There she blows

For Christmas Eve I had planned on making a roast, which takes about 4 hours to cook in the crock pot. Easy enough right? You just sear it and put it in the crock pot for 4 hours, non of this slaving over the stove all day, I was going to keep it easy and stress free. Dinner would be at 6 so the roast had to be in the pot by 2pm. Well our day got away from us and we went to see a movie that was longer than expected so the roast was not in the pot by 2pm. In fact it was going to go in around 4pm. So Jeff came up with the idea that we would put it in the pressure cooker for 30 min to speed up the cook time and tenderize the meat. The only problem to this was that his parents pressure cooker had recently stopped working entirely properly (i.e. the weight thing on top that releases pressure had stopped doing it's job and was then lost) so Jeff came up with a way to manually let off the steam and pressure and all was going well. In fact our 30 min was just about up and everything was ready to go in the crock pot. That's when the explosion occurred, there was a very loud boom and then a loud hissing noise followed by rain. I ducked and covered until I was out of the room, only to turn around and see Old Faithful on the stove. There was a rubber release valve that blew and the pressure that was released cause the boom and the veritable rain storm of meat juice that was spraying onto the ceiling and raining down on everyone and everything.
Jeff promptly turned the burner off and the good news was that my roast was ready to go into the crock pot, which I put in promptly. We then began mopping the ceiling and the floor as everything was quite slippery. All in all everything turned out great. Dinner was fine and the kitchen (which was Jeff's mom's kitchen) was sparkling clean and ready for Santa.
The moral of the story. I know we all hear about horror stories of pressure cookers and our was actually quite humorous once we realized everyone still had their faces and there were no holes in the ceiling, but make sure yours has all it's working parts.

Disney

Jeff took me to Disney this year for my very first trip ever. He hadn't been since he was little and didn't remember a lot so it was a blast experiencing the whole thing together. The only this is we really didn't take the many pics cause we were too busy between Disney and California Adventure. We got the maps and rode every ride. We were there for 3 days which was plenty of time to leave us exhausted and smiling.
On one of the mornings that we were there we had a "Magic Morning" which lets you into the park an hour early and some of the sections of the park are open. So we rode splash mountain for I think the 3rd time and we had the ride all to ourselves.
I apologize that all the pics are of me. We actually had someone take a pic of Jeff and I standing in front of this very spot but somehow it didn't take and we didn't want to have to bug someone else. This is prime picture taking area and you kinda have to wait for the crowd to clear to get a pic. We went in October during Halloween Time and it really wasn't that crowded but our last day was Saturday and that's when we took all of the pics and Saturday was definitely more crowded.

I couldn't bring myself to buy a pair of ears because really when am I going to use them. But I did want a pic of myself in the ears.
Saturday evening we had ridden everything there was a took a break from Disney and took th bus out to Newport Beach. We got there right at sunset. We walked around for a while checked out the shops then took the bus back to Disney to ride Jeff's favorite ride for the 3rd time (Indiana Jones).
We actually lucked out from what I understand. The only ride that was closed at Disney while we were there was the story book land ride, from what I understand that wasn't bad at all. We had a blast and will probably go to Disney World next time.

Virginia

My trip to Virginia started in a special and unexpected way. It turns out that my flight was a make a wish flight, meaning that there was a little girl and her family that they were flying to Disney World on my flight. So at the gate in the airport they created Cinderella's castle and had the whole place decorated, she even had a cake and presents and this was at 7am. It was so cute and special I have never experienced anything like it before.

Once I got to Va things were very low key which was nice. I had a few extra vacation days this year and got a good deal so Jeff stayed behind in WA. and gave me the chance to spend time with my family. This is her new horse Brummy. He was getting his saddle fitted as he has outgrown his old one.

This is my adorable niece Stella and my new nephew Roy. These are my brother Russell's kids and his wife Chas is kinda cut off of the pic (sorry) but I was kinda just focusing on the kids.

While I was there my mom and I became tourists for the first time and we visited Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home). It was perfect weather, a little cool which is nice when VA can be so hot. The home was amazing, he had incredible gardens, kitchens, and really unique and modern clocks for his time. It was just a really nice day and it has been a while since we've been able to spend time one on one like that so all in all it really didn't matter what we did, we just had fun hanging out. However I would recommend checking out Monticello if you ever get the chance.

Wedding Cake Surprise

Some friend's of mine were getting married and they had a very small budget for their wedding. They were just going to do bunt cakes for their wedding cake. I found out and told them that I would get together with my mother-in-law, who does wedding cakes and I would make their cake for them. Everyone should have a wedding cake and they didn't mind that I would be doing it for them with no real prior experience. So we came up with some suggestions as far as flavor combinations and luckily what they wanted as far as a cake goes was really simple.
So I made them a white lemon cake with blueberry filling. It matched their colors which were white, navy blue and green.
Other than the ribbon they just wanted dots on each layer. Which is fairly easy but hard to try and get the sizing and spacing even. This was really fun to do.










Now that the two layers are put together, I grabbed the flowers and was ready to do the fun part of arranging the flowers on each layer. I pretty much had the freedom to do whatever I wanted as far as flowers go so in order to stick with their colors I got the green spider mums, some smaller mums and then some white stock for contrast.





Well here it is fully assembled in my dining room. Transporting a cake is usually the most difficult part but this was a really small cake and we weren't going very far. I can totally see my imperfections when I look at the cake but it was really fun to do. It's kinda fun to discover new talents.

Squash on Steroids

Ok so I know I just blogged about squash and they are really not that interesting but I did just go out there and pick on Sunday. Today is Tuesday and none of those squash were even close to being that large. I am blown away at the sheer size and quantity of the squash this year. I have to say it has been a great growing season so far. I also have to disclaim that if any of you lived in WA last year you would know that we could barely convince our plants to produce even one squash so this year has been really fun. Anyways you won't be seeing anymore squash pics I promise but my tomatoes are just about to ripen and I can't guarantee that you won't see pics of those.

Squashzilla

Compared to last year our garden has been quite successful this year. However there is a good and a bad side to that. Jeff went out the other day and saw some squash that weren't quite ready, we went out yesterday and discovered a baseball bat size zucchini over night. Looks like I'm going to be making zucchini bread.
We are also growing tomatoes, lettuce, swisschard, and strawberries.
Also I'm really excited about our peach, and asian pear trees which are still really young but covered in fruit. We also have a plum tree which is huge and hasn't really produced plums in years however Jeff and I have been pruning it since we moved in and it is now covered in a fair amount of plums. I'm really excited to see that we got it to produce fruit again. Jeff's brother said that sometimes trees like that get really big, lazy and happy and so they just stop producing. Well looks like we shocked it into life.
These are our squash plants. They are huge! I made Remmy sit by them so you could have a point of reference of thier actual size and maybe understand now how we got such an enormous squash.

Red Hair and White Knuckles

Jeff and I got a motorcycle. It's a Kawasaki KLR 650 Dual Sport (meaning it's good both off road and on road). So we decided to take a motorcycle road trip to break it in. Although if any of you have ever ridden a motorcycle for any length of time I'm sure you know that it broke us in more than anything (sore hinny).






So once we were all packed and ready to go we headed over the mountain pass and our first stop was Leavenworth. This is a popular tourist and local attraction as it is a Bavarian themed village. They have a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the winter that attracts thousands and in the summer there's lots of art festivals, hikes and October fest in the fall. I didn't really get any shots of the village this time as we've been here before and the couple I did get didn't really turn out well but this was a pretty cute and friendly mountain goat.

So Aplets and Cotlets are a pretty delicious treat that are quite popular in the Northwest. I'd never heard of them till I moved here. They are kind of a jelly type candy with nuts that are rolled in powdered sugar. Although I have come to know that to some it is an acquired taste and others just plain don't like them. The traditional flavors (as the name denotes) are apple and apricot, however they have a ton of different flavors and if you go to the factory which is where this picture was taken then you get to sample a tone of stuff for free. They even have new product sampling and you can take a survey and tell them what you think. It was a fun stop on our way to Winthrop. This factory is located in Cashmere, just outside of Leavenworth.

So we were almost to Winthrop when we saw this bridge and had to stop. There are a lot of these foot traffic bridges across the Columbia river and I tried to get Jeff to cross this one but try as I might he wouldn't do it. I guess I can't blame the guy as I wouldn't have done it either.






We stayed in this Shackteau, which is owned by Jeff's boss. It's right on the river and it's not fancy it's basically camping but we didn't have to set up a tent and there were sleeping pads inside which made for a comfortable night sleep. When we pulled up there was a whole family of deer sleeping under the awning.



This is the town of Winthrop which is an old west themed town, however this is actually a picture of my bad helmet hair and me locking the helmets on the bike.



Jeff had the camera as you can tell. So the background shows what this whole town basically looks like, all the restaurants and stores are all in this old west theme. The side walks are wooden and they even have some western saddles you can sit on at the ice cream shop. Somehow we didn't get as many pictures of the town as I thought but you get the idea, plus you can google it.




This guy was in front of one of the shops and we thought he was pretty cool. You can see the wooden plank sidewalk that lines the street and you get the idea that it's a pretty cool town.



There is a lodge called sunset lodge about 9 miles from town and this is the view from the lodge. This was about 7am and they were rounding up the horses for trail rides. Pretty amazing view. And just to clarify this is Eastern Washington.




So on our way home we drove over a different mountain pass, it was really cold, as you can tell there is still snow and it happened to rain on us just after this picture was taken but what an amazing site. The road was really twisty and steep going up over this pass, you kinda get the idea in the picture below.

This part of the highway was blocked because they were redoing the park that overlooks the highway, however the joy of being on a motorcycle is that you can simply drive around the gate at your own risk and get the pictures anyways, which is how we got the picture of the highway below. This was a pretty fun trip, although we were sorely unprepared in many ways (we know better know) we are already planning our next trip.

Spring Hike

A couple of weeks ago we hiked Tokul Creek. This is a really pretty hike with some old growth trees as you can see in this picture this tree is pretty massive (Jeff's dad is not a dwarf). You get there by driving up into the mountains and oddly enough there is a cow farm right across from the trail head.





Here's Jeff giving me one of his goofy smiles. (I rarely get a real smile on camera) He's standing on this bridge which overlooks the creek. Which by the way is not your run of the mill trickling peaceful creek. It's more like rapids but I guess it looked like a creek to someone.






We took Remmy along for the hike and he was leaning over to look down at the creek too. As you can tell by looking at his back legs he wasn't too thrilled about being up so high. He didn't quite trust that he couldn't fit through the gap between the fence and the bridge. But either way I thought it was cute that he was checking it out.







So this is the creek that runs below the bridge that we are all standing on. I told you it was more like rapids. Although we did get a lot of snow this year so maybe the water level is a little higher because of snow melt. Either way it was a cool view.





Speaking of view this is the view from the trail. You can see the whole valley and the mountains in the distance. It was a bit overcast which is why the pic looks a little white and muted, but the view is spectacular. And this was only like 20 min from our house. That is the plus about living in Washington you have amazing hikes just out your back door.


And by the end of the hike all of the dogs (I only have one but Jeff's parents have a couple) were tired and hot. Libby jumped in this little creek (see this is a creek, ok enough about what a creek is) and layed down to cool off. I couldn't resist getting a shot and I love the fact that I caught her with her tongue out.

Spring

Spring has finally come! Spring is one of those touch and go seasons for any of you who are not familiar with Washington. There can be days where the weather is brilliant and then it will rain for the next two weeks. But when the weather is good, there's nothing like it.
Spring also means that we spend a lot of time in the yard. On this particular day I had just finished mowing the lawn and I looked up and saw a rainbow in the sky. I'm not really sure how this came to be as it had not been raining, but whatever the reason I thought it would be fun to get a picture of it.








Speaking of yard work Jeff and I have been working on taming the trees in our yard. This is a Laurel, yes for any of you who are familiar with this species it is generally a bush. As you can see our bush turned into a massive tree, which looked nice but was creating a bit of a moss problem on the roof. I haven't lived in Washington long enough to know the details but with all the rain and moisture here, there's a lot of moss which grows on the roof and the problem is made worse by trees hanging over, maybe it has to do with the shade. Anyways as you can see we gave the tree a massive haircut and literally had branches piled up to the roof. We did eventually get them cleared away.

As most of you have kids and post pictures of them all of the time I had to throw one in of my dog. Remmy was soaking up the sun and enjoying laying and rolling in the freshly mowed lawn. He loves hanging out in the yard while we work. Occasionally he comes over and starts digging in my garden while I weed. I think he's just trying to figure out what I'm doing but sometimes he digs up my bulbs so I don't encourage his helping. Hope you are all enjoying spring as much as we are and we'll keep you posted on our trips this summer.

Oregon Coast Revisited

What can I say we love the Oregon Coast. We only went for a couple of days this time but the weather couldn't have been better. Jeff's brother Daniel also came along since he hadn't been in years. We visited Jeff's uncle Dave and his family again which was a lot of fun. We only get to see them about once a year so it's nice to get in an extra visit. Dave played tour guide again and on the first day he took us on a hike of the dunes and the beach. We did some beach combing and Jeff's cousin Seabre actually found a message in a bottle. It wasn't anything super cool but how often do you find a message in a bottle. We also took the opportunity to fly our kite, which I never got a picture of but you can use your imagination. Actually the picture above is of Jeff and his brother flying the kite.

The next day Dave took us out to Cape Perpetua/ Neptune (which is where he and his wife MJ got married) and we explored the tide pools.

We also went agate hunting. They are all over the place you just have to know where to look and since Dave has more experience at this than we do, he always spotted them but never told us where they were and then he would walk away leaving us looking for a needle in a hay stack so to speak.

This is a picture of the rocks on the coast. I think they are so beautiful with all the different shell pieces and colored rocks.

Here are some of the smaller agates we found.

This is the beginning of a funny incident. Jeff had been hiking around and not paying attention to the waves and he got splashed with a wave. I couldn't help myself but laugh and so I caught Jeff pouting in this picture.

Not long after that Jeff and I were on our way back and he was trying to take us on a short cut near the water. The plan was to hurry past this one rock before another wave came. He hurried past but I was stuck in a cold shower of salt water. The wave was so large that I knocked me off of the rock I had been standing on and I was half choking cause "my mouth was open and everything" (that line was from Shrek). So that teaches me for laughing at Jeff when he got sprayed (however I got it much worse than he did and we both laughed at me).

This is a better picture cause you can see that I literally got wet from head to toe. Luckily it was warm so I layed out on some rocks to dry. Other than the cold shower it was a really fun trip. The coast is so hit and miss but we went in February and caught some of the best whether they have. I wonder if we'll ever make it down there during the summer. We always say we will but then the summer comes and goes and we haven't gone. But this summer Jeff and I are going to be doing a lot of hiking and camping so we'll see.