Category Archives: Healthy Lifestyle
Bucket List Item #21: Sled Down the Bruneau Sand Dunes
This bucket list recap post has taken me the longest to write! Probably because it was such an anticlimactic event….ha. We actually completed this item in late fall, long before Idaho was covered in a fresh white snowfall like it is right now.
The Bruneau Sand Dunes are an Idaho State Park about an hour south of Boise. It holds the title for “Tallest Single-Structured Sand Dune in North America” with a peak of 470ft. The surrounding area is primarily desert and Dunes Lake. It’s a popular area for camping and even includes a little observatory.
Many people take day trips to this unique area with sleds to play with on the dunes. They are very steep, so it would be a good workout to climb up and then enjoy the fun ride on the way down.
The area can get pretty windy and since it’s made up of SAND, we didn’t want to bring our baby with us. She didn’t need to risk getting any sand in her eyes! We left her in great hands at home and had a day-date.
We packed out red snow sleds and a cooler with some snacks. The drive down took about an hour, and we stopped in Mountain Home for some iced coffees.
Once we got to the sand dunes, we saw only a handful of other families sledding down the sand structures and saw the vast landscape as one big playground!
Unfortunately we learned pretty quickly that our plastic snow sleds were not the ideal mechanism to glide down the hills. I didn’t realize we would have issues getting traction. I thought the steepness of the dunes and the smoothness of the sand would allow pretty much anything to breeze along. It seemed as though I was very wrong….the friction on the bottom of our sleds made them stick completely into the sand and not want to budge. We tried running starts, scooting along with our feet, pushing each other to get momentum. Nothing.
We tried several times, even tried just “sliding” down on our slick vests but the sand dunes were picky with what they would let glide down.
Apparently during warmer months, there is a state park office that rents out sand-appropriate sleds which we will have to utilize next time. :)
Since we’d made the drive all the way out there, we spent some more time just hiking up and down the hills to get a little workout in. My tennis shoes were filled with sand by the end! We finished our iced coffees on the drive back home and reunited with our girl.
Now we are officially caught up from my bucket list report-out from 4 months ago! Recently I’ve been planning Brynnley’s first birthday party, which we are quickly approaching. I’m really excited about the theme and decorations that I came up with and I can’t wait to see it all come to life & share with you. For now, I think we might go enjoy some of this fresh snow while it lasts because there doesn’t seem to be any more in the forecast for the foreseeable future!
Bucket List Item #20: Try Caviar
I’m not exactly sure what inspired me to add this to my bucket list, other than maybe it sounded like something elegant and unique for the year I end my twenties.
What is caviar? It is a salt-cured fish egg from sturgeon, which we have locally in Idaho.
According to The Wagyu Shop, the difference between caviar and the orange eggs on sushi rolls (which I eat all the time) is that sushi roe can be from different types of fish other than sturgeon.
There is a beautiful two-story restaurant and bar in downtown Boise right across from the Capitol building that has a very charming interior called The Lively. They posted about their monthly “afternoon tea” offering on Instagram, and I was intrigued for a mother/daughter outing. Once I saw an option to add a caviar tray to your tea service, I was sold! It was the perfect occasion to cross this item off the list.
The afternoon tea was at 2:30pm on a Monday, and thankfully Zeb was home from work so that my mom and I could go enjoy an adult-only date. The interior of The Lively is really funky and pretty, and we were seated at a window table. We each ordered our tea and were brought our own teapots and teacups.
The caviar tray came with a mountain of potato chips, plus little cups of capers, crushed hard-boiled egg yolk, hard-boiled egg whites, purple onion, parsley and creme fresh. The caviar sat in a bowl over ice. We built our little potato chip bites and it was so delicious! I tried the caviar on a spoon by itself, and I really did like the subtle flavor. When it’s on the potato chip, there’s so much salt from the chip and the capers that you don’t pick up a ton of caviar flavor itself.
The tea also came with a pretty silver tower of sweet and savory bites. We sampled some of everything. I was in a more savory mood so I preferred the salmon puffs and the deviled eggs.
There were also macaroons, scones, cake bites and risotto balls.
This was such a lovely little event, and we would definitely go again for a special occasion like a birthday! I imagine they sell out fast near Mother’s Day.
We’ve been drinking more tea lately at home too, and I bought myself a tea kettle last fall. I really like citrus herbal teas. When I was pregnant with Brynnley, I read the many benefits of drinking Red Raspberry leaf tea and I drank at least one cup every day during my last trimester. I’ll never know for sure if it contributed to my positive labor experience but I tell all of my friends that it certainly can’t hurt! :)
Tomorrow marks ONE MONTH until D-Day! (AKA the deadline to finish this list.) 10 posts in 31 days? Here we go!
Bucket List Item #19: Learn a New Winter Sport
Growing up in Southern California, “winter” was just a fun concept we saw in movies. One year on Christmas day, we hiked 9 miles in 75 degrees and had a picnic on the beach in our tank tops. When I moved to Flagstaff, Arizona for my freshman year of college, I was introduced to real SNOW. It was so beautiful and fun!
Even though I lived in the snowy mountain town for four years of college, I never tried any winter sports like skiing or snowboarding. I was part of the NCAA D1 track and cross country teams with a partial scholarship and we were forbidden from skiing or snowboarding because of the risk of injury and jeopardizing our athletic performance.
I moved to Boise in 2016 and even though we live 30 miles from a ski mountain called Bogus Basin, I’ve just always felt intimidated to try it! Driving up the winding mountain road in winter conditions freaked me out, and it seemed like there was an overwhelming amount of gear and equipment and logistics to figure out that I never made the effort to try it.
This year I challenged myself to learn a new winter sport with this bucket list, and a friend of ours offered to go skiing with us and act as our “instructor” because she has years and years of experience.
I borrowed snow pants, snow gloves, and goggles. I rented the boots, skis, poles, and helmet. I only came with my own jacket, and snacks. 😁 The weather was cloudy on our drive up, it snowed off and on all day long, and then cleared up just before we drove back home. I was very surprised at how many people there were on the mountain, especially kids! I had no idea it would be so full. I also had no idea how many different ski runs there were. I guess I always just assumed there were 3-4 ski runs per mountain, but there were a couple dozen routes with three different ski lifts.
Once we got clipped into our skis, Sarah took Zeb and I over to the bunny hill. It’s so small that it’s just a “magic carpet” that takes you to the top rather than an actual lift. It was easy to stay upright because the slope was so shallow. Sarah had us practice doing “Pizza!” with our skis to slow down and zig-zag side to side. After two trips down the bunny hill with ease, I had some false confidence and said I was ready to be done with the bunny hill and move on. The three of us went over to the main ski lift, which serviced several routes at the top of the mountain – all which were blue and black. If you’re unfamiliar, runs are categorized by difficulty level with three colors. Green is easy, blue is intermediate and black is advanced. Black runs would be extremely steep or have some other types of challenges. Sarah said we would get to the top of the hill and find a “blue” route to take down.
The routes were not labeled at the top and there wasn’t any kind of map up there, which we weren’t expecting. We picked a run that looked less steep than others, but my speed got out of control 20 seconds in and I fell down for the first time. Getting back to standing position with skis on is quite the full body workout! And so awkward. It took a couple of minutes to return to standing again, but within a few more seconds I had gotten out of control and my skis flew out from under me again. This was definitely a lot harder than the bunny hill. Slowly we finally made it through this wide area and were brought to a fork in the path. The trail we took ended up getting very narrow, with a drop-off on our right and some very slick ice. I immediately fell on the ice and my boot popped out of my ski. I got so freaked out and nervous, unsure how the heck I was going to make it down the rest of the mountain. Sarah was very patient, and Zeb and I slowly made our way through this narrow portion. We both took turns falling down. When the bottom of the hill was in sight, I was just too shaken up to keep trying so I ended up taking my skis off and scooting down another big portion on my butt. It’s still a full-body workout, pushing my body along in the fresh soft snow and lifting my skis up with every “scoot”! I felt bad for holding Sarah back, but she assured us that it was no big deal.
When we got to the bottom portion, it leveled out a bit and I was able to get my skis back on and finish the run upright haha! I felt less silly about my performance when we got over to a map to look at which runs we had just taken down. Turns out we started with a blue and then transitioned into a black diamond run. Oops! Perhaps a bit of a jump from two turns down a bunny hill to a black diamond…
After the long trek down though, we took a lunch break at the upper lodge. We all ordered tacos and regrouped! Sarah and Zeb both took a more advanced ski run down after lunch, but Zeb had formed some pretty gnarly blisters on both feet and decided that he would retire to the lodge for the rest of the afternoon. Sarah and I went back out for some bunny/green hill skiing for another hour and half and it was much more enjoyable :) The fresh snowfall was so pretty on all of the trees!
Sarah grew up going to Bogus Basin with her family, and her mom started a tradition of making brownies for the car ride home. Sarah continued the tradition with us and brought us some Kodiak protein brownies.
Overall it was such a fun day and I’m so glad Sarah and Zeb were my first ski partners. The mountain was gorgeous and now that I’ve gone through it once, I’m less intimidated by the gear and equipment. We will definitely try it again next year. I can’t tell you how SORE I am now, 48 hours later! It was a fantastic winter outdoor workout too!
