Something Fishy

I ran across this pic today and realized that I never blogged about Jeff's supper sucessful salmon fishing trip and our not so successful smoking of the salmon. Jeff caught all of these fish as you can see but it's a certain kind of salmon that is better smoked. So he being who he is (which is why I love him) looked online and found a way to make a homemade smoker to smoke your salmon in. We got all of the supplies and made the smoker. It was only supposed to take a few hours to smoke the fish however I think we overloaded it and by about 3am the salmon still wasn't done. We brought it all in to finish it in the oven but it was stuck to the rack. So the night ended with us sneaking all of this half smoked salmon to the park dumpster across the street and crawling into bed smelling of smoky salmon because at that point we just didn't care. But it's a great picture and a funny story.

New Car

Well after almost 8 years of marriage we decided it was finally time to get another car. Jeff and I both work and we still carpool but Jeff works with the scouts and I work with the Young Women in my church and was just called as the Ward Young Women Camp Director. So we are both going in two different directions. Jeff is actually going on a 50 mile canoe trip this summer (the same week that I'm taking my girls to camp). He took his guys on a 50 mile hike last summer so the canoe trip should be pretty easy. Anyways this is a Toyota Land Cruiser and we love it. It can hold 8 people although the third row is really for short people and kids cause there's not a lot of leg room. But its perfect for hauling camping stuff and pretty much anything else. And now I finally have a vehicle when Jeff takes his kids camping which is generally once a month.

Tip Toe Through the Tulips

I know that you can only see the back of my head in this one but really how many pictures do you need of me smiling in front of a field of tulips. Plus I thought it was a pretty cool pic.





Ok so it took me a while to post this, not really sure why. Jeff and I went up to the Skagit Valley tulip fields in April, I had never been before and was really excited to go. I would recommend for anyone interested to not go on a Saturday, it was really busy. We got some great pictures though and I promise that Jeff was there, he just didn't want any pictures taken I guess standing in a field of tulips for a pic is more of a girl thing.

Northern Exposure

It's March 5th and spring has officially sprung here in the state of Washington. Everything is blooming and the temperature is nearing 60 today. So Jeff and I piled on the layers, jumped on the motorcycle and rode straight out of town. We drove over the pass and saw some of the last skiers taking advantage of the sun and snow. We headed out to Roslyn Washington, for no particular reason other than it's a nice drive. While we were there I got a picture in front of the famous Roslyn cafe. For those of you who don't know. There was a popular show in the 90's called Northern Exposure, the show was supposed to be set in Alaska but they filmed it in Roslyn Washington. After snapping a quick picture we stopped for lunch and headed back home. The drive home was a lot nicer. I actually didn't get numb on the way home just thoroughly chilled even with my many layers.

Droid Dog

Jeff's Aunt Kim got the new Droid phone and was showing us that it has a camera with a flash. She wanted to take a picture of Remmy and I, and this is how the photo turned out. We have no idea how it happened but I always knew there was something funny about this dog.

2009

It's been a very busy year full of new experiences and surprises. In February I fell victim like many did to the poor economy and lost my job, however it really was a blessing in disguise as a month later I got a job as a Dental Assistant, with a really amazing dentist in Bellevue, which is what I wanted to do in the first place. Jeff actually got a promotion to become a Financial Advisor which is what he's been working so hard for, for the past 3 years. He'll be going to New York in March for a week of training which is really exciting.
Jeff and I also got our motorcycle licenses this year and motorcycles. Although Jeff has ridden motorcycles before, this was my first time and it was really exciting to learn to ride a motorcycle. I also learned how to play the piano and played in my first recital during Christmas, I played a duet of Silent Night with my teacher.
We also went to Disneyland this year which was a first for me, and Jeff hadn't been since he was a little boy so I count it as a first for him because he didn't remember everything. We got a park hopper pass for both Disney and California Adventure and we rode every ride. We were there for 3 days and by the third I was pretty much lame and popping tylenol to make it through, but by golly we were going to have a good time. And we did, we had a blast.
Jeff and I continue to work with the youth in the church which keeps us both busy, he does a lot of hiking and camping with the guys. I do more cooking, sewing and socializing with the girls but we have a good time. I actually went as a chaperon to the camp they have every year for both boys and girls called Youth Conference. It was a little cold cause we went to the Washington Coast in June but we had a blast.
Jeff and I have also done some hiking, camping, and mountain biking on our own.
We hope that all of you have had a wonderful year this year, hope that this next year will bring many more surprises and adventures.

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.