Moving!!!

Well Nick and I are headed to Redmond - FINALLY!!!  We will be moving the middle of December and are super excited to simplify our lives a bit more during this crazy, wild time.  In honor of our moving I have created a new blog over at: http://livingwildly.wordpress.com/

Still in the learning phase and still very new to wordpress so have patience with my lack of skill and also with the craziness of my schedule!!

Hope to have you follow our wild and wacky lives at our new site!
Happy, healthy holidays!!

Summer Endings

Life has been pure insanity for Nick and I these last few months and now we're gearing up for school to start again, selling our house and autumn harvest.

What's happened since our last blog post:

• Finished last two weeks of summer camp and loved every second of it!  My second week at camp was with a new group of the 4-6 year olds, however, I was able to team up with Carlsen again for a rockin' time.  My second week was with a new instructor (2 in fact and I even filled in as an instructor for a day!!) and 7-12 year olds.  We had a ton of fun together and learned so much from each other.  Cannot wait to make this my future career.

• Finished our hallway project and started/finished our master bedroom project; ready to list our house for sale now.  It's hard to think of leaving all of our blood, sweat and tears, but this is the best move for Nick and I and we're excited about these changes.

Hallway & Master Bedroom Remodel - slideshow maker with music

• Continued working on our garden and preserving away like mad.  We've put up peaches, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, beans, peas, squash and tomatoes. My squash is coming on thick and I am trying to find out creative ways of cooking it because I must admit I am sick of preserving and canning.  I'm also drowning in greens from our CSA box - I think Nick and I have eaten our weight in quiches in the last few weeks trying to polish off the rainbow chard and swiss chard.  Plus I made a huge lasagna and these amazing enchiladas.  I'm excited for the cooler weather so I can start whipping out some soups!

Produce Time! - slideshow maker with music

• Enjoyed family time in St. Maries, ID, and a family friends' wedding.  Also enjoyed another great weekend in Spokane with friends.

Family Vacation - slideshow maker with music

Lance & Stacy Wedding - slideshow maker with music

Lots of changes happening in the next few months, but we are excited for the changes and looking forward to what the future holds.

Latest Happenings

A lot more has happened in the last few weeks and I decided I should hop on my blog and do some updating!!

• I went to Walla Walla for a wonderful weekend with family.

Walla Walla Trip - create a slideshow

• Nick and I took a weekend trip to Spokane for an epic weekend that shall go down in history.

Epic Spokane Weekend - create a slideshow

• We started remodeling our hallway and put in new carpet in the house (Just have to finish the stair rail).

Hallway Remodel - create a slideshow

• I completed my first week of summer camp/research for grad school!!  It was an utter blast to spend a week at Oxbow Farm as a volunteer through their partnership with the Wilderness Awareness School.  This first week was filled with 6 hours per day (4 hours with the kids in attendance), 5 days per week hanging out with and teaching 4-6 years olds about farming, food and nature. 

• Continued our gardening and joined the Oxbow Farm CSA (community supported agriculture).  We got our first box this week filled with fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, lettuce and rainbow chard.  We've also been putting up peas, strawberries, cherries and raspberries.

2012 Garden 2 - create a slideshow

• I started working at the Bellevue Children's Surgery Center and am loving a more flexible schedule, closer to home, better hours and finally taking care of patients again!
• Big changes a comin' - Nick and I have decided to sell our house and move into a rental apartment or town home.  We are looking to find our 'freedom' in our jobs, our mobility and our lives.  Once I'm done with my last year of grad school we'll see where we go from there.

More updates coming soon!!  Hope you are all having a beautiful and blessed summer. 

It's a Small World...

The title of my last post was, "Final Snow Days" and while the snow is long behind us apparently spring/fall has continued to cling to the area. We've been hounded by rain, wind and cold temperatures with a few small hints of summer. Despite this my garden is growing and we are striding into the harvesting and preserving season. We've picked the first few summer peas and strawberries from our own garden patch, but in order to put up enough of what we need for the winter I am supplementing from our local market. Today Nick and I prepared 10 pints of strawberries (from the market) for freezing - just need to bag them; from our garden we harvested a big container of lettuce, a small container of peas, some handfuls of strawberries and 4 trays full of oregano for the dehydrator. The roses are blooming, squash are growing, potatoes re-sprouted, carrots and parsley almost ready for seed saving and life abounds on our little space.

We have been talking more and more about trying to sell our place to buy property and begin farming, but the cards seem stacked against us. For now we will be content in our small space and keep putting in as much edible landscape as possible. We'll be putting in fruit trees and blueberry bushes this summer and installing Mason Bee boxes for pollination. If you want to know more about Mason Bees, here's a good spot to visit: http://www.crownbees.com/.


There's been so much going on since my last post:

• Finished first year of grad school

• Worked on a biodynamic farm as an intern for ten weeks (Jubilee Farm) and could not have been happier!  Also realized how much more I need to learn about farming!!

Jubilee Farm - Online Slideshow Maker

• Jack turned five years old.  We had a dog bed custom made for him from Unique Kreations for Dogs & Kats.  An awesome lady at Redmond Farmer's Market does all of the work by hand from reclaimed fabric/textiles/foam from furniture and textile companies in the area.

 

• Redmond Farmers market season began

2012 Farmers Market - Online Slideshow Maker

• Put in and began harvesting from our garden

2012 Garden - Online Slideshow Maker

• Attended volunteer training for 3 weeks of summer camp and research through the awesome partnership of Oxbow Farm and Wilderness Awareness School
• Attended the Jubilee Farm May day festival and Oxbow Farm's Sowdown

Jubilee May Day Festival - Online Slideshow Maker

Oxbow Sowdown - Online Slideshow Maker

• Worked and studied at Dog Mountain Farm for a class on tourism - I was looking at agritourism specifically.  Awesome place - you should totally check it out!!

Dog Mountain Farm - Online Slideshow Maker

• Went to an awesome exhibit at the Burke Museum called "Hungry Planet".  Check out the book here: What the World Eats and here: What the World Eats Part 2

• Attended a class by Seattle Tilth on growing our own fungi

Fungi is Fun - Online Slideshow Maker

• Took a road trip to California and up the coast for spring break.  It was so much fun to spend time with Paul and Bear, visit favorite haunts and check out some new spots!

2012 Spring Break - Online Slideshow Maker

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but I'll save that for a later post!  Hope to hear from and see many of you this summer; I know I'm not great about responding to e-mails right now, but think of you often and appreciate your love and support.

Here's to sunshine, summer treats and good eats!!

Final Snow Days

The snow started melting on Thursday night, then it started raining and created an epic slushy mess on the side roads. Here is the snowfall we had in about 6 hours on Thursday when the last flakes fell...


Friday night Nick and I took the Jeep out and did a little 4-Wheelin' City Style. It was epic fun!!




Sad that the snow is melting, happy for the improvement of our water table and thrilled to not be shoveling the driveway every day!

Winter Wonderland

If you haven't seen the news or heard from friends/family living in the Pacific NW we are being slammed by an epic snowstorm - IT...IS...AWESOME!!!! I love driving in the snow, being outside in the snow, watching Jack in the snow and laughing at Nick being a kid. Thought I'd share some pictures of some of the epicness going on around here.

Winter Storm - slide show

Here are some more from today and it's still coming down!

Winter Storm 2 - slide show

Enjoy the white stuff!!

What If...

Christmas - the Old English dictionary defines it as "Christ's Mass". However, as I drive through the traffic each day, listen to horns honking, hear how much people spend on gifts ($1,200 from one of my co-workers), watch the impatience, read the signs of those standing on street corners and become more distraught over the commercialization of Christmas I have begun to wonder how much Christ occupies the season of Christmas.

Yes, I am a Christian and I believe that Christ exists, but somehow when we begin to shop for Christmas in June, put up Christmas trees in November and spend money we do not have on things people do not need I have begun to wonder how much "Christ" is still part of the celebration of "Christmas". I have been thinking...

What If...

• Families ate Christmas dinner together, around a table, with the TV off
• Rather than eating a huge Christmas dinner you served dinner to someone who was only able to eat once a day
• The $1,200 spent on Christmas was donated to an organization working to make a difference in the world
• Barbara Walters' 10 most fascinating people of 2011 did not feature the Kardashian's, celebrities or any other person regaled in the headlines; but rather focused on the people working to pay their bills every month, provide an education for their children, those doing the jobs the rest of us are not willing to do
• We stopped watching reality TV shows and started living in the real world
• Rather than interacting with technology we interacted with our friends and loved ones surrounding us
• We said we were sorry, accepted responsibility and forgave
• Rather than send out cards we called those people
• Instead of wrapping gifts we planted a tree

Whether you believe in Christ or not, there is still meaning surrounding this time of year and I wonder what the world would look like if we simply embraced the meaning.