Goodbye to Joanna and Fun things we found in Portland!

On Sunday we said goodbye to a dear friend moving to Texas to attend Trinity Christian University.  She is an amazing woman who is pursuing her dream after a very long time of waiting and the Lord has totally opened amazing doors for her.  I can't wait to hear about her adventures- but onto our journey.

 After church we headed to the unknown world of Gresham...we found very interesting things on our way- things we had no idea were even in Portland!

A bomber plane...a real one, on top of some sort of structure.  You can park under it, in fact many people did when we were there.

It's actually a restaurant and you can go...we thought it was drive-in type place with milkshakes, which is why we pulled in- but it's actually an old school cafe/diner, they had the following on their sign:

I think we're going to try and come back some day!  Only lovely type people frequent restaurants like this!

In the same parking lots was this:

No idea why!

Hearkening back to my elementary school days I was able to point out the beaver and the raven in this totem pole- meaning of course that it had to be the Northwest Coastal Indians that this was made either for or in model of...I wonder what I could do with that brain capacity that holds all this random information!

Then it was onto the party and Joanna's mother made the most delicious cookies to represent Texas and Oregon...In honor of Rach I took a picture of the food!

Texas TCU cookies, cowboys (some with handlebar mustaches and some without...so you can take what you like), and umbrellas for the great state of Oregon!

Joanna- we miss you already!  I can only imagine how much you will be loved in Texas- they are gaining quite the woman and you have left a huge hole here!  Can't wait to see you at Christmas!

Homemade Dinner!

Tonight dinner was from the land!

Watermelon-Peach-Lemonade...all from the market, made with Josh's famous juicer..yum!  Tomorrow we're going to add champagne to the extra and have it for breakfast with blueberry pancakes- yum!

 Salad made with Lettuce and Kale from the market, feta, pine nuts and the amazing Ceaser Salad Dressing made from the Joy of Cooking recipe that my mom has made for years!

Corn from the market (yellow and white kernals, and it's DELICIOUSLY sweet!)  Carlton lamb burgers on yummy rolls left over from the wedding (no worries they were in the freezer!) with local goat cheese...only on mine because Josh hates goats...and an exquisite garlic aioli from the amazing greekish market over by where my mom works!

Good dinner!  Finished off with some cookie dough...yes just the dough!  The cookies have been hidden from me for 2 reasons. 

1.  I have NO willpower (thanks for passing that down mom! :))

2.  They look like this:

Yep, really big and broken to pieces.  Note to cooks out there: just because you have new cookie sheets from your wedding presents and you think they are beautiful and shiny and you want them to stay that way DOES NOT mean you should spray them with a light mist of olive oil...even if it was sprayed out of your new oil mister that you couldn't wait to use...something weird happens to the cookies and they look ridiculous!  But they still taste good!  I was happy with my cookie dough!

I swear I did not eat all of this...I put half of it back for later!

Back in Business!

It has been awhile since I even looked at this blog...or remembered that I had one...but as this is the first summer I have had off since before college I believe, I have quite a bit of time on my hands.  Time to get back to work on this thing!

Hmm...since 2010...

that's a very long and detailed story that in hindsight now I wish I had written about somewhere...like maybe the stack of journals sitting about 5 feet away from me, all brand new, bought with the intention of recording great happenings in my life...all still in the same stack-blank!

We have now been frequenting Farmer's Markets, and our favorite is on the PSU campus on Saturdays.  We nearly missed it today based on a very lazy person who would not get ready for the day (sadly this was me, not Josh!)  In the nick of time however we made it and got some yummy things for the week.  

On a whim we thought..."Why not get some blueberries and raspberries!".  So out to Scholls we went where there are plentiful U-picks of berries for only $1.25/pound...a steal!

Oh...Josh gets to carry they, yay!

I'm so good at picking berries!

See!  I have so many!

So here we are picking berries...as you can see we picked many.  Correct my math if I'm wrong, but the woman told us we had picked 5 pounds of each, which should according to Josh and I's math skills (his are better than mine, but I can do the basics) we should have paid  $12.50...well we paid $8.75, even after we said, "Are you sure?"  So I guess we made out with a steal!  And now I have blueberries for blueberry pancakes tomorrow and raspberries for freezer jam on Tuesday, yay! :)  

This whole picking experience hearkened me back to the days of the Honcoop's raspberry field.  Every summer my mom and I went to pick raspberries with Leslie and Caitlin...sometimes Jess when we were little.  Caitlin, Jess and I would play house for hours on tend while my mom and Leslie did the actual work.  But we used raspberries for everything...the food, the water, the desserts, etc.  So by the end of our house playing we were all ridiculously sick from eating massive amounts of raspberries.  I had forgotten how wonderful they smell in the hot sun, how careful you have to be when picking them, and that amazingly sweet but tart at the same time taste when you put the first one in your mouth!  Yum!!!!!!!!!!

Delicious Blueberries from our bucket!

Raspberries from MY bucket!