Breakfast Burritos

Aaron made breakfast burritos this morning...


He made up some beans and rice, and eggs from our friend's chickens.


Salsa he made yesterday from our garden.


Super good!


And now we are off on a walk since my knee is finally feeling better. Which is a good thing considering that when I told Aaron how good these burritos were he said, "Yeah, it's because I put in a s*#@ton of butter."
Touché.

Happiness

How fantastic are these zinnias from my mom's garden? They are pure happiness in their rainbow candy colors.

Happy Birthday Aaron!

It was Aaron's golden birthday on Friday. He wanted to go to the Art and Air festival in Albany to see the Night Glow. We only caught the last 5 minutes or so, but it was pretty cool. I got a few nice pictures of it. It was actually pretty dark, the light sky is deceptive since I used a 15 second shutter speed. It was beautiful off the water. I didn't have much time to play with camera settings since we got there so late.



On Saturday he wanted to go rafting with friends, so we drove to the North Santiam. This picture is actually from the last time we went rafting with them. I didn't want to take my camera this time. Unfortunately Aaron's face didn't make it into the picture, but you all know what he looks like anyway.
The stretch we were planning on doing would have taken 5 hours. Oops, we didn't really realize this until we were on the water. We ended up having to basically force these guys to give us a ride to our car. It was a bit uncomfortable, but better than being on the river fighting the wind for another 3 hours.


I dug up all my potatoes, a bit early, but I wanted to get my winter crops in. They are so good and I'm getting creative with cooking them every night!


This week we are on a mission to do a complete overhaul on our house. We are purging, cleaning, organizing and sorting. Wish us luck, it's a big project!

Road Trip

I've been putting this post off...too much to say and new things happening all the time! But I will cover the highlights.
We visited Megan and Jason in SLC and really liked it there. Aaron got a free IV lesson from Megan (I kind of wish I had tried now! I'll have to get a rain check).


My first time to Colorado


We did a factory tour at Celestial Seasonings and loved it! You get to actually go on the floor, and you can try any of their 98 flavors as many times as you like. All for free. They are a great company that has stuck to their roots.


We went to Arches NP, this is Delicate Arch. I thought it was alright, but for some reason I wasn't that impressed with this park. Maybe it had been talked up too much?


But I absolutely fell in love with Bryce Canyon. You have to see it to believe it. The hoodoos are so vast and so beautiful and change color all through the day. I would like to go back and do some hiking here.


Mesa Verde NP, also very cool. We explored a few of the cliff dwellings. It was amazing how they were built right into the side of the cliffs.


Our last stop (planned anyway) was to Aaron's grandparent's house in Union, Oregon. His grandparents are wonderful and it was nice to spend some time with them. His grandfather told us all about his days in the war, he was a gunner in a plane and went on 30 missions.


Exactly 185 miles from our house the bearings in Aaron's water pump went out. Luckily his parents were just an hour behind us. They rope towed us 50 miles (not fun) to his cousin's house who let us stay the night. He then used one of his few days off to tow us all the way to Albany. We definitely got lucky thanks to some very kind people.

More of my pictures here

Back to Reality

We have been road tripping...hence the lack of posts. I have lots of pictures and stories, but for now a short post. The garden went crazy when we were gone, and I came home to lots of good things. I love these beets! Not only are they neat, they are so sweet and delicious.




My first ever home grown ear of corn:


I was thrilled to see it came out even and beautiful, and it was super good!


We stopped at one thrift shop on our trip in Fort Collins, Colorado. They had just opened and we scored a few cheap things. These awesome mugs for $1.50:


And this framed weather vane for $2.


I am very glad to be home. More to come.

Chard Frittata

We had fun making dinner from the garden last night. We had our first Swiss chard harvest (although we had enough weeks ago) and Aaron cooked it up into a frittata.



We used spoils from my friend's garden (I watered for him while he was out of town). Tomatoes, jalapenos, and there are a few figs in there. Not pictured are the 7 eggplants I also picked.


Blackberries!


Strawberries!


The frittata, unflipped.


My first beet of the year!


What do you do when you have 6 extra egg yolks from dinner...make creme brulee of course!


I could get used to this whole summer thing.

South Sister Birthday Summit

I decided I wanted to hike the South Sister this weekend to celebrate my birthday. We left Friday and drove straight there, set up a tent at Devil's Lake and got up at 5 to begin. The mosquitoes were awful, out at 10:30 pm and still some at 5 am.

The mountain:
I love how the path leads visibly right up to it.


Nice and cool in the morning.



Finally getting somewhere, it doesn't look that far until you find a few people on that ridge. (Hint there are two people in white to the left of center on the trail, click on it to make it larger)


The captivating blue waters of Teardrop Lake


We summited at 10 am, 4 hours and 20 minutes after we started. I definitely took my time going up. Not stopping much, but going slowly.

We made it!


Me at the very highest point.


The paintbrush was so beautiful and in so many different shades of pink and red. I was gawking over it along the way.


We were prepared to camp out another night, but after getting that dusty and sweaty we decided to head home. This is how I spent the rest of my night:



Sunburnt and broken. My knee had been bothering me for 2 weeks or so, but nothing too major. This hike did a doozie on it. So I've been trying to stay off it and keep it iced. I think it will heal up alright...just probably not going to be able to do the Muddy Buddy in 2 weeks. It's not worth more knee pain...I've never really had it before. It sucks.
Overall we had a great trip and I was so thankful we left early in the day. Climbing up at 12 pm looked hot and miserable. And we got to go home and have a relaxed Sunday, the first and last one we will get in a while.