Monkey-ing around....

One of the projects Nicole and I set out to do this summer was make a sock monkey.

We were inspired by the sock monkey collection on display at a store in downtown Portland. The display was also highlighting a new sock monkey picture book (though I can't recall the name at this time).

With her full-time work schedule, and the start of school looming on the horizon, we kept trying to make appointments with each other to get the monkeys started, and then finished. With the sewing machine on the living room floor and a laptop on a sock monkey tutorial website, we set out to create the little creatures.

Abi had purchased a sock monkey from the local summer festival, for $15. Nicole and I set out to make them for almost nothing. We had to buy a bag of stuffing, and buttons (so the eyes would match).

We had the pleasure of sewing on the tail, arms, and ears while we waited in the stadium parking lot for Nicole's turn to register for the marching band. Within an hour, we just about had our monkeys complete.

Last night I completed my project by sewing two black buttons for eyes and a red heart on the chest. Nicole is now at school, and she has her monkey with her. It will be fun to share a digital photo of where our sock monkeys visit.

-Lori

Got Sand?

We spent our Labor Day weekend at the Oregon Dunes. The dunes are along 40 miles of the southern Oregon Coast. Starting at the city of Florence and running south to North Bend. Matt rode out of Winchester Bay and Hauser

This year we tent-camped in a resort in Lakeside, which provided hot showers and space for parking the quads.

The weather was pleasant, with brief rain over night on Saturday, and the afternoon on Sunday. The wet sand made for a bumpy ride in the dunes, compared to the usual wind-smoothed surface. We enjoyed the local restaurants each day, eating out for all our meals except breakfast on Labor Day. The "score" on fuel prices was at Safeway in Florence at $3.49/gallon.

Dinner at the Marina Restaurant, clockwise lft to rt: Matt, Lori, Randy, Lynn, Joe

Summer Apples - Oh, Boy!

I love apples. My favorite pie is apple.

Today, I was invited over to a family friends home, Paul and Sena, to pick some apples from their tree. The tree was loaded, unfortunately, many of the apples were higher than our ladders could reach.

The plan is to dehydrate some for school snacks this fall, and bake a pie or two, and leftover pieces will go into an apple cake and/or applesauce.

The applecake recipe I have is from an old schoolmate. It's been a terrific recipe to use up apples that aren't as crisp as they could be for eating--kinda like making banana bread out of brown bananas. But, you can still use fresh apples. The applecake smells wonderful, and is a nice breakfast cake. We've taken it to church a few times in the past, and it was well-received. Here's the recipe:

Applecake

4 cups diced apples

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs beaten

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Combine first four "wet" ingredients, and let sit for a few minutes. The sugar will bring out the moisture from the apples and make it a little wetter. Combine the dry ingredients in a different bowl, mixing well. Combine the wet and dry ingredients well. Place in 9x13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Cool completely, then cut.

-Lori

Projects and Garden Update - Zucchini, Zucchini, Zucchini !!

We had a computer crash last week, and took a trip to the computer fix-it dude. Had to start all over, luckily we anticipated a problem earlier this year, and backed up almost all of our family photos.

Before we had a week of rain and thundershowers, we were able to get the deck stained and sealed last weekend. One of the summer projects that is now complete.

Garden update: We have had a few tomatoes, but not the abundance like previous years. Hardly enough to make a bowl of salsa. The sunflowers are very tall, and can now be easily seen from inside a second-story window.

The zucchini is most abundant (of course!), Matt was able to share several with people at work, and the zucchini bread count is now at 7 loaves, with 2 additional loaves to make tonight (with raisins) for Lori's mom. The third batch of zucchini brownies has been made, and the kids don't seem to be eager to partake. I sent a batch with Nicole and her friends today for their "guitar hero" get-together. This Christmas we'll enjoy the cinnamon/nutmeg favored zucchini bread more so than today, hopefully :)
-Lori

Gorge-ous

This past weekend we camped in the Columbia Gorge, at Memaloose State Park, and spent time with Aunt Kathy and Con while enjoying the carshow. Kathy and Con are members of the Mid-Columbia Car Club which was the host of the event.

The event starts off Friday evening at 8pm with a Neon Nights Cruise through downtown Dalles. The six of us had dinner at Burgerville, the sponsor of the event, and then we set up chairs along the street to watch the parade of restored cars and trucks. Con and Aunt Kathy cruised in their restored Ford pick-up, see picture. Matt took tons of pictures all weekend--way to many to post. Matt's favorite car is GTO, which he became a fan of as a child while riding in Lou's GTO.

Aunt Kathy waving to the crowds :)

The weather was perfect, sunny, but not to hot. The gorge winds were pleasant. One of our "must dos" when we are at Memaloose is to watch the trains that go by. Sometimes counting the number of cars, sometimes just listening to the clickety-clack of the tracks. We did lay a few pennies on the track for smashing :) Lori loves to see the Tidewater barges moving up and down the river.

The main event for the car show was held on a shady hilltop park, where hundreds of cars participated in the cruise-in.

Saturday dinner was at Chinese restaurant in downtown, a great suggestion from Aunt Kathy. Huge, tasty portions with plenty to take home for later.

Matt snapped this gorgeous sunrise Sunday morning outside our tent

Sunday, the Dufur Threshing Bee was on our list, located about 13 miles from The Dalles, with a nice drive through rolling wheat fields. At Dufur, we watched a threshing demonstration the old-fashioned way with a steam engine that turns the fabric belts of the threshing machine. Horses powered the combine out in the fields. One of the farmers showed Abi how the oat seed boroughs into the ground when it gets wet with water. She took some of the oat seeds home to show her friends.

On our way back into The Dalles to leave for home, we stopped in on Aunt Kathy's Jam Session at the grange hall. A wonderful treat to listen to the music and singing. Aunt Kathy plays the accordian, and other seniors play guitar, base, and other instruments. We enjoyed a piece of pie ala-mode before we had to start heading back home.

What a wonderful relaxing weekend.

Matt and Bear

Hiking the Opal Creek Trail

Sunday we hiked at Opal Creek Wilderness area with our girls and our friends Lynn and Randy.

We estimate that we may have hiked about 7 miles.

Opal Creek is beautiful, clear, cool water. The coloring of the rock formations on the river bed as seen through the clear water appear to have an opal-like appearance. The Opal Creek area is a designated wilderness area, and is federally protected--no logging or fishing.However, the area was previously logged and has also has a mine from the depression era--the rusty remnants of that time remain for us to see.

The water was refreshing to our feet, but still very cold, and tolerable for only a few seconds at a time. Matt was the adventurous one--walking back and forth in the water from bank to bank. He had a high tolerance level.

Okay, maybe the coldness showed on his face a few times...

Training for Jeopardy??

We were watching the discovery channel this evening, the program was the top 10 most dangerous sharks in the world. We had watched more than a half hour of the program and a "pop up" advertisement came up at the bottom of the TV screen inviting viewers to visit the Discovery Channel website to sign-up for text messages to be sent to a cell phone about "Shark Facts".

According to the Discovery website, apparently if you sign up for this service, you will receive a text message daily with shark facts "to impress your friends", from July 7 through October 6. Wow, that's something. Too bad we aren't that "into" sharks, and we don't have text messaging as part of our cell plan, nor the friends that would be impressed with that newly acquired knowledge--especially on a daily basis.

Perhaps a text message with the cheapest gas station in town would be more appropriate? That would be impressive.

The LAST time I will sand a deck!!!!!!

Well, one of the summer projects that I wanted to complete before school starts back up in September is to re-stain and seal the deck.

Each year we have pressure washed the deck, and stained it to give it a fresh look and protect the wood so it will last for a long long time. Last year I stained it with a "solid" redwood color that was not as nice as the transparent stains that show off the wood grain. On top of that error in judgment, I also rushed the staining job by probably not letting the wood fully dry out, and we had mold/mildew areas under the stain. The mildew may have also been a result of the rainy winter we get, and the two trees that surround the deck.

So, the right thing to do would be to sand it all down to remove the old solid stain, and get down to the nice wood with its natural grains. That was about a month and a half ago. I first started by hand-sanding the railing and each individual rail, followed by a nice natural cedar transparent stain. That portion went okay, so then I started on the floor of the deck.

I would not recommend sanding by hand to anyone--it takes way to long, especially trying to remove layers of stain. We have since invested in an electric belt sander and an orbital sander, which have helped with the process tremendously, but it is still hard work. I have invested about 32 accumulative hours of labor into this deck so far this summer, and its almost ready to seal.

I don't plan on having to do this again, I'll either move or hire someone else to do it.

-Lori

Garden update ...Fresno Peppers grow upwards

Apparently Fresno hot peppers grow "upwards", instead of pointing down with gravity.

Matt hasn't made any homemade salsa yet this summer, still waiting on those tomatoes to ripen. And... of course we'll need to buy some cilantro, since ours had come and gone already earlier this summer.

I counted the sunflowers, we have 10. We had received a seed packet from our local bank, I wasn't sure if they would grow or not, so I half-hazardly through them in the dirt where we planned to have our garden. They are alive and well and towering over the tomatoes and zucchini. Still don't have an official "flower" on top of them yet, apparently still trying to reach their maximum height before blooming? The picture shown shows them growing under a window on the second floor.

I made zucchini brownies a couple days ago, they are moist and chocolately. I believe the purpose of the zucchini is to retain the moisture (besides use up some of the plentiful zucchini!). You can't taste the zucchini in them, and really wouldn't be able to tell they had it in them, unless someone told you.

Here's the recipe:

Zucchini Brownies

1-1/2 c. sugar

2 c. flour

1/2 c. unsweetened powdered cocoa

1/2 tsp salt

1-1/2 tsp baking soda

MIX ABOVE INGREDIENTS, SET ASIDE

IN SEPARATE BOWL, MIX:

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 c. oil

3 c. shredded (grated) zucchini

Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and stir well.

ADD IN:

1/2 c. chocolate chips

1 c. chopped walnuts

Bake in greased and floured 9 x 13 pan, 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Melt 1/2 c. chocolate chips on top of freshly baked brownies and spread evenly. Cool and serve.

-Lori

Newberg Old Fashioned Festival 2008

We look forward to the events of the Old Fashioned Festival each year, the parade, the music, the fireworks.

This year the best part of the festival was seeing old friends. It's a time to stroll the park and catch up on friendships.

The parade this year seemed shorter than in years past, by about a half hour. The music this year was okay, but not as lively as previous. The fireworks, however, were awesome. It was at least 30 minutes of fireworks. They did a great job. Matt and I have a hard time trying to estimate the number of people in attendance the night of the fireworks (7000?), it's just so cool to see that many fellow neighbors gathered in one place under the stars. It was neat to see the blankets and quilts that people brought to sit on. A real family event.

Matt enjoyed the car show/cruise-in on Sunday before church.

A couple things were disappointing about the festival, the 20/30 club apparently chose to discontinue the soap box derby; the free strawberry shortcake in the park was missing again for the 3rd year in a row; shorter parade; the festival committee decided to not elect a queen for the festival--but rather "queens" (apparently they didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, so they made the three princesses into three queens); and our kids pretty much spent time without us this year, probably saw them once or twice each day, if even that much. But we understand from our friends that this was the same trend in their families. Bummer