What did we do in March?
11:46 AM - Posted by Unknown - 0 comments
"What did we do in March?" Is a question I asked myself for a couple of days. I don't think this month slipped by and we did nothing. I know I we didn't, I know we didn't. I hated we missed Thomas and Mallory's wedding - thank you too much school on my part for that one and big exams. I'll be seeing them soon i know :)  because my sister, Cat, is getting married in June! We both worked - boring; School - boring; then I asked Steve - who also said we did nothing, but..... hunt for agates. Agates are these really cool rocks made of silica and other deposits that are formed in the air pockets of lava rock as it cools. Since we've arrived in Oregon - I've gotten obsessed (and so has Steve). on Agates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agate .  You also know you have an agate if it's not super clear because the rock even when unpolished will feel waxy to the touch.

With the help of friends Sean and Kelly we found a cool beach that has great scenery and lots of agates.
Here is our favorite spot!

 
Not only do we find agates but we have gotten to see starfish stuck to the rocks on low tide.
These are all over the rocks and in the little pools.

Gotta slip in a pic of the Handsome man himself on the rocks


So here is what we have so far:
4 jars of agates unpolished and another jar worth in the tumbler

seaglass

unpolished versus polished

no clue what this is but Patrick said Tree Rock and I'm sticking with that - even though I'm sure that doesn't exist
Attempt at turning it into jewelry. There is a guy here named Guy Lundy who teaches rock metal wire wrapping class and I'm going to try it out. Because he does fancy stuff!   





 So there you! That's what we did in march!

 Liz

 Note I wrote this before Cat's wedding but didn't publish it til afterward for no real reason except i blanked on it.




Holiday and Holy Moly
7:47 PM - Posted by Unknown - 0 comments

Holiday and Holy Moley

So, wells, since our last post we've been engrossed in our own routines. Steve has been working and I've been working, school and made some Cmas presents. Steve has taken his 100-ton master course and passed! All he has left to do is the paperwork :( and drive to portland twice to get it done. I haven't been there, yet, but it's a drive and a half!  This is a big deal! The boats he drives for Coast Guard are only 40 tons. In my mind he can now basically drive anything he wants.

I aced all my classes last semester and am currently in 3 more and wrapping up my nursing applications. Terrified more than I can say but yes me, happy Liz is scared out of her mind about more years of school. I am really enjoying work - instead of complaining like I did in office work, I have really funny stories. Yea sometimes I am very sad because we've had a run of people pass that I had taken care of since I arrived to this rainy state, but working in long term care that had residents with dementia is FUN and funny!

And, we've joined the gym!

That's more or less the generic update. More interestingly: he's been fishing his rump off. Everyone he meets out on the lakes or at the beach has been super  helpful in letting them know their tips and tricks and things to consider with the weather. We haven't really caught much, but he's getting better.  It takes a season and time to figure out what is what and I know this time next year I will be SO INCREDIBLY sick of fish.

I on the other hand get bored fishing if we aren't catching so I look for agates.  I found this one, after Steve had given up because he was "cold"! Can you believe our Steve complaining about being cold. My mom and sis can attest: this man is in shorts when our house is 58 degrees. This one is worth something, ones about this size: polished are about $60+.. it'll be more because of the color striations that are in the pic: it's got orange and red under it. Most of what we find are about the diameter of a dime so this is a wicked find.

My dad got me a rock tumbler for my birthday and I've used it some and now will re-run the rocks and get them all to the polishing staged. I will upload pictures of the before and after! It takes 2 months or more to get them all finished.



Our 3 year (courthouse wedding) anniversary was 1/21/2013. Steve and I went to Waterfront depot. We waited 30 minutes to get greeted by our waitress and so we got some free food and met the people sitting next to us: they are a young couple and she's from Uzbekistan. They were figuring out how to go visit her family and deal with getting detained etc. Apparently they can run to Russia and can return to US from there. It was a really interesting conversation. They asked steve about the military and what it's like. 

 Yes 3 years. We can't believe we married in 2010. Time has truly flown. In 3 years we got really good at East coast fishing and living the island life. Traveled across country and are now learning the West Coast. He's having to re-learn because everything he "knew" from Eureka, is obsolete in Florence, Oregon. This makes me happy because it makes it more of an adventure for both of us and not just me. 

 I can't believe I didn't post pics from my 30th birthday!!! Steve got my mom and sis and my wife Kelly to come out for the weekend. I'll post more on that and the fall events next week.

 Steve's 32nd was in December - he got presents everyday and ended with fishing clothes!

 We spent New Years in Cali and got to see Joshie and the gibneys and family! I got to rub kelly's pregnant belly and steve fished. We spent a few days with Kim and Jack and jack's side of the family. We added new people to our family circle and it was a great time with the 5 dogs and bowling! I went picture happy and yes I will post them.

 Next month we are going to Utah to see the family!!!

 Since he made chili last night and no cornbread - I made some - I love making baked goods from scratch. It's so moist. I also found in the Betty Crocker cookbook a English muffin recipe. I realized after making the mix that I was missing 2 items: a rolling pin and a muffin cutter. I thought i had a cutter, but I realized the one I was thinking of was my mom's. Sad you remember something from over a decade ago like it was yesterday. So, I improvised and used a can and a star -cookie cutter. They taste great! I nibbled on them. The first few aren't the best but I turned the heat down and nailed down the cooking.





















Baking!
5:26 PM - Posted by Unknown - 0 comments

Today Steve is under the weather and so I decided to pass the time baking. I found this recipe for biscuits. I didn't follow it exactly, though. I don't have nor will i buy Hungarian paprika and i used lime instead of lemon because I didn't have any. They came out great! i made 9 biscuits but I ate one before I took the pictures.  Also, I don't have a roller so I just patted them out into biscuits.




Here is the sourdough starter.. will post later on how that bread turns out.












Here are the loaves I baked.. with this recipe

Above is before, and below is after.



4:40 PM - Posted by Unknown - 0 comments

Florence!

Here is our first picture of Florence. I took this from the balcony of the hotel we lived in for a week while we found a house to rent. After looking for a solid week, we finally found this house! Here are 2 videos steve took!

Then we spent time piddling around the area. We discovered Heceta Beach where we now love to go agate hunting.
that's the lighthouse at Heceta
there's a seal down there
We went WAY up a road and found a cool little trail and let the dogs swim some
Next is a stream of pictures from our little adventure on the other side of the Heceta Beach park. We walked around in our waders looking for crawdads. We didn't find any but we had fun and got some pretty pictures


4:16 PM - Posted by Unknown - 0 comments

OUR TRIP TO THE WEST COAST... WRAPPING IT UP!!!

Our time in Cali!

We got to Kim and Jack's! The very next day we went to the SF Giants game. Kelly and Joel came to the game too! I even bought a Brian Wilson jersey! I got a kid's version because it was half the price of the adult and it fits loosely just fine.


We got into SF and we had the hardest time finding a parking spot, but Jack is a great driver and has more patience than I do for the city. We found a spot and parked and walked to the stadium. We snagged this picture as we walked. The city is really pretty.

The game was so much fun. I loved the time we spent with Kim and Jack. While in Lakeport, we ate great pizza and took the dogs to the creek. By the time we got to Kim and Jack's we were so exhausted I think we slept one of the days away. Petey got sick our 2nd night there and so i cleaned and cleaned the bedroom carpet. Kim was kind enough to give both of us raindrop treatments which were amazing.

So we left Lakeport and headed to Fortuna, Ca to see Josh. We got there and petey immediately made himself at home. Steve and Josh worked on the boat for a long while and I rested and threw the ball for the dogs.  The next day we went fishing!!! My first time off-shore fishing on the west coast.
It was very different. First you don't go nearly as far out to sea. You can still see the shore! And the fish are just different. Josh took this picture of us! You can see the coastline behind us.
Here are fish: lingcod and rockfish. The blueish ones are lingcod and the red are vermillion rockfish. The meat is blue until you cook it - then it turns white.


Here's Joel with the catch!

We spent the next evening with Kelly and went out to eat and then the next night Kelly and I dyed each other's hair and ate pizza! Their boy Ryker and our boys got a long just fine! Now we just need to find time at the same time to go camping!





Interrupting west coast blog to post this
6:12 PM - Posted by Unknown - 2 comments

Interrupting west coast blog to post this....


Today we went up the river to catch crawfish. It was Steve, me, the pups, our friend Tyler, his dog (Shepherd) Lady aka Ladybug and Josh McGowan and his 2 boys and their mastiff, Creatos. We had to wait for the water to warm up because it was still way cold and the crawfish were hiding. After a while the guys went with masks and snorkels looking in the deep areas of the river and the two McGowan boys and I went on a little adventure - we found 2. That's not bad considering the guys found like 9 after swimming in the deep sections for a good bit of time.

The dogs all got along amazingly well. Lady had a had time with everything - she cried and cried about walking on the slippery rocks, about Tyler being 2 ft too far from her.. basically everything. Petey did the Petey thing and swim the entire time.

After a few hours, the McGowans left and we took the one net and Tyler had on a mask and the 3 of us and the dogs headed down the river a bit and moved rock and went into the deep more to find as many as we could. After many slips, nips, and listening to the weirdest cries we've ever heard come out of a dog (Lady still) we got about 5 lbs of crawfish.

This is the view of the river... 


and this is the view of the bucket after we had to put all the crawfish BACK in because Handsome has discovered he loves crawfish. He knocked the bucket over trying to get at them.

This was our 2nd trip up the river to go for crawfish. The first time, more of Steve and Tyler's co-workers and their families were with us.. and more dogs! You can hardly beat the scenery! Tomorrow I will get back to posting about the trip and our first little bit in Florence!


9:44 PM - Posted by Unknown - 0 comments

OUR TRIP WEST CONT...


LAST LEG - TO CALI AND THEN OREGON!!!!

We drove separately across Nevada - good gracious was that the worst part of the trip.. No wait, the worst part was Petey have diarrhea in Nan's garage every night and then again 3 minutes into the car ride to Cali. That was a nightmare. I waited the entire trip across Nevada for him to poo in the car again. Talk about tense!!!! Here are some pics of the Loneliest Highway in the USA:



She was staring at the windmills. She really did watch them the entire time we were in the valley. That harness on her was the only thing that kept her from going nutso in the hotel rooms. Once you locked it on her - she would freeze, playing opossum. So funny to watch, but I know it tortured her. She gained weight like a housewife who does nothing but eat Bon-Bons.

Finally we made it Momma Kim and Papa Jacks. The next day we went to the SF Giants baseball game!!!!


I finally got to see my long lost "wifey" again... This is kelly. One of my true best friends. She's in Eureka for now.

After the game we went to a restaurant, and Mom made friends with a lady in the bathroom - I saw she does this everywhere she goes! :) We played with the horses some while in Cali, but Petey's stomach was still iffy and so was mine so we took it easy. Mom gave us both raindrop treatments which helped greatly. It was just a ton of fun to take ALL the dogs (5 total) to the creek and get them swimming. After Lakeport we went to Fortuna and to Eureka. The last little bit of our adventure will be posted tomorrow because we are tired! Good night.

Atkinsons