Company!!

In the midst of Andy's many weeks out of town, I threw a little weekend gathering at our place.  Andy ended up being home for the weekend, and we had a full house!  A few highlights from the weekend:

With 6 adventurers and only cars with 5 seats, we had to go back to the good ol' days of sharing the middle seat.  I guess we should have listened to our dad's advice to buy sensible family cars without bucket seats!

 

 

 

 Our first destination - the Arboretum:

Rolling Down Hills

Playing in the Leaves

Climbing Trees

Pooh Sticks

Sisters

Then home again, where sisters picked apples and Joseph escaped to the shop to help Andy.  Then, we just relaxed and played with tormented the Jersey pup.  She sure is obsessed with knowing where her toys are!

After dinner, a few of us went on an ice cream run to bring Blizzards back for everyone.  When we returned, the rest of them were just sitting in the living room being awfully quiet.  As soon as we were within firing range, the rubber bands started flying.  And that began the longest rubber band war of all times, I'm quite sure.  Dave stopped by after work, was ambushed in much the same way as the Ice Cream Crew, and he joined in relentlessly.  I'm still finding rubber bands all over the place!

We played some Apples to Apples, and shared Blizzards 'round the table before crashing for the night.  The Blizzards tradition goes back a few years with this group of sisters, and Joseph wasn't sure he liked it!  He just wanted to eat his Oreo treat instead of watching it go slowly around the table and show up almost gone (that's just what you get for ordering a group favorite, ya know ;)

Sunday morning, we slept in and had a big ol' breakfast before the churchgoers had to go.  While we waited for their return, we soaked up some sunshine and cleaned out the garden for the winter.  Then, we had time for a game of Taboo before having to say goodbyes.

Ya'll come again soon!

Harvest & Hunting

Now that it feels cold enough to snow outside, I'd like to share some happy Fall photos!  Andy and I had fun with the garden this year, learning more about the soil before planting and trying a few new kinds of veggies, and I think it's safe to say that Harvest is Andy's favorite part of the whole thing.

We dug the potatoes (a bit too early), and were surprised at the quantity and size we got this year!  The plants froze back in May, but recovered and thrived all summer.

We tried bell peppers of every color, and they ripened brilliantly.  I couldn't help but take pictures of our colorful little collections whenever we went out to check on the garden!

Our experiments this year were eggplant...

...and tomatillos!

They were both intriguing to watch, and had beautiful blossoms.  The eggplant plants bloomed and bloomed all summer, but only produced that one fruit.  I checked it for ripeness just over a week ago and decided it needed a few more days on the vine...and then it was frozen to mushiness the next day!  Sad, sad.  My friend Kim makes this delicious Eggplant Parmesan that I had hoped to make with our wee little eggplant (and perhaps some extras from the market), but I'm afraid I've missed the season now.  We'll try again next year!

The tomatillos on the other hand went crazy!  They sprawled all over and were loaded with the fruit in awesome-looking husks.  We picked a gallon of them before the frost, and made some delicious Enchiladas Verde, and will soon make Salsa Verde as well!

Another new thing for us this year, harvesting the herb garden...  We have a lovely herb garden that was already established when we arrived, and we were clueless about them!  We've learned a little here and there, and this year we are drying the ones we could identify.  That's progress, eh?

 

Our tomatoes are still hiding from the frost in their little greenhouses, ripening rather slowly, but we're not ready to give up on them yet! 
For some reason, I'm not so fond of the whole harvesting/cleaning out the garden process, but! I do love what comes next!

And, both of us love the warmth of a good fire in the shop's wood stove...

...and watching the sun rise over waterfowl decoys while we hide out in camouflage.

Happy Autumn everyone!

Weekend in Independence

Labor Day weekend, we hit the road to Independence, OR for a few days with Margaret and Greg.  On the way, we stopped to pick up Jersey to dogsit for the weekend.  We took advantage of good weather the first day to go to a local market and then out to Silver Falls for a hike.

Rain was in the forecast on Sunday, so we went to check out the Evergreen Aviation Museum, home of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.

We were all a bit surprised to see this new building as we approached (yes, that is a full-size 747 on top)

.We speculated about what it could be as we went through the Aviation museum and the Space museum.

The beautiful Jenny or JN-4 trainer used for WWI pilots:

A hot air balloon basket:

Ford's passenger plane.  Can you imagine being a flight attendant on this thing?

And, the famous Spruce Goose (well...one of her wings):

And, a little info about Hughes' bird, from a poster there:

There were more planes outside as well:

The walkway between museums featured our solar system embedded in the sidewalk:

Once inside, we were wowed by the size of this:

See Andy looking up at it?

And, what would a space museum be without a setup of the moon landing?

The collection of helicopters was impressive as well:

The space museum had interactive stations where you could try to hover a helicopter:

Or land a space shuttle:

We had a great time, and enjoyed learning and even re-learning about our history in aviation and space.

On our way out, we noticed this sign announcing the intended use of the mysterious 747 building:

Mixed feelings about that one!

Anyhow, we enjoyed our time in Independence - these outings as well as the games, walks, good food, Wii challenges, and just catching up on what had changed since our last visit.