Summer's Bachelorette Party

The past few weeks have been insanely busy, a lot of which was due to my best friend Summer's wedding. I was in charge of the bachelorette party, which was a struggle for me since I am not the most organized peron in the world, lucky for me I had Emily to do all the dirty work for me (making invitations, making centerpieces, etc). I really don't know why I was so stressed about it, because I really didn't do that much. We had a pinup girl theme, and all the bridesmaids dressed up (although I looked like a bit of a drag queen) and we had a blast hitting the town and celebrating Summer's impending nuptuals. Me and emily are now experts at making penis cakes so if you happen to need one for a special occassion just let me know!

Field School 2009!

Amy and I both succesfully completed the Boise State 2009 Field school. We worked for 6 weeks (Monday -Thursday) at Elmore County, Idaho's site #216. It was a large lithic (obsidian, and basalt flakes) on the surface, with a large depression that was earlier recorded as a housepit. For those of you that don't know, housepits are pretty rare in the Snake River plain of Idaho so it was unusual to have one here. After battling through the somewhat mild summer heat/dehydration/professors we finished pretty much unscathed. It's fantastic to actually be done, but while we were at #216 Amy faced some brutal sun and got dehydrated through the first week. After I finally convinced her to drink more water she was feeling better, just in time to find that the professors just wanted to add pain and suffering to field school in which I'm thinking was the absolute worst possible field situation. We both worked doubles on Fridays, Saturdays, and then worked Sunday night through field school as well, so we were busy 7 days a week throughout that whole time. Amy is now in the middle of being a maid of honor for her best friend (Summer) and Marshall's wedding that will be this Saturday. I got a job with the Idaho National Guard doing survey work on the Orchard Training Area. We just located the largest site known on the orchard training area so we'll be continuing to map and monitor that area. The really cool thing about working out there is that there is always the possibility of an Apache helicopter buzzing our vehicle (happened earlier this year but I wasn't there) and tanks firing off rounds. Today at work myself and one other guy found two separate 50 mm. live bullet clips laying on the ground. The first lesson I learned when coming here is not to touch ammunition out in a training area as much of it still contains live rounds, not just training rounds! So it's basically infusing archaeology with excitement! I continue to work at the restaurant (Flatbread Community Oven) on Friday Saturday and Sunday so Amy and I don't have much time together right now, but we enjoy our evenings! Tonight we'll be hanging out with her 3 nieces and tomorrow night we'll be going to a Boise Hawks AAA baseball game for the second week in a row, so we're totally keeping busy! However, we're about to begin our last semester of undergrad work at Boise State in Anthropology so we decided to reward ourselves for all the work with a trip to Oregon (to see Drew and Keri) and then followed up with some brewpub tours of Portland and then off to Canada and around the Snake River in Canada to swing back into Idaho through the panhandle and back home. At a 10 days it's going to be a great vacation!

The move . . . .

For those of you that haven't heard, Amy and I are moving in together. We decided to quite a while back and then went through this long process of looking for places, and talking to each other about them. It has by far been the most difficult time I've found looking for a place, but then again, I don't really care what kind of a dumpy neighborhood I live in. So, in contrast to all of the other places that I've lived, this one is looking really incredible. We got to go in this last week to take a look at it. It's on the second floor of a great apartment complex with a view out over the park and the mountains that surround Boise. We've suddenly got more space than we know what to do with! It has a wood burning fireplace, and a pretty nice kitchen and deck to boot! So with all of these great things with the place, I sometimes wonder what in the world happened with our planning because we're moving the day after we finish finals. We've both been going through hell in the last few weeks with trying to finish up projects to end the semester, tests, and work. We actually only have a quick 3 day weekend before we start a six week field school so this was really the only time that we had to do anything from now through July. So for those of you that I'd been talking about coming to see, I promise it's going to happen! We're just booked up right now 8 days of the week, and Drew and Keri, you two are on the top of my list! Well, I'm actually slacking on really writing my paper(s) right now so I should probably get back to that before I have to leave for work in just about an hour!

Costa Rica!!!

Ok, so Amy has been riding my ass, and you guys have been doing it as well so here it is, my blog about Costa Rica. . . . even though I should be doing homework and writing presentations, because that is the downside to sweet vacations . . . you miss out on all of the shit you should have been doing! Ok, so really, Costa Rica was incredible. My parents decided to take me for my (hopeful) graduation present. Molly, my parents, and I went down together and spent 10 days all over the country on the Pacific Side mostly. We flew into San Jose late on a Friday night and just went to our hotel. The next day . . . holy balls!! We woke up in a beautiful country with palm trees that had bananas, and coconuts (not on the same tree), and the most incredible flowers. It was incredible to go from Boise that was just coming out of winter with no buds or leaves on the trees to a lush country. After that we headed up to the Arenal Volcano which is still active and we were able to watch magma crash down the side of the mountain!! It was also full of wildlife that we were able to see as well! During all of this though, I threw out my back lifting up bags onto the counter at a hotel. So then I had to take it easy for a few days and even backed out on a few hikes. It was balls. Anyway, after a few days travelling through the countryside (hot springs, terrace farms, crazy landslides, beautiful rivers, beautiful everything!), we worked our way down to the coast which was full of more hikes and other adventures that included an ultralight flight (for Molly and I at separate times), zip-line tours, nature hikes, surf lessons, tons of food, and beer that was cheaper than water! Even Molly was able to legally partake of alcohol! We had a tour of the mangroves, and worked on our spanish for the entire trip. It was truly incredible, and great to be around the family for the entire time! Other than my back injury and some mild sicknesses we were fine through the whole time and able to really enjoy everything about the country. The people were absolutely amazing and caring through the entire trip, and the hardest thing was certainly getting back on the plane. We left Costa Rica that was at a constant 75-80 degrees to head back to Boise. I was wearing shorts when we got off the plane, and Boise was around 40 and it was freaking cold! There will soon be pictures to follow, but Amy claims the humidity broke her camera . . . . I might agree. I did take it on my surfing lesson . . . so if by humidity we mean ocean then, yes.

Oompa Loompa

If only I had my camera you could see how awesome I look right now. I figured with Reed getting tan in Costa Rica that I should spend my spring break getting tan at Planet Beach. Instead of regular tanning, I decided that I should expediate the process and do a mystic tan (spray tan). Unfortunately I ended up turning oompa loompa orange! Luckily I don't have to work until tomorrow night and I can hideout in my apartment until then.

Spring Break!

So it is finally Spring Break and I am freaking bored! Reed is in Costa Rica having the time of his life, and I am stuck in Boise, Idaho with nothing to do. I am so happy that Reed gets to have such and amazing experience and I can't wait for him to get home and tell me all about because until then I will be cleaning, working, and oh yeah more cleaning. I get to clean my car (which was left a disater by Reed) and my house (which was also left a disaster by Reed).

So as any of you that have read on the blog know, Amy and I have been getting into kayaking in a big way! Amy had her first pool session about two weeks ago and was awesome. She's mastering the hip flicks and is well on the way to being able to do her roll. I started a kayaking class and realized that my basic kayaking skills were definitely lacking so it's nice to now go back and refine these things. The class is two nights a week for 3 hours and there are 5 other students in the class with me. We'll be taking a trip down a section of the Payette River just about an hour away from here. The instructors have said that there is a class 3 but I'm not so sure about it. No matter what though, it's nice to be back in the water getting ready for the upcoming season! Our trip is on March 14th though and weather is still pretty bitterly cold right now so it should be an experience. Other than that Amy and I are both just plugging away at school and work. It's kind of the busy time of the semester for both of us and tests are starting to become a frequent occurrence and we're just hanging on.

Happy Birthday Summer!

Last night we celebrated my bestfriend Summer's last birthday as a free woman. We started out at the Front Door and finished our night dancing at the Balcony. With school and work, I hardly see Summer or any of my friends so it was so great to get out and see everyone. I had a blast, and I hope my bestfriend had her best birthday yet!

Valentine's Day/New Kayak!

Yesterday Reed and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day together (slightly belated of course). We had an amazing fondue dinner at the Melting Pot. Reed was convinced that fondue was not going to be enough food so he insitsted on eating 2 corndogs and a doughnut before we left for dinner, and after our massive dinner his new pants barely fit.
As awesome as our Valnetine's Day was, our far more exciting news is that I am now officially the proud owner of a kayak. It is a Perception dancer (its pink with Grateful Dead stickers) and I love it! I have never kayaked before and I am finally going to prove Reed wrong (before we started dating he said that I could never learn to Kayak). I can't wait to go to my first roll session, which will hopefully be this thursday. I haven't had any luck finding a spray skirt, apparently the only people selling them in Boise are size extra small, which I am not. That is only a minor set back, and with any luck I will be out on the river this spring.

The First (many to come!)

So . .. . Amy and I (more Amy) have decided to start a blog. I really liked just reading them so that was my hesitation in actually starting one. I guess I liked the anonymity of it, but Amy has a little more creative talent than I do so she persuaded me into starting one. I guess it's quite curious that I'm actually writing the first one of our blogs then huh? She's actually searching out the template for it right now so I guess that works as well! We're both incredibly busy with school and work right now so we'll see how much we get to update this! However, we're both in the last year of school at BSU and are looking at graduating in December of '09 with degrees in Anthropology. With all of the business we've decided that our lives weren't that exciting so Amy is now in the market for a whitewater kayak as well so that she can start paddling this spring, as well as learn to backpack so we are going to keep incredibly busy over this next year. I'm also the director of the Archaeology Students Association at BSU which is looking like it will take up a lot of time this semester but we have some great plans for it as long as it all works out! As a joint venture, Amy and I have taken up brewing our own beer. It's been an incredibly hobby and everytime that we try a new beer (one of ours or store-bought) it's a whole different world! So with that in mind we'd love to see all of you out here soon!