We traveled to Reno in late June to meet Tibor's family and my parents. It was an awesome family reunion and it was so great for all of us to meet up together in one place. This was our favorite restaurant and we went as a family twice because it was so delicious. It's Jazmine on Double R Blvd, close to my parents, and has incredible Chinese food as well as sushi and poke bowls.
We went to Galena and walked on our favorite nature trail.
I always like Galena park because there are lots of pine trees and it's just gorgeous!
Dave and I went with my parents to PF Chang's for lunch and enjoyed the food and ambiance.
We took family photos with my camera in the backyard. I love how great this one turned out!
I talked the girls into doing a cheesy "bunny ear" photo, and so glad I did. It's adorable!
Dave and I with Szulok. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with family!
This is the Pillars of Rome on the drive home from Reno to Idaho. It's so beautiful and odd that it's not a National Park and it's easy to drive past on the main road.
Incredible rock formations.
Back in Boise, I was taking in all the colors before having to head up to work. These flowers are echinacea blossoms and they also grow up in McCall in our colder temperatures.
Dave and I got a hotel for the night at the Sparrow, which is a truly lovely hotel, so that we could be central in downtown and walk everywhere.
We strolled and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. This photo has Dave on the left hand side walking past the Fork restaurant's outdoor seating.
We walked in the Morisson Knudsen Nature Center (ID Fish & Game). This is on the Stream Walk.
My favorite tree holds the handrails there.
A new art mural painted in downtown McCall.
We went to the Roseberry Music Festival to see our friend Sean play. He's the one on the right playing the harmonica.
Loved paddle boarding on the meanders.
This is a walk by the Payette River to the Sheep Bridge.
We kicked off summer fun with three awesome new to us hikes (two to fire lookout towers). The first was Granite Mountain Fire lookout. This photo has the views from the lookout, including the cute outhouse.
We went on 7/22/25 and saw a ton of wildflowers along the way, including: scarlet gilia, lupine, buttercup, sego Lilly, knotweed, sedum lanceolatum (a yellow flowering succulent) and penstemon (purple).
Dave and Granite Mountain Fire lookout. The hike is off of Brundage road and is 2.8 miles one way from Trail Maker #165; left hand side of the road near a little wooden Forest Service cabin.
Scarlet gilia, one of my favorite Idaho flowers. Looks like fireworks to me.
We grilled outside and enjoyed the summer weather, our comfy patio and the hummingbirds.
Another new hike: North Fork of Kennally Creek in the Paddy Flat Road Area. This was beautiful and very green, relatively flat with ripe huckleberries, lupine, penstemon, scarlet gilia, sego Lilly, wild mint and tons of bees and butterflies at the big meadow.
And then on July 28th, we got two showings scheduled with realtors and their clients to tour our townhome. Dave made a flier with all the selling points. I made chocolate chip cookies. And we went off on our planned hike of Granite Peak to Tripod Lookout on West Mountain Road (well south of Tamarack).
From our very first step, we were blown away by the sheer blanket of wildflowers. Even in the parking lot!
It was like this for the first 30 minutes of the hike, although there were wildflowers along the whole way.
Selfie with scarlet gilia in the parking lot.
This is another new hike from our hiking books and we were absolutely thrilled to be hiking somewhere new and also to be seeing this grand a view along the way.
Dave at Tripod Fire lookout (which was closed and unmanned when we were there).
Fire lookout in the distance on top of the peak; photographed on our walk back to the car.
Huge corn Lillies along the way. We got lucky that this hike was so high in elevation, basically along the spine of a mountain range, and near a cell tower because we were getting constant questions from the two realtors showing our place. They wanted to know things like "would we include our art because the buyer likes them" and "how about the dishes and silverware?". It was a bit surreal to be in such an idyllic garden and be answering all sorts of detail questions. In the end we got home and started a bidding war between the two parties (on Brian's tip) and got a cash offer $8,000 above asking.
And then we realized we just sold our home and had to quickly move while I was still in town to be able to help. We got a storage unit close to our new property off the main Highway 55 and got a lot of plastic bins and moved our stuff into storage. We didn't have to move everything, as we sold 314 Silverpine fully furnished (including art and dishes etc). A busy hustle to get everything packed up, and then I went up to work. After two grueling weeks in Alaska, I flew straight to Indianapolis for Roger's birthday.
Aunt Judy took me to lunch and a tour of the Sweetwater Factory, which was so awesome to see. Our friend Sean was drooling at the photos. And I loved the salad bar, shops and slide! Aunt Judy is always such a great tour guide and loved one!
We took family photos downtown.
The whole family smiling big.
Isaac & Abby.
One of Isaac's graduation photos that the photographer took. I love how big he is smiling in this one!
Relaxing at Roger's home with that incredible view of the pond. We also visited Grabill, a quant Amish town, and got some authentic Mexican food there.
Roger's 80th Birthday. So awesome to be there for the celebration, which was held at Mike & Jen's.
We got to celebrate his 70th in Boise Idaho at the Sandbar with the whole family.
Uncle Denis & Aunt Judy.
Roger opening birthday gifts. This one was from my parents; fixings for manhattans, his favorite drink.
We got to be there for moving Isaac in at his University dorm room at Purdue University.
Isaac's room has a lot of gorgeous windows. It was great to be able to be part of his new big life start.
Back in McCall, our vegetable and herb garden was starting to grow, including the Thai chilis.
The flowers were epic this year and having them with the water fountain in this view was amazing!
Our begonias were beautiful, Dave made a great choice in selecting them.
This was our incredible garage that Dave made to look magazine perfect. The custom cabinets and slat walls with custom hanging devices. I would imagine this garage is every man's dream. This was my last photo as I was vacuuming my way out of the house 5 minutes before we signed closing papers.
We took in the view after signing our papers and headed back to get our Uhaul.
We used the Uhaul to move the last of our belongings into the storage unit and the rest into the Airbnb on West Mountain road that we rented for 6 weeks while we still had guests booked at our condo.
It was a very rustic cabin, but had the benefit of a lot of ripe raspberries surrounding the cabin.
We toasted our successful sale, WITHOUT a realtor or MLS listing, by having drinks at the Shore Lodge. Pink Veuve Cliquot champagne and lake view.
Cocktails and appetizers at the Shore Lodge. And below is our incredible view while we celebrated.
We celebrated our purchase of our property on 35 Big Moose Road here at the Shore Lodge with our then realtor and friend Ann McKee and so we decided to keep that tradition for the sale of 314 Silverpine, even though we represented ourselves, had our friend AC take the photos for the listing that Dave put on Zillow with our carefully selected wording. The day after we sold, we started excavation on our new home, but those details will be on the next blog post. The summer was fast, colorful, filled with family and loved ones and a lot of beautiful scenery.
