Friday, December 31, 2010

The Eve of 2011

We spent New Year's Eve with our good friends the Tappan-Pecks. The evening started with a delicious dinner of chicken-cheese crepes, and lots of playtime for the kiddos. Wednesday is so great with Gretel, the two of them playing "baby" to their heart's content!






After the kids went to bed, we adults had a rousing game of poker until midnight (which Dr. Tappan won) and didn't go to bed until the wee hours. It was fun to stay up so late (believe me, it hasn't happened in a long, long time) but of course we all paid for it the next morning when the kids jumped out of bed at 6AM!
A very fun New Year's Eve 'twas!





Saturday, December 25, 2010

Our Christmas

Here are some pictures of our Christmas. After spending the morning at home, we drove to Eugene to share festivities with a group of family and friends. We all had a wonderful time!


Gretel was given a brand new kitchen from her Grandma Liz and Grandpa Lar! Here she is with Pops putting it together.

Needless to say, the kitchen is a hit! Gretel sends big thanks to the Kindseths, the Hesses, Grandma Liz and the Pecks for helping to stock it with pots, pans, dishes, and foodstuffs! It is the first place she heads when she gets home from school these days.




Sunday, December 5, 2010

Christmas with the Camerons!

We spent a super fun Saturday with our friends the Camerons. Gretel especially had fun with Henry, who is 7 (almost 8). They had a great time playing together!

We went to a Christmas tree farm and picked out our tree. Here Gretel contemplates one her size.




Santa happened to be there, so Gretel talked with him for awhile.

Then we went to see a neat waterfall on the Lewis River near the Cameron's house.

Then back to their place for a delicious meal and lots of playing!



A wonderful Saturday!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Sunroom Update

We spent a very productive long Thanksgiving weekend working on the trim in our sunroom. After a whole day of sanding, conditioning, staining and sealing the clear vertical-grain fir, we were able to install most of it. The remainder we will be finishing up here and there after work over the next few weeks. We are quite happy with the results. Below are our new baseboards (pardon the dust).
And the beautiful head lintel over the doors, with our newly installed light which was a gift from Aunt Barb & Uncle Jerry.



Gretel Update Pictorial















Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Oldies But Goodies

Our friend Andy recently gave us these photos he took sometime last spring. They are too good not to share.













Saturday, November 6, 2010

Harvest Time

Despite the cooler temperatures this summer, Gretel's 2010 garden was more fruitful than any garden we have yet grown. For the first time in our lives we had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with! After nearly filling our huge freezer with roasted tomatoes, frozen whole tomatoes and dried tomatoes, we started pickling and canning the green ones that were still on the vine. These are incredibly delicious!

Here are the plants nearing the end of the season.

And below, one of the many tomato harvests......

Gretel with a huge heirloom.

In addition to the fruits and veggies coming from the garden, our chickens are laying like crazy too. Most days we get 5 or 6 eggs!

Casey has begun a fruitful new hobby as well, fishing. Here are two big salmon from one fishing trip. We freeze a lot and smoke a lot of this meat as well. Having smoked salmon on hand whenever you want it is a treat indeed!

This is the first year we've done any canning, and it has turned out to be really fun. Here is our cellar with fig jam, pickled trombolina squash, jalepeno salsa, tomato salsa, and lots of pickled green tomatoes. Now that we understand how easy it can be, I imagine we'll be doing a lot more of it in the future!


Gretel does her part to help with the harvest. Here she is with a green tomato in hand, fending off the chickens!