Horse Parade, Lavender Festival, Gumbo, Cycling, Dip Cones

This morning I got up early and got myself ready to enjoy the Summer day, only to find my mother still in bed.  How she could sleep through dad cutting the grass, I'll never know.  Mom and I finally got out the door just in time to run into road closures in downtown Nampa, but to find out it was because of the Snake River Stampede Parade.  We found the perfect parking spot with a front row view just as the parade had started.  I remember as a kid being in the parade fiddleing in the hot sun with the Jr. Jammers.  It was short and full of only horses.  Not even any candy.  

We then proceeded to Costco because I thought earlier this week there was a book that I wanted, but then I couldn't find it when I went back.  Guess I'll just order it online.  We then went to the lavender festival which was just down the street from our house.  It was fun and relaxing!  We I cut our own lavender, ate lavender ice cream, drank lavender lemonade and bought lavender lip balm.

Tristen and Mitch have continued my parents tradition of getting a baby sitter and going on a weekly date.  Well today they invited mom and dad and so I tagged along.  I'm use to being the third, fifth, seventh, ninth wheel.  We had a blast.  We met in uptown Boise for dinner at my favorite Brink Oven Beanery.  There I had my favorite turkey cranberry sandwich on sunflower whole wheat bread and the best gumbo on the west coast.  It is so good and I actually have been craving it all week.  

Tristen had her favorite turkey club and cheddar soup with a scoop of potato's.  Tristen and Mitchs meals were free because they had their birthday cards and because they had 4 or more in the party we each got a free drink which has chocolate syrup and seltzer water.  I'm a fan of seltzer water!  We sat there for a few hours laughing at all of Mitch's stories about camp as he just got back from a week with the boys in their ward.  They hiked into camp which took them 2 days to hike in and 2 days to hike out.  His poor legs were so bit up and scratched up.
Lucky us it was the Twilight Criterium a bike race which was around the city blocks.  I have been one other time with my good friends when we were in college.  I still remember how much fun we had that night.  It is a pretty cool bike race.


During some of it we experienced some rain, so we went up to the 8 floor of Mitch's office and watched the rest from up there.  Of course by then we needed a sweet treat so we got toasted coconut dipped cones from Fancy Freeze!  While out there another down pour came.  We haven't seen rain in forever.  It was nice though and cooled us off for a change.  We enjoyed the rainbow that the rain brought us.