This spring has been busy and great!  We had a wonderful visit with my mom and my little sister when they came over here.  We visited the tulip fields and enjoyed ourselves in the city.  Soon after, Trevor and Liz came into town and we shared some great beer at Pike Place Brewery and spent some time catching up.  We then dog sat a great dog, Samson, for around a month.  Luna enjoyed having another furry friend around to wrestle with at all hours. 
In the mean time we were able to make a quick trip back to CDA to catch up with some good ol friends, new friends, and of course family.  We were also able to finish the the long over due wedding quilts for Charlie & Amanda and Trevor & Liz, and hand deliver them.   
While back at home Nick has been busy with work, putting in the overtime hours, and working like a champ.  Even though he is so busy at work, he is still enjoying it and looks at it as a good challenge. 
When Nick isn't working, you can more than likely find him on his mountain bike.  He has been hitting the trails hard this year and he is getting into great riding shape.  He has weekly rides with some of our guy friends, and then he usually manages to drag ;) me out at least once a week.  If we aren't mountain biking we are usally tieing up the running shoes or taking the road bikes out for a spin.  Luna has also been enjoying all of our activities and she too is getting into great shape.  We clocked her on one of our mountain bike rides, running at 22 mph, and we believe that she wasn't even up to full speed.

 
Some of our great friends, Barb and Todd, just got married.  Lucky for me I was able to help them out by designing some beer lables for their wedding.  I really enjoyed making the labels, but could not have done it without Nick's help.  Nick came up with the awesome names of Barb's Pedal Pusher and Todd's High Flyer, which gave me the inspiration for what to put onto the labels.  We think they turned out pretty well, the bride and groom loved them, and everybody at the wedding couldn't belive that there were custom labels on the great tasting home brew... and some even questioned if it wasn't bought off the shelves at the store.  The wedding was a great time too, in Leavenworth, with a beautiful backdrop.  The groom wore a custom made purple velvet suit... pretty sweet.  Good friends, good beer, good times.
Belive it or not, our wedding gift to Barb and Todd, actually made it onto the gift table at the wedding.  It wasn't easy, I was actually finishing it on the way to Leavenworth for their wedding.  It was a wall hanging that I designed and made.  You can check out the picture of it under projects, along with some more pictures of the beer labels.  We will also be posting some more photos as well.  So check it all out.  Let us know what you think.   

Whew! A deep breath.  Not that long ago I was sitting on the couch, feet kicked up onto the coffee table, laptop sitting on my lap, the sound of the keys clicking non-stop, the floor and every other area of the couch...besides where I was sitting, was covered in piles of papers, folders, and 1 1/2 years worth of school work.  It was almost over, I had taken all the tests, filled out the paper work, almost completed my student teaching, and was now compiling all of my work onto a CD to turn in with my final folder.  It always seems like that final push will never end, though you know that by next week it will all be over with.  Nick was kind and very patient, understanding why I was so cranky, he put dinner together, and took a deep breath every time I blew up about something ridiculous, like the laundry I didn't do.  

But, everything was finally finished, I said good-bye to the classroom I student taught in... which turned out to be in Silverdale, 5 minutes away from our house, which was so much nicer than my 2 1/2+ hour commute to my original student teaching location in Seattle.  I then packed up my backpack for my final commute to Seattle at the University of Washington.  I turned in my final student teaching videos, my compiled CD holding all of my work over the last 1 1/2 years and then checked to make sure my Master's folder was complete.  I then returned home, first by bus from the campus to down town Seattle, then a couple of blocks walk to the ferry terminal.  Where I waited for a while for the next ferry.  On the other side a couple of blocks walk back to my car, alternately I would take the bus on the Kitsap side, but I knew I would get back too late to take the transit system back home to Silverdale, so I drove.  It was then a 35 minute drive to be back home a while past dinner but a small amount of time before hitting the sack. I had completed my Masters Degree in Special Education, with emphasis in severe/low-incidence disabilities.  Though I still need to do the final steps to achieve my BCBA which consists of more paper work and a tough test, I'm going to take a short break and enjoy it.   

But it's completed.  And in just the last week, I have already baked cupcakes and cookies, cooked homemade pasties and a few other tastey dinners, made clay mushrooms for a pot, made a water feature for the back yard and have taken Luna for many walks.  The garden is underway and more projects such as quilts and more purses are on the list of things to do.  On the other list is to keep checking the job postings for special ed. teachers in the area for the next school year.  For a summer job... maybe a job on one of our local CSA farms.  Who knows, but I think I'm okay for a few more days of just taking it easy.  Check the different categories of our blog for more details of how I have been spending my spare time. 

Cutting up cheap plastic black table cloths we created bats, bigfoot, a spooky tree, and a cat which all came to life to  haunt our house as we set up for the Spooky Masquerade. The whole house suddenly became eerie as we turned off the lights and lit candles.   A witch topped the cake and spider webs covered our entry way.  Outside we cut up small pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns and hung them from shepard hooks with tea lights lighting up their creepy faces, which lined the path to our door.  The trick-o-treaters came and soon our guests arrived wearing black ties and long formal dress, masks covering their faces.  We played games and ate food, the men stood out in the garage chatting around the kayak with beers in hand until it was time to come in and play games.  

Games:  To our surprise a simple cre paper game was the biggest hit.  Before everyone arrived we cut different lengths of black cre paper streamers and hid them all over the house.  Once it was time to start the game we had each couple work as a team, we gave them head lamps and 3 minutes to find the most streamers they could and tie them together.  Mike and Ashley had the longest stran when the 3 minutes was up, and they won a fabulous prize of $1 store Sham Wows!  (hehehe)  Later on in the night we played a classic sleep over game Murderer, however we changed the name to Swine Flu... just for the fun of it.   If you never had the chance to play as a kid or you did and you don't remember how, its simple too.  We had enough toothpicks for players and colored one of the ends of one of the toothpicks.  Everyone then picked a toothpick out of a cup, the person who drew the colored one was the murderer or rather the virus ;).   Then everyone would start shaking hands, the murdere would simply move one of their fingers back and forth, like they were trying to scratch their victim... the victim would then shake a few other peoples hands and then announce they were dead.  The group then needs to come to a consenses on who was the murderer, if they group does not guess correctly the game goes on and the murderer continues to choose victims. 

Food:  We stayed with the basics for this party.  Chips, veggies, candy of course, carmel corn, a cake, and green swamp punch with a frozen red jello hand floating in it.  I found the punch recipe on allrecipes.com http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Green-Punch/Detail.aspx, it was actually pretty good and it was the color of Slimmer off of Ghost Busters.  We also had some meatballs from my sister Tanya's suggestion.  They're supper easy, we just bought some meatballs from Costco, throw them in the crock-pot and threw in some bbq sauce.  Overall the party was a pretty good time, I discovered how fun it can be to transform your house around halloween and make it look totally different, and by using the cheap table cloths, we didn't have to spend a whole lot of money.  However, I do look forward to halloween next year when Barb and Todd continue the original tradition of them throwing a halloween/birthday shindig.  Coming up next....Thanksgiving at our place with Nick's parents and hopefully my mom and older sister, then it's time to go out and cut down our trees, and throw our traditional Tacky Sweater Party... date to be announced soon!

 

        I went to get the mail the other day expecting the usual... junk mail and bills.  As I shuffled through the pile there it was... Ski Magazine.   I excitedly found a comfy spot on the couch and flipped through the pages.  With the weather getting chilly, the 5 hour commute to Seattle and back to finish up my master's at the UW, and with Ski Magazine decorating our coffee table, there is no denying that fall is here.  Nick has been busy with work, just back from a week long class in Wisconsin, though I'm not sure if he recieved more education in his class or on his favorite beverage that he seemed to have explored each night while he was there.  He returned late Friday night, or rather extreemly early Saturday morning to catch a few zzzzzz's then return to work a few hours later.  Nick is finding himself busy at the end of September and into the begining of October with working overtime and into the night.  We hope perhaps with all his hard work we will find ourselves vacationing when I have completed school in March, if we can resist a ski vacation any sooner. 

     The summer couldn't have started much better.  We were off on a road trip, with Luna in the back, we traveled to CDA, joined Nick's parents, and were off to ND to help Nick's brother Mike, and his wife, Beth move into their new place.  After a few days we all traveled back to Montana, a favorite state for many of us and spent some time camping and hiking.  We then called Bozeman home for a few days and attended Trevor's and Liz's wedding, which was elegant and great time, perfect with Montana as the backdrop.     
      

  Nick, Luna, and I then came back home to Silverdale and celebrated Nick's 26th Birthday with all of our friends here.  Barb hosted dinner, and of course we brought dessert, cake.  Nick requested carrot cake, but I went untraditional on the frosted carrot top, and went with something I felt would suit Nick a little better.  I was happy with the way it turned out and Nick was thrilled. 

        We also traveled to the Oregon coast, Tilimok, to celebrate in Angie and Kevin's wedding.  Most of us from the Wednesday Night Group rented a house which was a short walk from the beach.  We occupied our extra time with beach combing, flying kites, being total tourists and going to the cheese factory and the not to forget the jerkey factory (just the store).   We then attended the wedding in  a beautiful chapel surrounded with sand and the smell of ocean that was only a quick sprint to the door of the chapel.  The reception was in an amazing spot, a blimp hanger.  The old war airplane's propellers were adorned with white lights, and drift wood and candles decorated the tables.  The cake table was amazing with every kind of cake you could imagine.   

 

       I may always remember this summer as the summer of the garden.  I have enjoyed this, more than I ever could have imagined.  As the veggies grew in our garden, so do my desire to cook and appreciate food.  I have been exploring recipes to make from what our garden yields, and it has seemed to have cured my sweet tooth, desiring more often fresh, healthy food.  I hope to keep updating our blog with new recipes.  
        To think that it all began with Nick and the rented rototiller, soon there was a cedar picket fence, seeds, then soon sprouts.  As first timers we planted what was familiar to us; carrots, peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, lettuce, arugula, potatoes, and cucumbers.  The only thing that did not work were the onions... who knows why... they were a little late getting into the ground, in fact really late, because everything else was already late getting into the ground. 

      For first timers in the garden, I don't think we did too bad, except for planting so much there is hardly room to walk.  Our tomatoe plants grew into monsters, towering over our 7 foot fence.  Zucchinis have yielded non stop food all summer.... though I think that is pretty typical.  Though we had our doubts, the cucumbers came and they did not hesitate to take over what ground wasn't really left.  I built a pyramid structure out of cut down branches and supported the cucumbers to grow up it, good thing!  The carrots were crazy fun, coming out in all sorts of colors and one with an exotic shape (see picture below)!  The sunflowers grew and grew, they even passed up the edge of our roof. 

Sand, appoxy, squeegy, appoxy, appoxy, sand....  and so it goes.  From flimsy wood boards, to a sturdy bottom and a top it looks like we are almost there.  But, we still have a ways to go.  We pushed hard through September, with just a few nights off, our goal is to be finished by the end of October.... we may need to push that to November.  We have spent our evenings in the garage with the door open to the house and music playing.  We started with portable heaters to warm up the garage and wer were still working on the Kayak when it was 10:00pm and still hot outside.  The seasons have passed, the warmest weather to be out on the water, gone, but we are confident that we have the right clothing to allow us to get our boat out on the water when it is complete... even if it is in the cold rain. 

With the bottom of the boat finished, we now need to wire the top to the bottom, fiberglass, appoxy, and sand.  Somplace in there we need to fill in the seams with wood appoxy and put our inlays on the top.  But we will still not be finished.  We will then need to cut the 2 hatches in the kayak, and put the combing around the cockpit.... yet when that is done I am sure there will still be more to do. 

TO BE CONTINUED....