Sunday August 19th

How did I forget to post these pictures (taken by my Dad). Clearly I put up one shelf, and my Dad did the other 2 :)

Sunday August 19th

First stop was the "small animal house," (my favorite). So many adorable little animals.
I was terrified of this goat: I have no idea why. It's cute and I am sure pretty harmless. My Dad wasn't afraid though.


Next up was the rabbits-


How cute are these little bunnies. Oh, and the 4H kids have the make posters apparently...this was my favorite-

:(

And these cute little chicken (hens?)...
Look how fluffy these ones are!! So cute. I want to hug them!! So fluffy I could die!!!


I don't know what type of animals these are


...but I know they're cute :)
And speaking of cute, look how cute me & my Dad are-


We walked around the rides a little, too... my Mom would NEVER let us go on rides that weren't bolted into the ground as kids (and she wouldn't let me as an adult, either).
So we just looked :)






Regardless, it was fun to walk around and look at all the rides my Mom would have a heart attack if I actually went on.
& here is my cute little family...

I don't know if they were thrilled that I drug them to the fair, but I'm glad I was able to convince them that it would be super fun! & I was right... naturally.

Sunday August 19th

Today Lauren was super nice and finally gave into my demands :) which means she came out to see my house in Stevenson & we went to brunch. Brunch was super good- I'm super happy that I have a nice brunch place!!
After delicious brunch we walked around town and went to the cute little bookstore-



Then we went walking down by the river and there was a kite boarding competition!! Some of these kids were like 9!! Insane.


I really want to learn to windsurf, it's totally on my to do list!

My house is still totally in progress, but coming along nicely. It's been fun doing the more of "finishing things" as opposed to "moving heavy furniture" things. :)
Here are my bookshelves in the living room-

And when you first come in -I love this grouping of paintings!! The first is from one of my Mom's previous students, the middle 2 I did in High School artistic I am clearly not! Someone asked me what the bottom on was. It's a mountain, for the record- and the last 2 I got in Morocco for really cheap. Oh also, note the cute bamboo plant! Caroline gave it to me as a housewarming gift :)

& my kitchen. The frame above the sink is actually a pillow case framed (also from Morocco).
 

Here is the second, back bedroom-


I love this owl cross stitch, I got it for $2.50!
& the "main" bedroom-

The biggest deal is the shelves in the bathroom, my Dad helped me hang them. He's the best! I am so happy to have them up!!
 

Saturday August 18th

This is my new favorite place to get produce... The Barn. They have great stuff & semi-great prices.


I decided to try to can a small batch of tomatoes just to see if I could do it before buying a lot of them to can. So I just bought 4 pounds, which I figured would be about 3 pints.
They were really pretty on the outside.




I boiled them for 30 seconds to get the skin to come off easier (which it did, it was really easy to peel off the skin!)

I wasn't totally thrilled with how they looked at this point. Apparently outside appearances can be deceiving because I knew I would have to cut off all the yellow pieces from the tomatoes before I could can them... :(
So I did that, and then squeezed the seeds out of them.

At this point the kitchen was SO MESSY- thank God my Mom wasn't home she would have had a fit.
 
Then I cut them into chunks, got them to a boil & put them into my hot cans, then into my water bath for 45 mins...
 
and VIOLA! Canned tomatoes!
 
I think they are SO BEAUTIFUL (I have no idea how they taste). They weren't HARD, but time consuming. I think if I had done twice or three times the amount I would have felt more successful since the work/clean up would have been about the same but I would have got more then 3 pints! Still I am happy & plan on canning more tomatoes ASAP!

Tuesday August 14th 2012

Mom, Caroline & I went hiking Tuesday. We drove down the old Oregon highway, then to the Women's Forum.... which is totally over grown ruining the views! So that was sad. But then we went to Vista Point, which had great views, as usual.

I have actually NEVER been inside or up top (which I feel is closed 99% of the time for wind) so it was fun to go inside. It's quite pretty in there too!!


Then it was off the Multnomah Falls, which was naturally jammed full of tourists (like us, I guess). We stayed just long enough to go to the bridge and were on our way.
Here are the views off the bridge.


When I was little, when we first moved to Oregon, you could swim at the bottom of the waterfall.... but some rocks came crashing down (rocks school bus sized) and now you're not allowed to do that anymore!

I loved this little comparison thing, too. Multnomah Falls is the 3rd biggest falls in North America, but it's just a baby, really-

(it's the 3rd one from the left).


Next, we went on my Mom's favorite hike, Oneonda Falls.

It was super steep (except for Caroline who runs marathons and wasn't sweating at all...) but really pretty.

We even had lunch at the top with this little chipmonk guy who was super cute and brave!

The coolest part of this hike is that you get to walk under this waterfall-

which has these cool rock formation things-
and then you're actually behind the waterfall!
Crazy town. But we all survived. My Mom had to run under the water fall thought as it was definitely a "danger."
 
Another danger was the fact that Caroline & I felt it was totally necessary to climb to the top of this-

:)

After hiking, we headed to Bonneville Dam to check out the giant fish. We really wanted to see the giant 450 pound sturgeon... but the other fish were cool too. (I guess. I don't really like fish they are gross looking.) I loved that you followed the little fish to the hatchery though, I thought that was adorable.

We found the really, really BIG fish. 450 pounds big. They are also total victims, since one large fish was STOLEN (I have no idea how you could do that) and another was stabbed to death! My friend Erin used to live on the the hatchery & confirmed both urban myths were actually true! :(


Tuesday night, Caroline & I spent the night in Stevenson, & did a little work on my house. This was our great accomplishment, which I think turned out really well-

We also checked out the local Mexican place, which isn't bad at all! So that was exciting, too! :)