Vistor take 13

13...wow, and we haven't even lived her one full calendar year! People, keep coming, because it sure is fun to have all of these visitors. Yes, we are going to a lot of the same places more than once, but having all these visitors has really helped us learn are way around the area and has encouraged a lot of exploring and some creative hosting on our part.

This was Grant's second visit to see us so we were able to skip a lot of the "regular" outings and we spent almost 100% of his time here out in the sun. We had another week of above 90 weather and the three of us got pretty nice burns while enjoying our fun in the sun.

A few highlights from his visit: eating delicious roasted corn at Kruger Farms, Blake & Grant renting funcycles at Cannon Beach, watching the fog over the ocean, Grant trying to eat the mancakes at the Stepping Stone Cafe (if any of you watch Man vs. Food on the travel channel this was one of the places the guy did a food challenge at), eating the juiciest red pear I've ever had in my life purchased at farm in Hood River, beautiful dark sunflowers, and seeing Trillium Lake for the first time (soooo pretty)!

Visitor Take 12

Blake's mom flew up for the 4th of July to spend the long weekend with us and to play doggy and kitty grandma. Since our neighbors complained about Gypsy we haven't been leaving her at home at all by herself and this has difficulty with our visitors.

I was totally lame while Kathy was here and didn't take any photos to document her trip, but we had a nice and relaxing visit. We went to Sauvie Island and picked berries, browsed the Saturday Market, took Gypsy to the dog wash, made a yummy dinner at home, drove to the coast and spent several hours sitting in traffic. Oh the traffic! Seriously, what should have only been about two hours in the car was about ten hours and when we'd get out to stop it was freezing! Mind you, it had been above 90 in Portland the whole time she was here, but the day we decided to go to the coast is was in the low 50's and we were all dressed in summer clothing. She was a good trooper about being stuck in the car all day and kind of having a bum day, but miss Gypsy got so bored she ate the car....when I say ate the car she ate all the way down to the actual metal frame of the car! That means she ate the carpet, fiberglass, & fluffy insulation. What a cheap fix-NOT! Try $226 for this "little" puppy mishap, but it was hard to be mad at her when she was stuck in the car for 10 hours with little exercise, but she still was sneaky, b/c she was able to destroy the car with none of us noticing.(I didn't actually take this picture, but was able to find one of the free we were stuck on-this is about two exits from our house. At least the freeways are kind of pretty to look at.)

What did we do for the 4th? I had these great plans to buy loads of fireworks since they are legal here and there were both set up on every corner of the street, but I just never got to it. Instead, we drove around the streets and watched all the families doing the firecrackers in the front of their homes, which actually was very fun. There were so many firecrackers done in Hillsboro that the entire air had a big cloud of sulphur-smelling smoke (is it weird that I like that smell?). Oh yeah, we made a stop at Albertson's where I got carded (really, I don't like 18?hahaha) and did buy some sparklers which we did on our balcony.

Jammin'

Today I had my first go at jamming...what a mess it makes, but hopefully the jam will taste fantastic and will make the mess of my kitchen worth it. I went to Sauvie Island today with my friend Amy and we handpicked all those blueberries you see below and bought the raspberries from the farm all for $20! That price really just seems amazing, because we even have extra blueberries left after making the jam. With all those berries we were able to produce 12 jars of blueberry jam and 10 jars of raspberry jam. Assuming these turn out okay I will have to make peach jam when the peaches are finally ready.