Emmett 75th Annual Cherry Festival

Northwest from Boise lies Emmett, a small town of about 6000 people and the 75th Annual Cherry Festival. It had all the great elements of a great local party: pie eating contests, cloggers galore, little booths selling tie-dyed everything, fair food like "fresh-squeezed" lemonade and pronto-pups, and amusement park rides.

Joe and Max both participated in the pie eating contests. Max was in the 16-18 age group and should have won (according to him) but came in second. Joe was in the 18-54 age group, and unfortunately couldn't shovel it in fast enough, but at least he got a taste of the great cherry pie and the chance to meet Miss Gem County!

Max and Joe coerced me into riding the mechanical bull, and I did put on quite a show. One of the guys working at this particular venue did ask for my permission to record my ride on his cell phone. Creepy! But, scour the Internet and see if it ended up somewhere.

Madison and Hayes enjoyed riding some of the rides, visiting the petting zoo, and getting their hands on some of those fantastic Emmett cherries.

Ironman Boise

Yesterday my sister Emily, Joe, and I participated in Boise's second annual Ironman Triathlon. A 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run. Pretty grueling in itself, but at around 3 o'clock that afternoon it started to rain and did not stop until around 8 o'clock that night. Drenched and fatigued we all finished what we had set out to do: volunteer at an aid station providing power gels, water, oranges, and bananas to the runners! We did get praised by one runner as "the best aid station on the course," most likely due to our zealous cheering and willingness to look silly at times. After about two hours of holding out wet bananas and gels we made our way to the finish line to watch people finish. It was so exciting to see everybody come in. We were surprised by a lot of the athletes who definitely did not look like a stereotypical triathlete. Those finishers were inspirational. Emily and I definitely got bit by the Ironman bug last night, and have been talking about training for one ever since!