Good weather you say?

Today I got to go hiking with someone who has been making me jealous with all the wonderful hiking shots he posts on Facebook.  It was awesome!  And windy!  And my legs feel like jelly!  You see back in February we went hiking and it turned out to be more of a snowshoeing/bushwhacking adventure without any good views.  So camera in hand I was determined to get some great shots.  We ended up hiking at Frenchman Coulee near the Gorge.  There were amazing views and plenty of good company.  Thanks Ryan!

 Anybody lose a truck?

 That looks pretty!

 That bluff doesn't look too big...

 Well bigger than I thought.  Look where we parked the car.

 See?  There's the Mini to prove it!

 Okay, the buried treasure is down there.  X marks the spot.

 Stone Cairn Sentinel

 Yea!  There's still service up here!

The flora...

 ...and fauna.

(Yes it is fauna.  There's a spider on the lower left flower.)

Time to play a game.  Melinda, this one's for you.  Name that rock!

 Specimen A.

 Specimen B.

 Specimen C.

 Specimen D.  Need that from another angle?

 Here ya go!

See Melinda, you can get desert views without 100 degree weather!

Thought that rock looked cool...and now I think it's looking at the view.

When did August arrive?

I swear it must be summer because I went to the beach and it looked like this!

For THREE days!!

Mom and I had arranged this weekend getaway to Cannon Beach way back when the snow was flying and just happened to get lucky that this was the weekend it decided to pretend it was August at the beach. It was in the 70's, we ate ice cream from Osburn's Ice Creamery for dinner, took the dogs on long walks both morning and afternoon, walked barefoot in shorts and actually IN the water!  It was amazing and just the thing I needed.

There were clear skies.

And beautiful sunsets.

Fires on the beach without the need to be bundled from head to toe.

The dogs were happy.

We were happy.

And I'm counting the days until I get back.

A funny note to my cousins...

When we got there and checked in they said, "My you come here a lot.  Welcome back for the 23rd time!"  I asked if it was the 23rd visit or 23rd year and they replied that is was by visit.  I did some quick calculations and they must have put that computer system in around 2000.  You see --> 2 visits/year x 12 years = our 23rd visit this spring.  I held my tongue, but I wanted to say, "You know we were guests here when you used to write the last name of the guest and put it outside their room and we visited so often even then that our name placard was laminated.  Pretty sure it's been more than 23 visits."  :)

Two Choices

Either Mom is patient zero of the zombie apocalypse or...

We finally got in our first fist fight and we all know who won.

My Clocks Have Wings

So yeah, time has been flying around here.  I can't believe how long ago it was I posted a blog update and for that I am extremely sorry.  I shall therefore update you with the goings on.

We bought a new television last summer, as you may know, in preparation for a new entrainment center while the new floor was being laid in the living room.  Since then the TV has been sitting on a cute but smallish TV stand waiting for us to come up with the funds to buy the entertainment center we had been drooling over.  Recently we purchased it and waited for it to be delivered.  I had looked at the furniture stores we have around here for the perfect separated entertainment center that had a bridge over the top of the TV so that I could put all my cute decorations back on top of it, but to no avail.  I found the perfect one in a catalog and pondered long and hard about buying furniture I had never seen online.  I researched and looked at ratings (4.5 stars out of 5 by the way) and we finally decided it was the one.  Getting it here was a bit harder as the delivery company was coming out of Seattle and was incredibly difficult to get ahold of to say the least.  But it did arrive and here are the beautiful pictures of my monument to TV and movie viewing that is now in my living room.

First...what it replaced.

And now the new and improved...

Do you think we have just a couple of DVDs there?

We also bought a surround sound system that I had yet to take out of the box.  As I wired everything in the new center I also did the surround sound and ohmigosh....even the COMMERCIALS sound better.  :)  I don't have the wireless back speakers set up yet, but it's pretty freaking amazing as it is.  Seriously I thought there was a cat out in the kitchen getting into trouble for a bit before I realized it was the surround sound...so awwwwwesome!  So you should all come over for a movie sometime!

I also have pictures of the infinity scarf I have been working on for myself for Melinda.  I really like it.  :)

And I've been getting into mischief with other crafts as well.  I really wanted one of those cool wrap bracelets you see everywhere, but they are pretty expensive and I have large wrists, so I decided to make one!  I Googled it and found lots of websites that show you how but I used this one.  A trip to the craft store and tada! two fabulous bracelets and stuff to make many more.  :)

Knitting for myself...

So I declared after knitting stuff for other people for Christmas last year that I'd be knitting for myself this year.  Well....that didn't last long.  After I finished a couple projects for myself so quickly during my Christmas break I thought that I'd knit a dog sweater for the lady who grooms Toby and Ariel every month.  She has a little Yorkie and I figured it wouldn't take long.  Well, thanks to a nice chunk of knitting time called the Superbowl, I finished it last night!  I only have to weave in the ends, but I thought it deserved a nice photo session anyways.

This pattern came out of the book Dress Your Dog, which has a lot of easy and cute dog sweater patterns.  I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease yarn from our stash that could be easily washed and probably stand up to some wear and tear.

I am also knitting for myself still.  I am working on an infinity scarf using this pattern in a color changing colorway that makes me think of the ocean, a nice sea green/tan/blue.  I think the cables in the pattern make it look like the diamond pattern the ocean leaves in the sand as it recedes after a wave comes in.  That one is in my bag since the knitting isn't too complicated and I can do it while at work and waiting for things.  The other self-knitting project I am working on is socks!  I asked Mom to get me a "sock club" membership last year for my birthday, but it was a bit too expensive.  They send you patterns and yarn to go with them every month, which is still a big leap for me to knit a pair of socks in a month (Hello! Full-Time Job!)  So instead she made up a personal sock club just for me.  It was an every other month deal and she spent a lot of time pairing up sock yarns and sock patterns.  I put them all in a bag and wasn't able to get to any of them last year but this year it was a goal to get some of them done.  I started one recently so there's not much to show in it's photo session.

It's the Froot Loop sock pattern in the Blue Moon Fiber Arts color Dilly Dilly, which looks like it's discontinued.  This guy sits next to me in the living room because his pattern is a bit challenging still.  I can watch Downton Abbey and still knit it though, so it can't be that hard...well that and it's a lot of me staring at the TV and not a lot of knitting going on.

And the storm breaks...

So the weather forecast only has one little day left for us to get some winter weather this week and this morning when I woke up the sun was trying to peak it's head above the fog.  I naturally ran outside to take pictures in the 16 degree weather.  Enjoy!