October

Holy cow the past few weeks and months have been crazy.  Absolutely nutty.  October 2013 surpassed the previous craziest month of our life which was June 2008.  In June 2008 I completed my graduate research, graduated from grad school, had a fake wedding, moved across country with two cars and three lovely siblings in 10 days only to have Cliff immediately start grad school.  All of this took place in about 20 days.  So now imagine the nuttiness of this past October.  So many really amazing/stressful things happened.  I wish that I could dedicate more time to each event but instead I will present them as fast as they felt to me.  Get ready.

Mom and Pam Visited Oregon

I can't describe how happy I was to have these two wonderful women here for a week.  They visited the first week in October and did a little of everything Eugene/Springfield has to offer: eating out, shopping, bowling, exploring the mountains, visiting the coast, packing, hanging out, and the list goes on and on.  We celebrated Pam's birthday at the Timber Bowl then Falling Sky Brew Pub and four days later celebrated Cliff's birthday at the Falling Sky Deli.  I sadly wasn't able to take more than one day off from work but that ended up ok.  Mom and Pam explored during the day and we hung out at night.  On the weekend, we went to Saturday Market, drove up 126, had a picnic lunch after wine tasting at Sweet Cheeks Winery, thrift shopped, ate, and generally tried to do it all.   I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown the whole time due to the next event to be outlined and they helped to keep me sane, laughing, and well fed.  I love them and can't wait for them to come back.

We Bought A House!

That's right, we not only moved but moved into something we now own.  AH!  We had been looking at houses for a few months and had just about given up (seriously, we had to come to terms with throwing in the towel for another year when we found the one).  After seeing 50+ homes, we walked into an old homestead house in the Washburn and fell in love.  It honestly felt like our house the moment we stepped in the door.  The next day we put in an offer, two days later accepted a counter offer, three days later visited a mortgage broker, had an inspection, appraisal, and finally signed papers.  The whole time we were holding our breath and trying not to get excited as we know things go wrong with buying houses all the time.  We tried to keep a level, non-emotional head.  The whole whirlwind process took less than a month.  I discovered something about myself through this process. Apparently my body shuts down and sleeps when I am that overwhelmed.  Seriously.  We would meet with our real estate agent or mortgage broker and afterwards I would go home, stuff my face with something in our cabinets and then fall asleep to be dead to the world until the next day.  I did this several times a week!  I was not a good partner to Cliff in late September/early October as I was asleep for most of it.  Thankfully we are past that now.  We signed the papers on Cliff's birthday and moved in four days later with the help of amazing friends.

The date on the house says 1905 but the paperwork at the City actually dates it to 1890.  The home was once used as as a residence for mill workers and then a barber.  We are only the fourth owners of the home.  The lovely woman we bought the house from had lived here for over 35 years and did an amazing job keeping this old house in wonderful shape.  We are so incredibly lucky.

This is all you get photo and description wise as there will be more to come in the upcoming weeks.  We are 100% unpacked but only about 70% moved in.  When you go from a tiny cottage to a three bedroom house there are lots of opportunities for more furniture.  We are heading to Ikea next week to hopefully acquire a few last items that will complete the picture (rug, chair, bookshelf, etc.)  Then we will post more photos and stories.

Events at Work

Between October 12th and October 25th at work we had a first time community event, two park grand openings, a day long service project for staff and volunteers, and a major three day event.  Did I mention this was as we were moving into the house and trying to get out of the cottage?  Did I mention that my boss went into labor the morning of the major three day event making me the new interim Special Events Supervisor until March?  Did I mention that I love these events and that I was having a really hard time balancing my time between work, moving into a new house, and actually being a person? To top it all off, the weekend of the 25th I had a multi-day Board retreat for an organization that I am a part of up the coast.  Crazy.  I'm so thankful to be on the backend of the stress filled two weeks.

Cliff and I Celebrated 5 Years and I Paddled In A Pumpkin 

On October 19th, Cliff and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.  Time flies by!  To celebrate, Cliff was amazing as we left our new house filled with boxes to drive up to Tualatin, Oregon so that I could participate in the West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta.  I lucked out back in March as I met the organizer and they let me take one of the spots for the event and since then I have been telling everyone I could about it.  I love pumpkins.  I love fall.  I love events.  I love my supportive husband.   This is everything I love wrapped up into one. You had to be dressed in costume so I bought a sexy bumble bee outfit from Value Village and like a sane person added black leggings and wool top to it.  The sexy bumble bee costume turned into a rational, normal person bumble bee costume.  I picked the outfit as it would allow me to be warm and swim with ease should I tip out of a 1,000 pound pumpkin in public.

We arrived in Tualatin, ate hotdogs and hamburgers, drank fresh cider, and ate apple cider donuts (you can't find those often out here in the PNW!).  The event consisted of four heats: two were speed races and two were challenges.  I was in the last challenge heat and was so nervous.  By the time that I paddled to the starting line, the other paddlers told me that I needed a ball and a flag.  What?  So I paddled back and minutes later was given the items but not a description of what they were for.  As I paddled back to the starting line my mind was so focused on not tipping out or throwing up because of excitement that I missed the instructions on what we were supposed to do.  Whoops.  No worries as I kinda watched what others were doing and tried to follow.  I understood the rules to be take the ball and keep it in front of you as you paddle around a bouy in the middle of the lake.  To do this I would throw the ball for a bit, pick it up, throw it a little further, move it forward with my paddle a bit, throw it again, repeat.  I didn't come in first and I didn't come in last.  Just what I wanted.  It was amazing.  I was like smiley, dopey idiot happily paddling around in the middle of a lake.   When I got out, Cliff met me at the finish line and laughingly said "I like how you decided to cheat the whole way."  "What?!?  I didn't cheat!" is that my brain was yelling.  Cliff informed me that the rules were announced that once we did the initial throw we were not allowed to pick up the ball again until after we passed the finish line.  We were to juggle it with out paddle the whole way.  Get out?!?  I was mortified and felt really bad.  I don't like to be a cheater.  It took a little of the victory out of my step.  I felt so bad that I hunted down the event organizer (who so kindly gave me the opportunity) to apologize for my rude interpretation of the game.  He laughed and said it was totally good.  He in fact had not even noticed.  Whew.  Kathy and Jill, the wonderful friends that they are, drove down to cheer me on.  We hung out for a bit then we all went our separate ways.  Cliff and I topped off the evening with dinner at the Urban Hopworks pub in Portland for their happy hour and then returned home.  We ended the day with a 44oz Sonic chocolate banana milkshake.  It was an amazing Saturday and a pretty fun way to spend an anniversary.  For the next one, I need to support Cliff as he  geeks out and gets to do something fun.  I'm a lucky gal.

October was crazy but really wonderful.  In addition to the events listed above we also got to spend a morning with the amazing Katie (Schumm) McFaddin as she was in from Boston.  It was only an hour or so but it was so great to catch up!  We also celebrated our first Halloween in the house.  We have never had trick or treaters at our previous places but this year we had about 70.  It was interesting.  All in all, I'm thankful that I kept my sanity.

A Night In Portland

Photo by the Oregon Zoo

On Saturday Cliff and I headed to Portland.  We needed to exchange a lovely Christmas present from my mom and wanted to spend some time with Kathy and Jill.  I'm so excited that we got out of Eugene for a brief bit of time.  We have been stuck in thick fog for days.  FOR DAYS!  It hasn't burned off.  It hasn't moved.  It is just everywhere.  Driving to Portland was like driving in a thin grey tube.  We couldn't see the fields that sit close to the side of the road.  Billboards were difficult to make out until you were right on top of them.  It was crazy.  With this said, we saw 19 hawks on the drive up.  They were all right on the side of the road.  We don't know if the fog brought them closer or what but it was really fun to spot them as we drove.  We think they were red tailed hawks.  Cliff said he usually sees a few on the trip but never as many as we saw on Saturday.  (Side note: we also saw 13 on our way back down to Eugene yesterday.)

In Portland it was beautiful and sunny.  We could see Mt. Hood.  It was amazing.  I forget how different you can feel when you see sunshine.   We felt like we were on vacation.  What am I saying...we were on vacation.

Cliff got a nice razor for Christmas from this really swanky shop called The Art of Shaving.  Sadly, Cliff already has two razors that he uses and loves.  No worries.  There isn't a store in Eugene so we needed to go to Portland to exchange the items  It was really fun to be in the store.  Lisa, our helpful sale clerk, walked Cliff through the process and got him set up with some pretty cool items.  Cliff is now the proud owner of a badger hair shaving brush, shaving oil, shaving cream, and shaving lotion all made with lavender essential oil.  Nice!

After our experience at The Art of Shaving, we met Kathy and Jill at Hopworks Urban Brewery.  We had eaten there last year when we pet sit fort them and remembered them having the most amazing, fresh (and organic) food.  We went in thinking we would split a calzone and salad but we lucked out as it was almost happy hour (on a Saturday!).  We opted for a little of everything: a few beers, giant buttered pretzels with beer/cheese sauce and spicy brown mustard, jalapeño poppers, fries, pizza with lemon chicken and green chilies and caramelized onions, a house salad, and spicy southwest quinoa salad.  It was a really great affordable meal which is so awesome since all of their stuff is organic.  The quinoa salad was perfectly filling, spicy, and healthy.  I want to make it at home so Cliff and I can take it for lunch.  If you are ever in the Portland area and like good pub grub...eat there.

We decided to get a movie and stay in since Toby, their dog, wasn't feeling all that well.  They took us to a  movie store called Movie Madness.  Their goal is to "maintain the largest and most comprehensive collection of movies available to rent on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Video."  It was really fun to be in an actual movie store.  They have movie memorabilia all over the place (note the photo of a Drew Barrymore outfit from Never Been Kissed).  It was like a mini Planet Hollywood.  I won't lie.  I was overwhelmed with their stock so I was happy when Kathy suggested Point Break with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze.  We all knew about the movie but surprisingly non of us had seen it except for Cliff (and he was happy to watch it as it meant that we weren't going to have to watch something he hates).  Victory for all!

Since we were all still pretty full from happy hour, we opted for an ice cream dinner from a food cart.  I got a pumpkin ice cream dipped in dark chocolate (it was the $2 special), Kathy got a cake batter sundae, Jill got a chocolate chip banana and Oregon hazelnut hot fudge sundae, and Cliff got one scoop of chocolate chip banana and one scoop of green coconut curry.  I know what you might be thinking.  Green coconut curry ice cream?  I know as I thought it to.  Cliff thought it was delicious while I thought it was a little weird.  It seriously tasted like a sweet curry and had a spicy aftertaste.  Cliff was especially proud of his pairing as the chocolate chip banana went really well with the curry.  It was cold outside (30 degrees) so we all huddled near a heater in the make-shift food-cart food-court.  I would like to eat at more food carts.  They are really popular in Portland (probably also every other city/big town in America).  They all have decent menus.  Vietnamese food.  Thai food.  Mexican food.  Pizza.  Burgers.  Kathy and Jill complained that food cart food is no longer as affordable as it once was.  I mean there are apparently now two carts where you can get artisan cheese plates.  How Portland.

What would a trip to Portland be without a trip to Ikea?  I wanted to get a few frames so that I can finally hang stuff on my office walls.  We got free coffee (since we joined the Ikea family program), looked through the sample rooms, ate meatballs for lunch, shopped in the market place and then ended with a celebratory ice cream (it's tradition).  Kathy and Cliff played with stuffed animals for a while as they all are kinda odd and creepy this time around.  We also sampled a traditional Swedish drink that is consumed around the holidays.  It is a soda that is flavored with hops and malt syrup.  Really good at the first sip but then we found it hard to make our way through the rest of our serving.  All in all, it was a successful ikea trip.

Afterwards we left sunny Portland and headed south.  About 45 minutes down the road we were greeted by the fog again.   Apparently we will have it until Tuesday afternoon.  Oh well.  We have hunkered down at the cottage.  We have a fire going and we are roasting our Cinderella pumpkin so that we can make pie, soup, and freeze a bunch for future meals.  Cinderella pumpkins smell really good when they are roasting  Better than other squash in my opinion.  They smell buttery and delicious.

Volunteer Time: Cider and Craft Beer Festival

Last night Cliff and I volunteered for the first annual McKenzie Cider and Craft Beer Festival. The event  was a benefit for Belly-Full, a program that helps to feed hungry kids in Springfield.  For a first time event I was really impressed with the amount of vendors they had as there were 41 cider and beer folks providing samples.  You can see a full list on their website, however a few noted were not in attendance last night (like Dogfish Head...sad...we miss them...a lot).  For $15 attendees got a 8oz souvenir glass and four tasting tickets.  Folks could buy additional tickets for $1 a piece.  As volunteers, we got a t-shirt, glass, and four tasting tickets for free.  Sweet deal.

We signed up to be pourers and we were assigned to Rusty Truck Brewing Company based out of Lincoln City, Oregon.   The brewer and the owners trained us on how to pour then peaced out to mingle with other beer folk.  It was awesome.  They had a really nice set-up as they brought their red 1956 Ford truck that has 16 taps on the back.  It was by far the nicest looking set-up.  Plus we were the first booth by the door so we were a happening spot.  The event was pretty crowded when we arrived for our four hour shift.  However, the Ducks game came on at 4:00pm and the crowd dwindled as we think folks went to their normal watering hole to watch.  That is kinda sad as we had a 16 x 14 inflatable screen in the venue showing the game.  You honestly could see what was happening on the field from every inch of the event...well except for our booth as we were straight sideways from it.  No worries as Cliff and I made it a game to guess what was going on from the little we could see and the crowd reactions.

Pouring was a whole lot of fun.  We memorized a few facts about the brewery and tried to be helpful to patrons who asked questions.  As a volunteer you couldn't drink until after your shift (obviously) so we had to give recommendations based on feedback from previous folks.  I won't lie...this experience totally makes me want to brew and sell our own drinks.  Cliff is pretty solid when it comes to beer facts and learning how to make stuff (heck we did make some pretty great cherry wine out of a pickle tub once) and I'm really stinkin good at chatting people up (I credit that to my parent's video/office supply store).  It's on the list.

After our shift Cliff and I finally got to sample.  Most of the vendors had two drinks on tap but some had more.  We narrowed down our choices by ruling out any Eugene/Springfield breweries as we can go there anytime (plus we've already sampled all of them).  We also didn't consider companies that we could easily buy in any grocery store.  That made things a little easier.

Ok so here is the official run down of the drinks we sampled and our ratings:

Rusty Truck Brewing Company- Lincoln City, OR: Moonlight Ride Blackberry Ale, Taft Draft Toffee Porter, and Pedal to the Metal Double IPA. All three were solid but I think their Double IPA was the best.  We weren't surprised as so many people kept coming back for it multiple times while we were pouring.  Good choice folks.

2 Towns Ciderhouse- Corviallis, OR: We heard tons of good reviews of these folks as we were pouring to we decided to try them out.  We had The Incider (a semi-sweet cider) and Serious Scrump Dry Cider (really nice but packs a punch at 11% ABV).  They were really tasty. 

Flat Tail Brewing- Corvallis, OR: I had my ear out all night looking for the best pumpkin ale in the room and that lead me to these guys.  I had their seasonal Pumpkin Saison.  It was pumpkiny without being too sweet. Saison is a french farmhouse style beer with a low ABV that is cloudy and sometimes kinda tastes  bananay.  When I looked on Flat Tail's website I see that they also have a pumpkin stout.  I want that one.  Pumpkin beers (even if they are hit or miss) make me happy.  Maybe this means we need to heard up to Corvallis on our next beer tour.

Wandering Aengus Ciderworks- Salem, OR:  While I was sipping on my pumpkin beer Cliff tried these guy's Anthem Cherry Cider.  Cliff said it was really fun and enjoyable.  Like a delicious drink version of a cherry pie.  He really liked it as I only got one sip before it was gone.

Good Life Brewing Company- Bend, Oregon: Cliff got their Pass Stout American Stout Ale.  Cliff and I agreed that it was quite good.  Hoppy and big flavored.  We would get it again if we found it on tap.

Tieton Cider Works- Tieton, WA: We tried their Yakima Valley Dry Hopped Cider and it was awesome.  Such a good idea! Seriously brilliant.  The Northwest is known for hops and apples so why not mix them?  It was crisp, dry, not too sweet, and hoppy.  We would definitely get this again and in fact are going to be on the lookout for it. 

Crazy Mountain Brewing Company- Edwards, CO: We got their Old Soul Strong Belgian Ale.  I liked it but I sadly don't remember all that much about it.  Whoops.  We should have been taking notes.

Base Camp Brewing Company- Portland, OR: After reading their menu we had to try their S'More Stout.  We really like S'mores and we really like stouts.  What could be better?  It was really rich and was 8.5% ABV.  So just like s'mores this drink was a nice treat.

Our results...

Best Cider: Tieton Cider Works - Yakima Valley Dry Hopped Cider

Best Beer: Rusty Truck Brewing Company- Pedal to the Metal Double IPA
We also got Hole-In-The Wall BBQ for dinner and split a bag of kinda gross popcorn.  It was an awesome volunteer opportunity that turned into a pretty fun night. 

Candied Ginger

Cliff and I took a little trip to a local farm yesterday to buy some fall goodies.  An hour after arriving we left with green beans, ginger, one hubbard squash, three pie pumpkins (we already had three more at home so we didn't want to go crazy), a half a gallon of cider, beets, rutabagas, and lots of mud on our shoes.   Oh and an apple cider donut on our bellies!  (Side note: most people out here have never heard of apple cider donuts.  They aren't that popular.  That is crazy to me as they are perhaps one of the best things about fall!  Nuts.)  As we checked out the cashier asked us what in the world we were planning on doing with 2 lbs. of ginger.  Cliff calmly replied "make some candied ginger!".  Oh course.

When we got home Cliff pulled up this recipe online from one of his favorite folks, David Lebovitz.  We went to town and a few hours later we had lots and lots of delicious candied ginger.

First you peel the ginger...

Then you boil it in fresh water (twice)...

Then you boil it in a sugar solution until it comes up to 225 degrees...

Then you let it sit for a few hours to cool.  After you heat it back up so it is warm so that you can begin the really fun part...dunking everything in sugar.  Chopsticks were our preferred method of picking and dunking.

Lay them out so that they can set.  We left them out overnight. 

Enjoy!

There is so much candied ginger in our house right now.  I don't know how long it will last as Cliff loves it.  See the hole of missing ginger in the right hand sheet....Cliff did that in like ten minutes.  We also made some really wicked strong ginger tea (oh it burns!) and quite a bit of ginger syrup (see the mason jars).  We are planning on making our own ginger ale.  I'm excited!

Happy Sunday!

400 Pumpkins

We all know that I love the fall and that pumpkins make me giddy.  Seriously.  I love this time of year.  So imagine my excitement when I found out that my work has a three night hayride to celebrate Halloween and that in preparation I would need to recruit as many volunteers as I could get to carve over 400 pumpkins.  I get to do these things for my job.  Score. 

The great carving party took place on Friday and it was awesome.  Best day of work ever.  Our awesome Parks guys had already cut all the tops off and all we needed to do with scoop (gut) and carve.  I was thrilled as 106 volunteers and about 20 staff members came out to help.  We had several tables set up for the scooping and carving as I took it as my duty to move the pumpkins from our little patch area to the carving tent.  Parks left a sweet gas powered wheel barrow type thing so I deemed myself the moving master.  My at-work-other-half thought it was comical so she documented my process.  Enjoy....

Pumpkin two hundred and three...

Time to pull up my pants...

Let's get this started...

Whoops!  Got away from me a little...

"No worries.  I'm good!"...

Off into the mist I go...

The volunteers did an amazing job.  We had zombie pumpkins, scary pumpkins, happy pumpkins, and even several pumpkins with mustaches.  It was a fantastic day.  I didn't care that I was wet, covered in pumpkin guts, and starting to get really sore from lifting and scooping (don't laugh at me).  Look at all of them!

Ok, that the end of the real part of the blog. BUT if you are bored and want to see me geek out a little please scroll down to see some photos that document my love for the wonderful orange vegetable.

Pumpkin Fest 2003 in the Boston Common

Kappa Pumpkin

Apple Picking 2004

Kappa Retreat at the Hamptons 2005

Pumpkin Patch in Oregon 2006

Apple/Pumpkin Picking 2007 at Detering Orchard

Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch in Surry, Virginia 2009

 About an hour ago for dinner

Happy Fall!!!!!