was mostly sitting down. If you're from PC, you know that the crowd just needs to get a little boozed up before they can really go all out. Buddy got everyone excited by walking through the crowd.

This is probably one of the best pictures of the night. Buddy Guy in the sea of white. Only in Utah.

By the time Buddy got back to stage everyone was on their feet!

Next up: The Reverand Al Green!

Al's performance was amazing. He had backup singers and dancers. He played most of his famous songs, and what a great performer! He had everyone on their feet dancing!

Finally, at the end of the night, BB King!

BB is 84 years old and still touring around the world. He was wheeled up on the stage to a standing ovation and loud cheering. He sat down in his chair and strapped Lucille around his shoulders.

BB did a lot of talking and not a whole lot of singing, but when he played Lucille it sent chills down my spine. At 84 years old, BB King still has it!

Back to Work

It's my first week back to the office and things are starting to pick up in preparation for the 2010-11 season. I'm working on my clinic schedule, to be released on September 1, so I'm glad to be busy.

Over my break I went up to Boise to visit my good friends, Amy and Emily. We had such a great time! We went out to the Basque Festival. Every four years, the Basques hold a special festival called Jaialdi. The streets are filled with people having a great time with food, drinks, and dancing.

We also went tubing down the Boise River. Amy and I were in a 4-man raft with two other girls. We almost made it all the way down the river without flipping it over, but nope! We flipped it. Amy was nervouse because several people die each year on that river. All I could think was "Save the shoes!" We made it safely back into the raft and down the river.

After that, we went to a diner that was featured on Man vs. Food called Rockie's Diner. Amy and Emily's husbands, Bob and Michael, were going to do the challenge, but decided that they wanted to work up to it. They basically did half the challenge, which is basically a couple of pounds of hamburger meat, chili, hotdogs, and everything that goes on a burger. The challenge is double that meal, plus chili cheese fries, plus a milk shake.

Watch the Man vs. Wild episode here to see what this Rockies Diner challenge looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siA1hVOVn0w&feature=related

We sat at the same table that Adam Richman sat at. I don't know how. Maybe it was because we had a baby that needed a high chair?

On Sunday, Amy, Bob, and I went to see Eclipse...no big deal. These films are getting so much better. Twilight was horrible. New Moon was slighly boring. Eclipse is finally exciting, and not awkward acting, which is a huge step up from Twilight. That evening I was able to be a part of Sunday Night Dinner at the Alvord household. I felt so special! I always know I'm going to eat well when I'm with the Alvords!

Monday was a day of relaxing while everyone was at work. I flew home that evening.

And then I had two weeks off of work. Guess what I did? NOTHING! I had a movie marathon and watched 20+ movies. I slept in every day and took mid-afternoon naps. It was exactly what I needed.

So, back at work and still haven't uploaded my pictures from Boise. That will be on my to do list for this weekend. Check back for pics!

VACATION!!

The U.S. Ski & Snowboard Teams won a total of 21 medals at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, a new record. As a thank you for all the hard work we all put towards the Olympics and it's success, the CEO decided to close the office for the first two weeks of August!

What will I do for two weeks you ask? Well, this first weekend, I will be venturing to Boise to visit these two losers:

Amy Alvord Shaw and Emily Alvord LaRacco. My sistas from anotha mista. Is that a real saying? Maybe I just made it up.

While I'm up there, I will be hanging out at the Basque Festival and catching up with my second family, The Alvords. I believe there are plans to go see Eclipse, perhaps tube down the river? Ya never know what to expect when us crazy kids get together.

More importantly, I am SOOOOOOO EXCITED to finally meet Emily's little munchkin, Olivia!

Olivia was born in November 2009, but Amy had to go and get married in October, so I spent all of my vacation up in Boise for pre-wedding and wedding events. I apologize, Emily.

We should have a BBQ at your new house! I'm inviting myself over. And bringing margaritas!

That about sums up my vacation, even though I come home on Monday. I have two weeks of nothing to do. I'm pretty excited about it. I will be watching Shark Week all next week, and then I'll probably have movie marathons for the rest of the time. Maybe take a few hikes. Who knows? Who knows.

Salt

Last night at about 7:30pm in the middle of summer and no air conditioning in the house the power decided to go out. I went for a walk in the cool mountain air and returned home. Still no power. We decided that if the powere wasn't on by 9:15, we were going to go to a movie. Whelp, 9:15 arrived and still not power. We left for the theater, which is always cold, not matter what time of year. We sit down and the movie began.

First, I just want to say that I was never a huge Angelina Jolie fan. Now I am. She kicked ass in this entire movie! I had one of those moments where I got so excited that I almost cried. It takes a lot for me to feel this way.

The only thing that I didn't like about it was that Evelyn Salt could very easily be compared to Jason Bourne, which is another movie where I get so excited that I almost cry. In fact, the very ending of the movie could be compared to the ending of The Bourne Ultimatum, where Jason Bourne gets shot and falls out the window into the river below. Then the amazing tunes of Moby play and Jason Bourne swims away. Queue the ending of Salt.

So, I highly recommend this movie if you're craving a really awesome action/adventure flick.

Amazing

Lately

I have been having a hard time sitting down and reading. I always read before I go to bed, but have only been able to get in a chapter or two, which is making it impossible to finish this book.

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving every word of it, but I have recently started watching The Office....and I can't get enough of it. I have fallen in love with Jim Halpert and his crazy facial expressions.

I can't wait to see what happens with him and Pam.

I know that he proposes, they get married, and have a baby.

I have recently taken up trail running. I've been meaning to take a video of me running down this mountain with my dog in front of me. We have so much fun! I never thought I would be caught dead saying that running is fun, but trail running is such a great way to exercise. I'm in the beautiful Rocky Mountains chasing my dog down a really awesome trail through green trees. I am slightly afraid that I'm going to trip on something and roll down the mountain, but other than that, it's GREAT!

I did make a mistake last Saturday. I went on a pretty intense two hour hike...but the mistake was that I went at 1pm. By that time it had to have been about 90 degrees in Park City. I specifically remember about half way through the hike, saying outloud, "Wow, it's hot today!" I should have turned around at that point, but ended up going for another hour or so. By the time I got home, I had an excrutiating headache, and water and Advil weren't helping. I ended up vomiting, and I wouldn't be suprised if it was heat exhaustion. I don't think I'll go hiking in the middle of the day like that again. It was fun while it lasted.

Last night I went out to dinner with my friend, Whitney. She's actually my brother's best friend, but she has become a very good family friend over the years. She is currently living in Boston, but was home visiting family for a few weeks. We went to the Wasatch Brewery up on Main Street. She had tried a really great beer a few weeks earlier and told me how amazing it was, so I had to try it. It was probably the most amazing beer I've ever had. It's called Wasatch Jalapeno Cream Ale. Only Wasatch Brewery would come up with a jalapeno beer. It was DELICIOUS! You can taste the jalapeno as soon as the beer enters your mouth, and then as it's going down your throat, you get a little bit of a kick, and then....beer. It's amazing. I highly recommend this beer!

I'm planning on trail running this evening, so hopefully I'll remember my camera so I can take a video running down the mountain behind Babs. Hopefully I won't eat shit on the way....although it would make for a great video!