Final Post...of the year

Well, this is it. The last post of 2007. So yeah, maybe it wasn't published until 2008, but close enough. What a year it's been. I have to say I'm pretty proud of the job that Heidi and I did, posting a picture a day for an entire year. We've both learned a lot, it was a heck of a way to really learn our camera and different photo techniques.

This is a picture of my champagne glass from last night at the celebration Jen and Craig were hosting at their house. It was a pretty small gathering of friends. It was nice because you got an opportunity to talk to everyone there. There was plenty of Wii getting played, food getting eaten and drinks being downed, all in all, a great evening.

As Heidi mentioned, we aren't done with the blog forever, just don't come looking for daily updates.

-G

Something's Fishy

And that something is the ornament I noticed on our Christmas tree today.
I've been thinking lately about when we'll have the time to take the tree down and put the Christmas decorations away. When I was thinking about it this morning, I noticed an ornament I've never seen before. This strange phenomenon happened last year as well. After our Christmas party, I found an owl ornament. This year...it's a fish. Last year the surprise "gift" was left by Dave and Carley. We suspect they left us another surprise this year. It only took us 2 weeks to notice! (Let us know if we're wrong you guys!)

In other news...Gabe's cousin Brooke stopped by for lunch today on her way home to Bellingham. She was dropping of a sewing machine Gabe's mom said I could have. I'm excited to get it out and experiment this week. Anyone know where I might take classes to learn to sew?

Well, this is my last post for the year. I can't believe we're almost done. So that we don't disappoint our loyal readers (all 3 of them), we will not be ending our blog completely. I'm not sure what I will do with all the extra time I'll have every other day, when I'm not obsessing about what to take a picture of. I guess that's where the new sewing machine comes in.
-h

Red Hot

The photo challenge today on one the sites that Heidi reads was warm. This burner is certainly more than a little warm, in fact, it was warm from a couple feet away. I had taken pictures of a couple other things, but the idea from Heidi was the best.

We finished The Golden Compass today and headed out to the theater to watch the movie. Boy was that a let down. Not only the movie, but the whole experience of going to the newly renovated Clackamas Town Center. Apparently they put a lot of thought into the mall, but not the parking lot. We spent nearly 45 minutes trying to get out of there. Maybe it was just crazy because of the holiday season and it being the weekend. It seemed more to me that there are too few exits for that large of a parking area.

As an aside, check out this video that popped up when searching for Clackamas Town Center.

-G

My phone

You know you're a really huge geek when you're blogging about a picture of your blog. Good thing we only have a few days of this year long blogging adventure left.

This was what I opened up on Christmas morning. I had no idea what Gabe got me for Christmas this year. I've wanted an iPhone since they came out, but they were crazy expensive and we don't use AT&T. Well, I guess Gabe figured it was time to get me one. I really think he just wanted one. He's actually been playing with it way more than I have! :)
It's super cool. I have my calendar, address book and iTunes music from my computer all synced up to it. Awesome! Plus, we used it when we went to Beaverton tonight to have sushi with Peggy (she and Paul are in town from LA) and her family. Love to have google maps right at my finger tips...all the time.
-h

Pomegranate

This is half of one of the pomegranates that was left over from our Christmas party. I'd never really seen one, let alone eaten one until I met Heidi. In fact, these are the first ones I've ever purchased. I can't believe how popular they have gotten, I mean, there's a 7-Up that's pomegranate flavored! After reading about them in the Wikipedia article, and seeing an episode of Good Eats where they were featured, I can see why they've become popular. They are tasty, and pretty good for you. But, what fresh fruit isn't?

-G

Battle it out

We got this game for Christmas from Heather and Ryan. We decided tonight would be a good time to get it out and give it a try. What was I thinking? Gabe had me beat in 4 moves. Let's just say that geometry was my worst subject and chess is my least favorite game. It's going to take me a lot of practice to get good at this one. Maybe Gabe will just have to find someone else to play with since I'm no competition. Any takers?
-h

Merry Christmas!

Photo by Gabe

We hope everyone had a very happy Christmas.
Here's our Christmas story:
We got up "early" to open gifts and there was a very light dusting of snow. A white Christmas doesn't happen in Portland, so being in Oakridge we had a better chance. Gabe's Christmas wish came true. I think I had him pretty fooled into thinking he wasn't getting a Wii. "They are just too hard to get your hands on." He was thrilled!
After watching part of A Christmas Story, took off to drive up to my parent's house. About Salem the snow started. We couldn't believe it! Snow on Christmas! Of course, none of it was really sticking. After all, it was 34 degrees...but it was fun anyway. It did slow us down just a little bit.
We got to my parents and started opening gifts. Becky couldn't wait any longer! We had a big meal and played. Gabe hooked up the Wii, and even my dad gave bowling a try. Gabe and Jory had a great time playing with the RC Helicopter we got Jory for Christmas. Then we played the longest game of Battle of the Sexes possible. Seriously, I think we were playing for an hour and a half! At that point it was getting late and we needed to get home. Gabe had to go to work today. (Although, I called him an hour ago and he and Ross are playing with the Wii on the projector at work. Apparently, a lot of work needs to get done today!) We came home, gave Jupiter some love, opened our stockings and went to bed.
It was a great day filled with time spent with our family.
Happy Holidays!
-h

Christmas Eve

We went up Salmon Creek with the dogs. Gabe's cousin Megan had her yellow lab, Sitka, with her. And little Flora had never played in the snow. They had a blast. Chasing each other and wrestling in the powder. We didn't end up going up the pass to snowshoe because it was snowing up there like crazy. It's really not very fun to snowshoe while the snow is pouring.

After our adventure with the dogs, we got cleaned up and went up to Gabe's Aunt and Uncle's for Christmas eve dinner and gifts. I bravely tried the oyster soup, a family Christmas eve tradition. I'll just say it's not my favorite and now I know for next time.
-h

Flora's First Christmas

Flora got to open her first EVER Christmas present this afternoon. Yeah, it's a little early, but we couldn't wait. She was being a very "nice" girl, so we decided to let her open it before Christmas. I wish I was being nice enough that Heidi would let me open my present. Flora got an awesome new food dish, we couldn't resist it when we were doing some other shopping at Cost Plus. Hopefully she puts it to good use.

-G

Shake it!

Come on...shake it!
Gabe got to open his first gifts Saturday. Finally!
He was pretty excited about getting a new beer brewing apparatus and a video game he can't use. Sadly, he still doesn't own a Wii. Too bad...so sad. Maybe he'll be able to find one around his birthday.
After the Christmas celebration with Tom and Joanne, we came up to Oakridge this afternoon. We brought our snowshoes in hope of finding some snow around here, but it's gotten really warm today. We'll see...
-h

The Aftermath

So, here it is. The sewer work is inspected and done. Well, the work isn't done, but the sewer is installed and working. What you see here is whats left of our backyard. In talking to the contractor today, they won't be able to fully be done for another month or so. When you dig big trenches and then fill them in again, they need to settle. The trench is actually a raised mound at this point, but it will apparently settle out to the point where they may need to add more dirt. I really wish they would have been able to bore under the ground for this job. I know that things will get back to normal, it'll just take a bit longer than I wanted it to.

-G

What is it?

Or...what could it be? Gabe really wants to open our Christmas gifts tomorrow night since we'll be leaving to go see his family early on Saturday morning. And we won't be back home until Christmas night. For some reason, he doesn't think he can possibly wait that long. I think it's terrible to open gifts that early, but if he doesn't stop bugging me I may just give in. I have absolutely no idea what he got me for Christmas this year. It should be a huge surprise!

We went to see A Christmas Carol tonight. Gotta do something to really get us into the Christmas spirit! The Gerding Theater at the Armory is fairly new and this was our first time there. It's a really beautiful venue and the play was fun.
-h
Only one more wake up!

Bands of Rubber

What we have here is a collection of rubber bands I found in a dish on our window sill in the kitchen. They seem to mostly be from vegetables bought from the store with some others probably from random newspapers or ads that we get dropped at our door. I ended up throwing some away because the sun they get in the window had deteriorated them to the point of no longer having any elasticity. I'm not sure why I decided this would be what I took a picture of tonight, just something that I thought might look interesting.

-G

Gingerbread House

For girl's night, we had our annual holiday baking night. This year, instead of doing sugar cookies, Jen brought this boxed gingerbread house. Boy did we have fun decorating it! Maybe it's because nothing is more fun then endless amounts of candy and frosting. Plus, all of us were discussing the fact that we never did gingerbread houses as a kid. Guess we're making up for it now. After the excitement of baking and decorating, we opened our gifts. I know, I know...it's still a week until Christmas. It's just that for the next 2 weeks we're all going a million different places and won't have time to see each other, let alone exchange gifts.
-h
Only 3 more days of school!

A Flavor

Jupiter has it. Much like these other cats. I took the camera and new lens to guys night tonight, but I've posted enough pictures of us playing video games. We did have some awesome homemade double decker tacos and drink some of Mike's awesome eggnog, but that's about it for interesting things. When I got home Jupiter was being cute on the chair, so I decided to take some pictures of him. Somehow I caught him with his tongue out, which makes for an awesome flavor picture. Although my favorite and the original is this one.

-G

Here's the damage...

that was done last night. You'll notice very few of the bottles have much left in them, I think we did a pretty good job last night. And by the way, I've now mopped the kitchen floor 3 times...it's still sticky!
This picture was taken with our new lens. Gabe picked it up on Friday. It's a fisheye and it's really cool! We used some of our kicker check to purchase it. Let's just call it an early Christmas gift. The rest of our kicker has to go to paying off the sewer project that's now taken a year to get done! I decided to just play around with the lens a little today. I can't wait to try some landscapes with it.
-h

Mistletoe

The tardiness of this post and picture is due to the extensive preparations and celebration that was done yesterday. There was much to be cleaned and many things to be made. Plus, a few last minute errands.
Our house was filled with friends, food, laughter, and even a little dancing. We had a great time, but now we'll be spending the rest of our weekend cleaning up. My feet are literally sticking to the floor in the kitchen.

Before I put up the mistletoe last night, I got a quick picture. Sadly, I didn't get any kisses under it...
-h

Must Not Fail

So here's a picture.

-G

As you can see...we're both pretty ready to be done with this challenge. Neither of us were up to taking a picture. I had a tough day at work, we went out to dinner, and then went to the Live Wire Radio Show. The best part of the night was singing Puff the Magic Dragon with Peter Yarrow! It was really fun, but you can't really take a picture at an event like that. The show got over really late and then we headed over to Lola's Room to celebrate Carley's 30th birthday. Unfortunately, we never made it there. Traffic and parking were terrible. The line to get in was around the block. I wasn't feeling that great and I couldn't take it all. So we came home.
I'm feel so badly that we never made it...sorry Carley!
-h
The air date for the shows we saw is Saturday December 29th at 7:00pm on OPB radio at 91.5FM. Or you can download it from itunes!

Sheet O Peppermint

This is the final step to the brownies that Heidi linked to last night. This is a sheet pan of Star Brites melted in the oven until they became a continuous layer of peppermint. As it was melting it even smelled like peppermint in the kitchen, something I didn't expect from melting candy. After they are all melted, you score them into squares so they can be placed on the brownie squares. I'm pretty excited about them, can you tell?

-G

O' Christmas Tree

I know, you can't see the whole tree...but I do like how this picture ended up with twinkly lights. It's a much better "natural" tree than the one we ended up with last year. I'm very happy.

I've been up to all sorts of "holiday" activities the last few days. Yesterday, the girls and I met at the Pilsner Room for dinner and to watch the Christmas ships go by. It was fun. The ships are such a nice Portland holiday tradition. Watching them from inside the warmth of the restaurant is a wonderful thing. Tonight, Gabe and I have already started the great preparations for our cocktail party on Saturday night. We're pretty excited, this is our 5th year having our friends over to eat, drink and be merry. I'm making these brownies right now and am hoping to get some other things off the list of things that need to get done.
-h
Only 7 more school days before the holidays! Can you tell what I'm looking forward to the most?

'Tis the Season...

for wrapping presents. This is one of my least favorite activities relating to Christmas. I think mainly it's because I'm terrible at it. I just never learned to wrap presents with any sort of skill or style. Gifts that I wrap tend to be a little sloppy and usually only include a stick-on bow. It's a miracle if I manage to tie on a real ribbon and curl the ends like all the fancy present wrappers do. If I had it my way I'd hand over the gifts in the bag the store gave me. Is it just because I'm a guy? Are there guys out there that like wrapping presents?

-G

Smooth

In looking for inspiration this evening, I stopped by this web site to see what the mood was today. Sadly I came up pretty blank while trying to think of things that qualify as "smooth". The only thing I could really come up with is this jade necklace that Gabe gave me for my birthday. When I wear it, I often find myself gently rubbing it because it's so smooth. It's also usually warm from the heat of my skin too. I've always had an attraction to jade. It's such a beautiful stone. In fact, it was the most valuable stone in ancient China. Unfortunately, the color doesn't really fit with every outfit.
-h

Decorated

The tree we, as Megan said, cut out of the woods is now in the house and fully decorated. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by how nice it is. It's actually pretty full for being a "wild" tree. That's not to say the tree is without fault. The bottom half of it is certainly more dense than the top half, so much so there aren't even lights on the top couple feet. I don't mind though. There's something satisfying about having a tree that looks as nature intended it to look, with no meddling by the hands of tree farmers.

Elfed

My dad and mom made this today. Check it out. It's pretty funny!
-h

The Great Tree Hunt 2007

At sunrise this morning, the great adventure began. We were all loaded up with our warm clothes and hot drinks, we were ready to find the most wonderful Tannenbaum. We headed out east, toward the mountain we went. Where the snowfall is fresh and the trees are the best. As you can see the morning was amazing, the view was spectacular. The selection of trees was more than we'd wished for. This year's search was a complete success.

After last year's adventure (when I was walking through 2 feet of snow in my tennis shoes) it took some convincing from Gabe to get me out there this year. I didn't want a sad looking forest tree like we had last year, and I didn't want to walk around looking for a tree in the deep snow.
Here's a picture from last year. Notice how sad and thin the tree is...
Well, there was only about 2 inches of snow this year and we drove right to the spot where all the good trees hide. It wasn't nearly the adventure it was last year. Plus, today was a beautiful day to be out. This year's forest Tannenbaum will be featured in up coming posts.
-h

Tree Hunting Fuel

Tomorrow is the day we head out into the woods to find our Christmas tree. Josh and Danelle are supposed to be picking us up around 7:30 tomorrow morning to head out. We're on the hunt for a Noble Fir this year since we got skunked last year. Hopefully we can end up with something better than the Charlie Brown tree we got last year. The hunt is quite a bit of fun though. We head out, drink some coffee or hot chocolate, play in the snow, then find a tree that looks decent. Once we find the "perfect" tree, we get out the chainsaw and chop it down. Yes it's overkill, and yes, that's why it's fun.

-G

Tick-Tock

With the few remaining days we have to complete this whole photo a day thing...I thought I should probably experiment a little bit more. Can you tell this was a 3 second timed exposure? I like the movement of the right end of the second hand more than the tip. It's so much less "choppy".
I have to get up earlier than usual tomorrow. I'm driving down to Salem in the morning for a conference at the capital. I hope it's interesting and worth it. With all the trouble I put into making sub plans and getting up early, it better be good. I don't know what it was about this week, but I'm sure glad it's about over. I think even kids get crazy and stressed at the holidays. Why does it have to be that way?
-h

Putting the Pep in Pepper

Honestly, there really isn't much pep in red bell peppers. They do definitely taste good though. As I was getting dinner ready tonight I was thinking about what I could take a picture of. As I sliced the top off this pepper, my picture presented itself. I just thought the shape and the colors were very neat. Hey, it's even red and green for the holidays!

-G

White Lights

We bought new white lights for the Christmas tree. Yes...they're LED. This is our first year being LED only. They'll be on the house and the tree. Well, they'll be on the tree as soon as we finally get it. I think we'll be heading out to the woods to get it this weekend...

I had a heck of a time trying to get this picture. Because of the way these lights "flicker", I either ended up with pictures that were totally blown out or super dark. I had very few like the one you see.
-h

Nutcracker

I was really wanting a picture of our nutcracker doing his thing, chomping on something. This is as close as I could get. I had to manually operate his jaws, so it was pretty much impossible to not get caught by the camera. That's my "ghost" hand trying to get out of the frame on the left. The effect in his jaw area isn't quite what I was going for, but it's close. You can at least see some movement there and tell the mouth is in at least two positions.

My question is, do people ever really use these things to crack nuts?

-G

Fungi

These are some dried Porcini mushrooms that we used to make this delicious soup today. It's my new favorite soup recipe. We weren't up to much today...just cooking. There isn't much else one can do when the wind is blowing and the rain is pouring. Gabe also made a delicious pork roast in the crock pot. It was a perfect day for cooking and curling up on the couch with a book.

I feel extremely well fed right now and don't have the slightest desire to do the bag full of work I brought home to get graded this weekend. Fortunately, it will be there for me whenever I get around to it. We had such a nice relaxing weekend, I hate for it to be over already!
-h

Christmas Time at the Wests

It's now officially Christmas time at the West household. The lights are on the house. We took some time between the snow and rain showers to put the lights on our house. It's the standard job of getting the lights out, making sure they work (which we forgot to do), and then figuring out how we put them up last year. We got them all up, plugged them in, and found out that a strand was not working. A couple fuses later we were back in business.

PS - The sewer project has actually progressed, they cut a big hole in the street and made a big pile with the dirt they dug out. It look like it'll be done by the end of next week.

-G

Poinsettia

I know, I know. It's still the last day of November and fall is still here for a few more week. I just couldn't help it...there was simply nothing else I could think to photograph this evening. Gabe and I went on a 2 &1/2 hour shopping expedition this evening, what more can you expect from me? Those of you who know me well, know that shopping is just about my least favorite thing. Unless I can shop on line and not interact with a single living, breathing person. That I could do all day long!
Anyway, we hadn't really started our Christmas shopping and we figured things would be less busy tonight. I really want to avoid the madness that is shopping on the weekend during the holiday season. I'm pretty proud to say that we're about half way done! We also got an amazing deal on a "gift" for ourselves. We've been looking at getting an upholstery cleaner because Jupiter isn't exactly kind to our off-white furniture. Well, neither am I to be completely honest. How many times have I dropped some kind of food item on myself and the couch? More than I care to count. Anyway, Kohl's had all their vacuums and cleaners on sale with an additional 10% off. Plus, we had $30 in "gift cards" that we got last Friday when we were there shopping with Gabe's mom. So, we got this cleaner, which is regularly priced at $85 for....drum roll please....$32.99! Boy do I love a steal of a deal.
-h

Sewer Work in Process...kinda

This hole was dug on Tuesday, it's now Thursday night, and no further progress has been made. I'm a bit...frustrated. To say the least. I mean, it's been months of dealing with the city, the contractor and my neighbors trying to get this thing done. I just want it done, I don't want to have to think about it any more. It should be three days of work, max, for these guys to wrap this thing up. I have the cell numbers of three people in the company. Rest assure that they will all be getting calls from me, hourly if I have to, until this thing is done.

-G

Here's a sneak peak

of our Christmas cards. I started working on them this weekend and finally finished them up tonight. Now all that's left is getting them signed, addressed, stamped (after a trip to the post office to get stamps...we never use them. Thank goodness for online bill paying!), and in the mail. Hopefully that will all happen by the end of the week.
I'm never very happy with my card making abilities, but I still prefer to make them. I just feel like I can never find quite the right ones. Unless, of course, I'm willing to pay a fortune somewhere like here. Which I'm not!
-h

Riveting

Hoping to avoid taking another picture of something around the house I took the camera to work with me today. There isn't much going on in the office so after the shop guys went home I wandered around the shop looking for interesting things. A few things caught my eye, but this tangle of rivets in a box was the most interesting. There is a couple thousand of them in this particular box.

The original image was a little bland with just a bunch of gray metal so making it black and white gave it a bit more interest.

-G

Pine cone

One of my favorite holiday scents, one that really takes me back to childhood, is the cinnamon pine cone. My mom always had a basket of them by the fireplace around Christmas. When I walked into Micheal's craft store on Friday (yes...I was there on the most dreaded day of the year. But I went late enough so that the crowds were gone.) guess what smell greeted me? Well, I had to get a bag! Much to Gabe's displeasure. I'm so happy that I have these pine cones, they had to be the subject of my photo today. Plus, I think the photo turned out pretty cool!

I was thinking about making this one a "what is it" post. But the more I looked at the picture, the easier I thought it would be to figure out. Oh, well. I'll think of something good one of these days.
-h

Evening Snack

As we were walking up to the house this afternoon after a little shopping I noticed that the sun was shining nicely on the camellias in our front yard. For some reason they think it's spring and so have decided to bloom. The ants seem to really be digging whatever pollen or nectar they're finding in the blossoms. This flower only had one, but on another there was at least 10. I imagine the ants are really enjoying this early winter treat. It'll be a few more months before they get to have another snack like this.

-G

Procrastinate no more!

This afternoon we finally got motivated and got some yard clean up done. It's been dry for about a week now and it's suppose to rain all week, so we figured this would be our last window of opportunity. Plus, the yard was looking terrible! This was the first raking we've done this year. It was bad.
Other than the yard work, we haven't been up to much today. After working on the puzzle at Dave and Carley's last night, I was feeling inspired. So I got out this puzzle that Gabe got from my mom and dad last Christmas. I've been working on it most of the day on the card table in front of the TV. Gabe's been "helping" a little. Unfortunately, his idea of helping isn't quite the same as mine. Plus, he doesn't really like puzzles the way I do. I get really addicted to them. For some reason, I can't get myself to stop until they're done. We'll see if I can finish before bed or if I can get myself to stop and get to bed at a decent hour tonight. I can hear the puzzle calling me now...
-h

Puzzling

This is Heidi, Carley and Bryan finishing up a Yellowstone National Park puzzle last night. Dave and Carley hosted a game night last night where there were some games played and a puzzle completed. I stuck to the games as puzzles are just about the last thing I want to do when I have free time. I'm not sure what it is about them, they're just...boring. One of the games we played was Samurai, another German game brought to the US by Rio Grande Games.

Sorry the blogging was so late, we got home late last night and went straight to bed.

-G

It's all over...

Happy Thanksgiving!
We hosted the Thanksgiving feast at our house for the 2nd year. Gabe's mom came up this morning to be in charge of the stuffing, and spend the weekend. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving for Gabe without oyster stuffing! My mom, dad, sister (Tricia), her boyfriend Jory, his parents, and Gabe's aunt Dian were all here too. We had a tight squeeze in our 900 square foot house. But it was fun.
I made 2 pumpkin pies yesterday. So today we had a turkey to roast, gourmet green bean casserole to prepare (it's 10,000 times better than the one on the label of the French's onions!), cranberry sauce to cook, and stuffing to get together. My mom brought the other essentials.
I think everyone ate more than they needed. That's what this holiday is all about right? And we played some games.
I love Thanksgiving! I'm sad that it's over and we don't have very much turkey left over. I think I'll sleep well tonight. I'm exhausted!
-h

Voodoo Curse

I feel as though we've been cursed tonight. One of our favorite late night snack places, Voodoo Doughnuts, was out of doughnuts and closed. We had been up at the New Old Lompoc with a group of friends that get together on the night before Thanksgiving for some drinks. We catch up on what we've all been up to, compare notes on plans for Thanksgiving and generally just hang out. This is this 3rd year that the entire group has gotten together. Before that it was an exclusive girls-only event that Heidi, Jennifer and Alexis started. It's a fun time to get together and look back on the year and also look forward to the rest of the holiday season.

-G

MASSIVE To-Do List

Does anyone else have one? Actually, I have 3. One's for what I have to get done at school tomorrow. The second is all the things I need to get cleaned up and ready tomorrow. The third is what Gabe and I need to do on Thursday morning. The "joys" of hosting a holiday at your house. Actually, I really enjoy it. I love cooking and having people over. It's the clean up I despise. Good thing my husband is such an awesome help in that department. He's actually had a "to-do" list of errands he's been responsible to run over the last few days. Speaking of things I need to be getting done...sitting here and blogging isn't really one of them so I better stop rambling and get a move on it!
-h
I don't have anything to say about this picture. It's just the water shut off to the washing machine. Maybe it caught my eye today because I have a mountain of laundry to be doing. Or maybe it's because it's fire engine red.

Bean Counter

Really I don't count them bean by bean I guess. I count them scoop by scoop. Every morning scoops of these magical beans get ground and placed in a filter awaiting their shower of steaming hot water. This is, of course, after I've had my shower. All of this is part of my morning routine. Somehow I drag myself out of bed at 6:00 and stumble into the bathroom, barely awake enough to start the shower. Not until I'm out and dressed do I start feeling like I might be human again. The next, and biggest, step is the cup of coffee. This is my thanks to the humble coffee bean, without you I'd be even less of a morning person than I am now. I'm sure my family, friends and coworkers thank you too.

-G

No Fish For Us

This morning we got a late start. I think the 6 games of Yahtzee we played yesterday, and all of the pole watching we did, really wore us out. It could have also been all the eating we did at dinner at International C-Food Market. Or maybe it was the fact that we were up at 5:30 on Saturday morning to make the drive out to Siltcoos.
Anyway, before we got out on the lake we had to grab coffee. As Gabe, his dad, and Joanne were in the coffee shop, I decided to take a few pictures of the Florence bridge. With coffee in hand we were ready to get out on the lake again, only to be rewarded with hours of pelting rain and no fish in the boat. Even with my "high quality" Coleman rain gear, I was cold and wet in no time. I think I'm done with this whole fishing thing. It would be different if we ever caught anything. Right now we're 0 for 3.
-h

Breezy

The weather forecast Friday said that Saturday would be merely breezy at the coast. Boy did they get that wrong. It was close to the windiest I'd ever seen it at Siltcoos. The waves were so high we didn't even get to launch the boat until the afternoon, we had planned on launching around 9 or so in the morning. We had the morning to relax and play a couple games of Yahtzee. The weather cooperated in the afternoon, with very little rain and no wind. Too bad the fish wouldn't cooperate and bite our hooks...

Oh, and Heidi can be seen wearing the lovely rain gear featured in my post from Thursday.

-G

Dried Chilies

We left for Eugene about 5:30 on Friday. Just in time to wait in the parking lot that is the I-205/1-5 South interchange. It only took us 3 hours to get to Tom and Joanne's place. A trip that should really never take more than 2 hours. Yuck!
It was nice to relax once we got there. I noticed a bunch of dried chilies they had in a big bowl. One of their friends grows really great chilies and then Tom and Joanne dry them and grind them up into chili flakes. Let me tell you, these chilies are spicy. A little flake goes a long way. I thought the colors and texture made a great photo.
-h

What is it?

So, what do you think it is? It seems like Heidi and I will be needing to use whatever it is this weekend.

On another note, can you believe that Thanksgiving is next week? I could have sworn it wasn't for another couple weeks. Time really has flown by this month.

-G

Well Used

I was looking through my "bin" of art and craft supplies tonight. Opening that bin is like taking a step back in time. As soon as I open it I can smell the distinct fragrance of crayons. There's nothing like the smell of crayons to take you back to simpler times. I really needed that tonight. The end of the trimester is less than a week away and I have MASSIVE amounts of work to grade and not nearly enough time to get it all finished. I've already been at it for 3 additional hours this evening and now I'm starting to get a massive head ache. That's all I'm going to be able to handle. Maybe I should treat myself by watching this evenings installment of America's Next Top Model. I think I've earned some completely mindless entertainment.
-h

Best. Smelling. Mess. Ever.

So I was on the couch watching something on TV when I hear an, "uh oh," from Heidi in the kitchen. Shortly thereafter she says I should come see something. Before I could even round the corner into the kitchen I could smell what had happened. She had spilled...cinnamon. Like I said, it was the best smelling mess ever.

I was actually pretty fortunate for this photo opportunity to fall (har har) into my lap this evening. I wasn't coming up with anything to shoot, and this provided a great opportunity. My payment for being able to shoot this accident was having to clean it up. Seemed fair enough to me.

-G