Memorial Weekend

Taking it back a few weekends to Memorial Day, I thought I'd share some photos of our trip up to the San Juan islands in Washington for Chris' friends, Grant and Kim's wedding.  Chris and I flew up to Seattle on Friday and were greeted by his friend who drove up from Portland, Alex, at the airport.  Since we got in at noon, we decided to drop our bags at the hotel and head to downtown Seattle to grab lunch and do some site-seeing.  We chose to try Lil' Woody's for their 2012 #1 in the city rated burgers.  I did not take a photo of my delicious Pendleton burger, but I snagged this one from their website.

Mmmm.  I want one right now.  This place definitely gets two thumbs up from me.

Chris' friend, Brandon, and his girlfriend, Brittany, joined us during our meal, and afterwards, we headed down to Pike's Market.  What is a trip to Seattle without hitting that place, right?

Here's a group photo.

Touring through the market, everywhere you looked were these GORGEOUS bouquets!

So beautiful!

Next stop was not so pretty, but also a must see.  We headed down the alley to the gum wall.  Of course we added our own and grabbed a few pics.

Next up a walk past the first Starbucks.  With that line, there was no way we were getting anything...

Once the market was fully toured we decided to grab a beer at one of the second floor restaurants and do some people watching while we waited for the others in our group to arrive from New York.

We hit up a few more local restaurants for brewskies and yummy food, then ended the night at another one of Chris' friends, Andy's, new place.  It had a gorgeous view from up on the roof.  Here is a very dark pic of the Space Needle.

The next morning we were up at 5am.  Ugh.  We were really hopeful that we would make either the 8am or 9am ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor, but no such luck.  There was already a crazy long line when we got there, so walking on was our only option.  When we reached the dock, we hopped in a shuttle bus that drove us to other side of the island to Roche Harbor where the wedding was going to be taking place the next day.

The rest of Saturday was a pretty lazy day.  We went down to the market and got food and beverages and basically just hung out at our house that we had rented for the weekend.

Here the boys are chillin' on the porch.

The few of us that didn't go to the rehearsal dinner barbecued up some mean burgers, franks and taters.  Here are the boys before some headed to the harbor.

After the rehearsal dinner was over we headed that way to join up with them for s'mores and drinks and to take in the beautiful scenery.

Jaime and Megan roasting their mallows.

Chris, Grant (the man of the hour) and Alex.

The whole crew.

The next morning was another lazy one.  The guys had a group breakfast while the girls slept in and caught up on much needed sleep.   Around 3:45 we headed down to the harbor for the wedding ceremony.

Another guy group shot before we took our seats.

Aren't they handsome?

Stevie and I in our Sunday best.

Chris snagged me one during the ceremony.  Here is the lovely couple and their attendants with the gorgeous backdrop.

I failed to grab photos inside the reception area, but it was spectacularly decorated.  The table themes were all cities or countries that the couple had been to.  The favors were luggage tags.  Such a cute idea!  Food was delicious...appetizers got an A+ and they had one of the best wedding salads I've ever tasted.

We danced the night away until the party ended around 10pm.  Of course there was an after party at some of the other guests rented home, so we danced some more until I could barely stand I was so tired!  Success, I say!

The next morning we were up early again and headed back to the main town to grab food and catch the ferry.  After about a five hour drive we made it to P-town and headed over to see Chris' family for an early Chris birthday celebration.  A relaxing night of pizza and good company.

Tuesday I got to see my friend, Kristen's new house they moved into last month.  Yay!  So exciting.  They have already put a lot of hard work into making it their home.  She has an awesome garden area that I wish I was there to help her get going on!

We headed over to Gresham that afternoon to visit the Engdahl/Crane clan and have another Chris birthday celebration.  We somehow managed to get all of those quilt photographs squeezed in too!

It was a crazy whirlwind of a trip and we wished we could have stayed longer to see more of our friends and family.  Next trip home is scheduled for early August for another wedding and we'll definitely be making it a lengthy one!

What a Wednesday!

Well things are rip-roaring around here in Springville, Utah!  The first exciting moment of the day was the fact that I harvested our first bounty from our garden.  I picked some of those giant spinach leaves off about half of the plants and got enough to make a delicious side salad for Chris and my dinner tonight.  Yay!

Look at that fresh picked goodness!

We didn't really have many good salad ingredients, so we made due with what we had.   I just threw in some red onion, mozzarella cheese and croutons, and topped it off with some poppyseed dressing.  Yum yum!

I'll have to start hard boiling eggs and cooking bacon for the really yummy spinach salads.

The second exciting part of the night was the Springville Art City Days carnival we attended.  Apparently this week is party time in the city.  They have all sorts of activities going on such as contests, tournaments, displays, markets, food vendors, car shows, live music, a fun run, parade and much, much more.  It is craziness!  Who needs the Rose Festival when you have Art City Days, right?!

I must have JUST missed it by a week last year when I moved.  Yes, one year in 4 days.  NUTS.

Tonight was the first night of the carnival and the cheapest, so we figured we better make an appearance.  That place was packed!  We only got on three rides in three hours!  Totally worth is though, they were actually good ones.  The games weren't really that awesome and they were crazy expensive (seriously, how do normal people afford these things?), so we played just this one and managed to get a lame prize.

I was super disappointed we didn't make it on the ferris wheel for sunset...maybe when we head back for the parade on Saturday.

Also still need to sample some of the carnival treats.  Chris promised me a churro and didn't deliver...he better on Saturday!!

And yes, I know I am so lame for getting excited about this carnival, but I'm a small town gal now folks, remember?  Can't wait to attend my first rodeo...

Garden Update

We finally got all the beds done week before last and I was able to get everything planted before we left on our Memorial Day trip to Washington/Portland.  I was absolutely amazed at the growth over the time we were gone.  It's so fun watching the ones you plant from seeds take off.  The new transplants I picked up at a Provo nursery are finally rooting themselves and starting to grow too.

We can already start picking that spinach.  Nom!

Few empty lettuce and onion spots I may try to fill, but doubtful they will grow before the crazy heat hits.

Yes, I added pots because I had extra tomato plants that I couldn't fit.  Tomato craziness!

Corn and peppers for days...

I altered my original plans a little bit because I decided not to fill the berm with flowers this year.  I've got some of the melons and extra vine plants growing there now, so I added a few new things and switched stuff around.

Perhaps the thing I am most excited about though is that black beauty in the back corner there.  Can you believe we FINALLY get to compost?!  YIPPEE!

Next week I'll post again to show you the new garden stakes I am working on.  Gonna be so cool!

New Quilts

As I'm catching up on life from the craziness of the past weekend, I thought I'd do a quick share of some of grandma's new quilts that I just got posted up on Etsy.  They are truly magnificent and I'm even debating taking one off the market myself!

Since for some reason the colors are not showing up nearly as vibrant on Etsy as they are in real life and the photos I took of them (there must be something funky with their uploader), I thought I'd share them on here as well.

Enjoy!

Garden Graduation

Mexican Party

 Hexagon Crossing

 On The Border

Stepping Stones

Visitors!

Thursday we had the pleasure of hosting Chris' family friends, (a.k.a. second family) Dave and Terry Taylor for the night.  They were passing through Springville on the long route back to Oregon from Indio, California and brought with them some delicious wine for us to drink.  We had a blast showing them around the updated house and filling them in on the latest of Utah.  The last time they visited was when they brought Chris his blinds after accidentally shipping them to his parents in Portland!  As you can imagine, a lot had changed!

I thought it would be nice to cook them a meal as I'm sure they had been eating out plenty on their stops in various cities along the way.  Leave it to me though, to pick a meal with meat they don't eat!  This just shows you how rusty my hostess skills are after being away from Portland for a year.  You'd think with all my vegetarian friends I would remember to ask/find out about food preferences, but of course I didn't.  Whomp, whomp.

Terry, I promise next time you'll be able to eat the full meal!

I didn't take pictures, so I'm borrowing the images Terry took of our manicotti meal and posted on her blog, RV Goddess.

For dessert I made the rosemary bread and served with vanilla ice cream and strawberries.  Luckily, this contained no sausage.

On Thursday nights I play softball down in Spanish Fork.  One of the girls I played volleyball with in the fall asked me to join her team and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet more people!  Terry and Dave decided they would like to come watch and I was so excited to have some people cheering me on.  They even got Chris to come watch which is a huge feat as he HATES watching baseball/softball.  Yes, even when his wife plays.  What a Scrooge!

All in all, it was a great night and we loved having the pleasure of their company!  And to make their visit even more enjoyable they sent us flowers yesterday as a thank you!  So beautiful and they smell wonderful!

Love you both!

Chris Learns to Bake!

Can you believe this is his first time ever?!

And he made the delicious rosemary bread we have been waiting all fall/winter/spring for.  I am so proud of my husband!

I wonder if this is his last time too...hmm.

It still tasted delicious, don't worry. ;)

Rock Garden

I really wanted to attack the back berm with flowers this year, but quickly realized that might not be a great idea considering 1) I've never planted a flower garden before and 2) It's HUGE.

I figured I should probably start off small and make sure that I wasn't going to fail completely before spending a lot of money.  I cleaned up last year's upper vegetable garden area and decided it would be a good first try spot.

After I got the area bordered and the soil prepped, I had Chris go with me to pick up some rocks around around the neighborhood to give it a bit more character.  We seriously had to go one block and found A TON in one of the many empty lots.  Once I got those placed it was time to started planting.

I had opted to go with a cool color scheme of only white, purple, blue and pink flowers.  Since I'm basically teaching myself as I go, I'm really hoping that the nursery I got all the plants from isn't lying about what can survive here.  I also hope I didn't plant too soon as we've had some crazy weather here this spring.  Cross your fingers they all make it.

I'm sad I don't have a before picture to show you...can you believe I couldn't find one picture of my garden last year?!  Nuts!  Imagine a lot of dirt, corn stalks and many, many weeds.

Here's how it turned out.

Where you see blank spots I have bulbs in.  They will hopefully be irises, lilies and Peruvian daffodils.  I have no idea if they will actually come up.  I have more faith in my tomato seeds actually making it, honestly.

Can't wait to watch it fill in though...so fun!