The cold wind blows....

...but not through our front door anymore!! Yippee!!! Daniel put weather stripping up around the front door. I think we are ready for winter, this fall Daniel also put insulation in the attic. Hopefully these things help our old leaky house stay warm and we don't have to buy as much oil this winter.

Fun Visit with the Parents

We had a great visit with Daniel's parents. We had about 3 or 4 days to recover from my sister's visit (well it was mostly my nieces that I needed to recover from, not my sister) and clean up the house again, and then Daniel's parents arrived for a week long visit.

While we were in Minnesota this summer, Jerry and Judy were closing up shop on the family farm and house there, and Daniel and I got a few things from the farm and house. Jerry and Judy graciously rented a UHaul trailer and delivered all our goodies to us.

While they were here, Daniel and his dad constructed some wood shelves for me in the basement, so all my Rubber Maid bins that I use for storage can be neatly stored away. Yeah! But instead of doing lots of work, like we have done in the past when they visit (and by we, I don't mean me), we got to take them out on a few adventures outside of Portland. One day we drove up to Mount Hood, in the pouring rain. We ate lunch at the lodge, looked around, and then took a 4 mile hike to twin lakes. We had a mix of sun and rain throughout the day, but did get wet on our hike.






On another day, we drove over to the coast to Cannon Beach, walked the beach and ate lunch, and then drove up to Fort Clatsop and then to Astoria. Daniel's mom is a Lewis and Clark buff. Fort Clatsop was really interesting and has a nice little museum with movies and all. We also walked the very end of the Fort to Coast Trail and visited the canoe landing. In Astoria, Daniel took us to the Goonies House (from the movie) and we spent some time Sea Lion observing in the little marina. The docks were covered with Sea Lions. I don't even know how you would get to your boat if you had one there. We had really beautiful weather on this day. There was no wind on the beach and it was warm. (We were overdressed in the picture below!)

Fall is Here

This was the second time in about 3 days that Daniel raked up these leaves. I don't know why he bothers, the ground is covered again in a few hours.

Visit from My Sister

My sister had a conference in Portland earlier this month and came for a visit along with my super cute nieces and my brother-in-law. I was very happy to see my sister and to spend time with my nieces again. They all stayed with us, after her conference, for about 5 days. It's very unlike me but, I did not take many pictures. I thought about it many times, but Daniel and I seemed to have misplaced our camera. (I think it is Daniel's ploy to get a new camera, as he has been dreaming about a new camera for several months.) The last night before they left, Daniel dug out our old camera and took a few pictures. Katie is now in the UK equivalent of kindergarten and is learning to spell and write, and is very smart. Ellie is talking a lot and is super sweet and cute and can't sit still. I can't wait for them to move back to this area of the world next summer.

I love winter squash.

Daniel and I have had lots of visitors this month, which is another post in itself. Last Monday between family visits we went to Sauvie Island, north of Portland to check out the pumpkin farms and produce. We got a lovely Cinderella pumpkin for the porch and a variety of winter squash to try. Later that week, Daniel's mom used our Red Kuri squash to make a yummy squash dish and the next day turned the left overs into squash soup. Last night I made a delicious dish, and I am eating it again right now for lunch, out of sweet meat squash. It's a big gray squash that doesn't look that appealing, but when it turned into this (below), it was super yummy!

Baked Sweet meat Squash with Shallots, Raisins, and Walnuts
(over Black Rice)
(I used onions instead of shallots, and pecans instead of walnuts.)

I think I might add this to the Thanksgiving menu.

You could find the recipe at the website below:

http://makingbananapancakes.com/2008/12/02/baked-sweet-meat-squash-wshallots-raisins-and-walnuts/

Boohoo times two....

As the previous post about Dan's job said, no papers were signed yet and if it worked out it would be great. Well, sadly, it did not work out. Now he is going through the processes to sub in several school districts, and already worked for the neighbor contractor that lives next door. It was a project to remove a chimney, which is good experience since we want to do the same thing in our house one day, far away down the road. He is not very good at being idyll, so I hope he gets lots of sub work and work with the neighbor.

We got a nice bike rack for the car recently, so we can take our bikes to bike trails. I don't like riding on the streets, so much, and around the city cars. So yesterday we tried it out for the first time. The bike rack works great, and we had a nice bike ride along the river in Portland and over the bridges. I always have a hard time making moves as fast as Daniel, and on the way back to the car when he turned really suddenly on a street, I tried to stop fast and turn and couldn't get my foot out of the peddle fast enough when I started to tip over, I ended up landing funny on my ankle. Now I have a swollen ankle and I am hobbling around. Why can't I do anything without getting hurt?!? Arrgggg...


Some unrelated pictures:

Craft Night with Michele and Manju



My New Canning Book. We have been canning like crazy!




Recent Picture of our House. We started working on it about a year ago.

Daniel's Latest Art Work