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.

Holy Freaking Hot Weather

This is how we've been cooking dinner lately:


It is positively too hot to cook in the house. Yesterday was the hottest day recorded in Corvallis EVER at 108. This was the temperature in the sun room two days ago.


The rest of the house got up to 92 at one point. This is ridiculous.

When my parents came to visit for my birthday this weekend my mom brought me some wonderful squash from their garden.


We've pretty much just been eating some form of this meal all week. (Except for Aomatsu for my birthday dinner!) Fresh summer squash, basil from the garden, tomatoes, garlic, feta and Parmesan over pasta.


Tonight, more food from my garden: snow peas, zucchini, salad (if it hasn't gone totally bitter from the heat), and eggplant from a friend. No complaints about that!

Year in Review

This last year I...
Visited Aaron in Minnesota

Went on a road trip with Megan to Vermont and added 3 new states to my list


Went back to Minnesota, my first time to a Great Lake


And seeing spectacular fall leaves


had surgery at the Mayo Clinic


Started dental hygiene school 4 days later


Spent lots of time with these two, thanks for all the wonderful dinners!


Met this one and had a blast


Visited the Redwoods


Went canoe camping for the first time


Camped near Clear Lake


Spent time in Olympic National Park


It's always amazing to me how much happens in one year if you go back and think about it. I had kind of a rough year, but overall I did a lot of wonderful things.

Up and Coming:
Road trip to Colorado for the Muddy Buddy
Trip to Utah to visit Megan?
Finishing school!
Aaron finishing school as well!
Continuing to heal and feel better

Happy Golden Birthday to me!

Great Way to Spend a Saturday

One of Aaron's friends from the hospital has cancer and has been feeling tired from all her treatments. It was her wish to have her house all in order since she hasn't been able to keep up with everything. Her friend organized this huge project and it was awesome to see so many people show up to help her out, over 30 at one point.
Our first job was to scrape, sand and prime the garage door.


We painted her whole house and trim. A rare picture of me below...someone else grabbed my camera for a change.


Pookie got a little too close to the action


We built her a new deck and railing. It will be painted later, and it's too bad I didn't get a picture of the final project (any of them for that matter) because it looked really nice.


Her neighbors had attached a hammock to her fence and broke one of the posts. Aaron took this project on, and spent about 45 minutes just trying to get this old post out of the ground.


The newly replaced fence post


The friend that put this on left these lists all over so we knew what needed to be done.


We planted up flowers to give her yard some color


We weeded all her flower beds and spread bark dust on them. Aaron went back and dusted off all the steps and rocks.

The group also deep cleaned her entire house, replaced outside light fixtures, brought food for everyone and countless little odds and ends jobs. Everyone just jumped in and it was amazing what a group that large got done in a small amount of time. Aaron and I had fun giving our time and energy to someone that really needed it.

Kathy's Flowers

I scored this day old bouquet of flowers from Kathy's house earlier this week when we went over to bottle beer. She only charges $5 for all these!!