Snippets

I started this post about a month ago and am only now getting around to finishing it. I'm going to have to start doing more exciting things worthy of reporting.

I finally uploaded a couple of months worth of pictures from the camera. I found lots of food pictures:


Blueberries we picked at a farm down the road. I washed and froze a couple gallons so we'd have berries for pancakes and muffins throughout the winter. I think we need to get a chest freezer so we can stock up on goodies.


We went out for dinner at a restaurant called Lovely Hula Hands a couple of months ago and have been making this salad at home since. It's made of summer tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and goddess dressing. We went to the farmers market this weekend and got the ingredients to make this for the last time this summer.

Those pictures were summer food--this weekend has been all about fall food. I picked up a few pumpkins at the farmers market and roasted and pureed them last night. Today I roasted the seeds and made some pumpkin bread and muffins. We also made a big pot of split pea soup with enough for leftovers this week plus some to freeze for a quick dinner sometime in the future.

Awesome blog if you like cake and/or things that are funny

This is my new favorite blog. It's a compilation of pictures of professional cakes that are just horrible. It always makes me laugh.

I'm back

August was a busy month, but I kept putting off writing. I'll try to catch up now.

Work has been busy but good. I was out in the field off and on through August, but now I'm done and back in the office for the foreseeable future (except for a conference in San Diego at the end of the month).

A couple of weeks ago, I completed the Portland to Coast walking relay with a team of women mainly from my office. It was fun, and I was able to walk my three ~5 mile legs relatively unscathed (I have one purple toenail) which I consider to be quite a feat since I didn't really train for the relay. I didn't take my camera, but I'm hoping to get some pictures soon.

Our labor day weekend was pretty relaxing. I spent most of today reading, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I'm sure I left something out. I hope to write more in September.

Erica

Weekend excursion: Tillamook

Since I'm feeling prolific tonight, I'm going to post twice. Fred and I both managed to get Friday afternoon off last week, so we got an early start to our weekend. We drove all the way out to Hillsboro to eat a late lunch at an Indian restaurant some of his coworkers had told him about. It was great, but since it was a buffet, I ate way too much and was miserable the rest of the night. We didn't even eat dinner. We did stop by our favorite farm stand to get a watermelon, corn, and half a flat of berries. Between the two of us, all the berries were gone by breakfast today. And I didn't even bake anything with them.

Then on Saturday we got up and made our way out to the coast. On the way, we stopped at the Tillamook Forest Center. We had a lot of fun learning about the forest and taking a short walk along the Wilson River. And we got our pictures taken with Smokey.


Afterward we made our way to Tillamook to visit one of our favorite Oregon places--the Tillamook cheese factory. Maybe I shouldn't speak for Fred, but it's definitely high on my list. Our first stop was to get an ice cream cone (they make more than cheese there). We skipped the tour and the cheese sample line because it was pretty busy, but we did make it to the cheese shop to pick up a couple of bags of cheese curds and a pepperoni stick. We came prepared with a cooler for the cheese, but did make quite a dent in one bag of curds before we made it home.

Wedding #2: Missouri

This post is a long time in the making. I started it over a week ago but didn't finish it because all of the pictures from MO weren't on the computer yet. It took me until today to upload. Here's the description of the rest of our trip:

We flew from Los Angeles to St. Louis on Wednesday, July 2. We got in just in time to head downtown and catch a Cardinals game with Lynn and Ryan, courtesy of Ryan's dad Paul. We had a lot of fun catching up with them and getting to see the new stadium. Thankfully, we were sitting in covered seats, because a summer thundershower passed through early in the game.


We spent the next few days helping to get ready for the rehearsal and wedding. And visiting the Missouri Wall of Fame. That's me and Mark Twain. Yep, he's from Missouri. And famous. We were there while the Mississippi was flooded. It's on the other side of the floodwall--probably up to about Mark's shoulder. Good thing the wall is there.


Here's a picture of us all dressed up for the wedding:


And one of the school bus that took us from the wedding to the reception:


And finally, one of Ryan and Sarah and their wedding party:


The wedding was beautiful and we had a nice but short visit with family and friends. Overall, it was a long trip (11 days, 2 weddings, 5 beds slept in, 4 flights, and 1 lost suitcase), and while we had a good time, we were definitely glad to be back in our normal routine when we returned.

Wedding #1: California

Fred and I got home yesterday from, as my co-worker Michelle described it, "flitting about the country to attend weddings." Our first trip was to Los Angeles, where Fred's friend and college baseball teammate Brian and his fiancee Kathy were getting married.

We got in on Friday at lunchtime, Amy picked us up from the airport, and she and Christopher entertained us until we had to be downtown for the rehearsal on Saturday. We had a great time with them, especially since we hadn't spent much time together since we all got married two years ago (Christopher and Amy got married two weeks after we did). Below is a picture that Amy took of Fred and I at Zuma Beach near Malibu.


The wedding was on Sunday, and it was very nice. I really enjoyed meeting several of Fred's teammates from college. After the wedding, we spent two relaxing days with Fred's Aunty Jane in Redondo Beach. She was kind enough to drive us out to Claremont, where Harvey Mudd (Fred's alma mater) is located. It was fun to get to finally see all of Fred's old haunts, and Claremont is a really pretty town. Here's a picture of Fred and Aunty Jane at Harvey Mudd:


Overall it was a very nice trip. We flew out Wednesday for Missouri, where my brother Ryan and his fiancee Sarah got married on July 5. I'll write more about that trip soon.

Strawberry weekend

Fred's parents came up to Portland last Wednesday and stayed with us through the weekend. We had a great time. It's strawberry season here, and we made the best of it. On Saturday morning we went to the Beaverton farmers market-one of my favorite things to do in the summer. We bought a flat of Hood strawberries, and Sylvia and I made strawberry and strawberry-rhubarb jam while Fred and his dad put together an automatic sprinkler system for the crops on our patio.
We used a different kind of pectin that allows for less sugar since the berries were so sweet on their own. Maybe that's why the jam separated. I'm going to spin it as "fruit on the top" jam. It still tastes great, and I guess that's all that really matters.

Saturday night I finally got to try my hand at pie in a jar. I used the pie crust recipe from this book with all butter instead of butter and shortening. The recipe uses orange juice instead of water for liquid and has turned out nicely every time I've made it. The mini-pies turned out great as well. We filled them with some fresh strawberries, extra jam that didn't get canned, and cornstarch.


On Sunday afternoon we went to the International Rose Test Garden in Portland. It was a beautiful afternoon, and a great time to go see the roses.


On the way home we stopped at another one of my favorite places for another strawberry treat-made even better by buy-one-get-one-free coupons.


Later, we all pitched in and grilled up an excellent dinner--grilled cheeseburgers, grilled veggies, and roasted potatoes. Afterward, Sylvia and I had to try just one more strawberry recipe.


This one turned out to be the best of all. It's the best fruit crisp I've ever made-and quite possibly one of the best desserts. It has a strawberry and rhubarb filling with rosemary and cinnamon and an oatmeal/multigrain cereal topping. The rosemary in the filling isn't overpowering, and it makes the whole dessert taste unbelievably good. If you decide to try this one yourself, we did cut back the butter in the topping from 1/2 to 1/3 cup and it still tasted great.

Fred's parents left this morning, and we're are probably going to spend the rest of the week getting ready for our PDX-LA-St. Louis wedding extravaganza coming up. I think we're both in vacation mode and will be ready to head out of here on Friday.