Off to Medford!

This last weekend Mom and I drove down to Medford, OR to see my best friend Nicole and her family.  Every other year one of us drives up or down to visit and this was my year to go down.  I am doing my second round of IVF, so I had an appointment on Friday morning and then we drove all the way from Seattle to Medford.  Our original plan was to drive to Salem and stay the night and then finish the drive, but the doctor's appointment interrupted that plan.  We did keep to the plan to drive the 205 around Portland, because two years ago we got stuck going through, and it slowed down but never stopped.  It was still a long hard drive as always; our butts were sore, our minds fried from driving and the dogs ready to never see the inside of the car again.  I am currently reading Voyager, the third book in the Outlander series, and the audiobook kept us company for many, many miles.  We made it in around 9 and I had to run over to the Fred Meyer right across from the hotel to get isopropyl alcohol and gauze pads for my injections, which were starting the next day, as well as a plastic container to keep the sharps in because the pharmacy didn't give me one and only two alcohol pads.  :/  Nicole came over after she got off work and we hugged and talked and made plans for the next day.


On Saturday, Nicole had to go to work at noon so Mom and I got up and ready and headed over to her house to visit before she had to go.  Emily came running out as soon as we got there and Nicole had told me she was asking when we'd show up for weeks before hand.  Tony and Matthew were also there and we all hung out and chatted for a bit.  Emily knew that Mom and I were going to take her to Ashland for the day to go shopping and then meet up with Nicole for her dinner break, so she was anxious to go.  Finally it was time for Nicole to go, so we all packed up and headed out.  Emily, Mom and I all followed Nicole to Ashland, where she works for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in their IT department.  She had a little time before work so we headed down to the Unicorn Gifts & Toy Shop first.  Emily had five dollars from her birthday and I gave both her and Matthew twenty dollars, as I'd missed their birthdays in July.  I was excited to help her learn how to use money and we spent a lot of time in the store figuring out how much she could get with her twenty five dollars.  At first she was going to use it all, but then she wanted to save some for the candy store to, in her words, "buy candy for everyone."  She finally settled on a Playmobile fairy, which cost half her money, and she even gave the clerk the money all by herself.  Then we went across to Zoey's for ice cream as both Mom and I were famished.  Emily opened up her toy and put it all together and we took pictures of it how she wanted with the fairy against the green foliage out the window so it looked like she was outside and flying.

Next we headed down to the Sew Creative fabric store for Mom and I saw something in Paddington Station, the store right before it, so Emily and I stopped in there while Mom went on.  I ended up getting one of those Home T-shirts (in Washington State, of course!) and then we went around to the other side of two stores.  This side had all sorts of stuff!!  Upstairs there were tons of kitchen items, teapots, kettles (I wanted the turquoise one), and cute homewares.  On the main floor there was a whole section of Doctor Who items, scarves, bags, slippers and...toys.  Emily found a stuffed Ty Unicorn and wanted it really bad.  I told her it would cost her half of what she had left and she felt that there would still be enough for candy for her and Matthew.  I'd told her that she didn't need to buy candy for everyone and that Mom and I were going to buy our own.  I helped her count out the amount she needed and then had her give the clerk the money again.  Since she didn't need a bag she even got an extra 10 cents back.  Downstairs in the store there were Christmas ornaments, wooden signs and the clearance area.  There I saw a fine art picture of the TARDIS and took a picture to show Nicole and Tony.  It would go great in their bathroom.

There was also a Frozen glitter tattoo kit that had been reduced to almost nothing, so I bought that for Emily and I to do later that night.  Emily told me that she needed to ask her Mom before she got a tattoo and I said that was a good idea to do at any time in her life.  We met up with Mom and then meandered over to the yarn store, Websters.  The last time we were there I had let Emily pick out some yarn and then I made her a cloak.  This time we couldn't really decide what to make but I told her I'd thought of making some arm warmers for her and she added the idea of leg warmers too.  We found some nice pink yarn and then Mom showed me that they had the small skeins of yarn we use to make hats out of.  The yarn is by Madelintosh and is called Unicorn Tails because they are little cute twisted skeins in a rainbow of colors.  I chose out two groups of four and Emily loved one of the color sets, so I will be making a hat as well.  Finally we went over to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory.  Both Mom and I knew that we wanted chocolate covered toffee when we got in there, but Emily was overwhelmed with the choices of chocolate.  Finally I found out that she was just looking for plain chocolate and we picked out a bar.  Then she wanted some gummies and saw some gummy bears, which she said Matthew would like too (though I don't think he saw a single one).  She poured out two scoops and I said that was probably all her money.  I was prepared to add some to it if she was over but when the lady weighed it out it ended up costing $5.15, which was exactly what Emily had.  Happy all around with her purchases we sat outside and ate some chocolate.  Then, with the sugar pumping through her system, Emily said she needed to go run it off in the park. I told her I didn't think that it had a playground or anything, but we went anyway. Lithia Park is so beautiful!  It had a waterfall that filled a duck pond and lots of trees and lawns.  There was a man playing a cello with a small group of people around him and lots of people just lounging.  Mom and I sat in the shade and Emily ran to a tree and back, having us time her.  Then she started doing handstands and I asked her if she could to a cartwheel.  She tried a couple of times and I said she needed to kick her feet more over her head.  She said she didn't know how.  I said I think I might still be able to do one, so I got up and ya know what?!  I can still do a cartwheel!  So we did a couple of those and we played around a bit running back and forth.  Finally it was too hot to do anymore, so we walked up behind the Shakespeare Festival buildings to the car where we sat in the air conditioning for a bit.  Tony and Matthew happened to show up at that time and so we all walked back down to the Standing Stone Brewery for lunch/dinner.  Nicole had texted her order to me so we got our table and ordered so that she could show up and not go over on her break.

I ordered a Margherita pizza and a house-made root beer (no beer beer for me on IVF drugs).  Mom got a burger and we split our meals.  Nicole and Tony got sandwiches and Matthew and Emily got cheese quesadillas.  Emily wasn't very happy with her meal and I asked her if she wanted a bite of burger instead.  Making a face only she could she said, "That's even worse!"  I need a kid just for the entertaining commentary.  After Nicole went back to work, the rest of us headed back to the house.  Emily got chocolate chip pancakes made by her dad to make up for her lack of dinner, while Matthew watched videos...

Mom knit, Tony and his brother fixed the air conditioner and Emily and I played.  First we played with her Playmobile house.  Then we colored.  Then she played in the pool, while Tony and I watched and talked.  Then we did tattoos and dressed up and had a tea party (while I talked in an English accent, of course!).  As it was getting late we started reading books and eventually Nicole made it home.  We all sat and talked some more and I remembered the zucchini I had grabbed from our garden to bring to her.  And finally it was time for bed.  I was pooped.


On Sunday we had the whole day together.  Mom and I slept in and then headed over to see what we wanted to do.  It had been pretty smokey in Medford, but that day it was relatively clear.  Nicole mentioned the Oregon Vortex and Mystery House as something to do and I knew that would be right up Mom's alley.  She loves crazy phenomena.  So we all loaded up in my car and headed out.  It was a blast!  It turns out its a whole area where heights are distorted and a lot of other weird things happen.  On the tour there was a lot of changing heights and in the house weird things happen like bottles rolling up hill.  Inside there is a platform that is completely level and when you stand on it you get very dizzy.  Mom ended up buying the book of the man who did the most research on it and is currently obsessed.

After that fun we drove back to Medford and on the way I saw a sign for the Rogue Creamery.  If there is one thing that Oregon does really well, it's cheese.  We got some classic sharp cheddar and their special Chocolate Stout Cheddar, which was a really smooth delicious cheddar.  We went back to their house and had a little cheese platter with crackers and apples for a small lunch and then hung out.  That night Nicole had gotten free tickets for us to go see The Count of Monte Cristo.  Because she works for OSF she gets a certain number of tickets to see their plays.  We went to dinner at the Black Bear Diner, dropped Emily off at a baby sitter's and then headed off for an adult's night out.  We got to Ashland early enough to watch the Green Show on the lawn and watch a pretty strung out guy do some interpretive dancing.  Then it was time for the show!  This one was showing in the Elizabethan open air theatre and it was amazing!  Not only was the play excellent, you got to slowly watch the sunset and the stars come out.  It was so beautiful!  And after an awesome night and great conversation in the car (sorry about the critique of your driving Nicole!) we picked up the kiddo and all passed out in our respective beds.


Monday was the day we were leaving, but I wanted to meet Nicole and Emily for breakfast before we headed out.  We met them at their house and ended up eating at the Palms Cafe which had huge breakfasts for low prices.  Emily had said she wanted to eat at a breakfast place before we left, but she doesn't eat much in the mornings, so the three of us ate and she colored and snacked on bacon.  Then it was time to say our goodbyes.  It seems like so long and no time at all between visits!  Mom and I started on our way back up to Seattle (because I had another doctor appointment on Tuesday) and ended up stopping in Eugene at Voodoo Doughnuts.  Neither of us went for any crazy flavors but man they were so good!

Eugene, however, is not my kind of town.  Lots of liberal crazy people.  On our way over to the donut shop there was an overweight lady walking around bare foot in a belly shirt and short skirt carrying a small cat on a leash, then there was a shirtless kilt-wearing-dreadlock-toteing dude and it seemed like no woman there wore a bra.  And that was just on our way to the store!  Yeah, no.  That was our only major stop on our way up and we got into Seattle around 9:30.  We were glad to be free to move around and not sit on our keisters anymore.  Nicole also texted me on our way up to Seattle that we'd forgotten to take any pictures together!  I was SO sad!  Some of our selfies are my favorite pictures that I have.  Guess we'll have to figure a way to see each other just to take a picture! ;)

Recipe Tuesday :: Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Well, that was quite a break!  Sorry about the radio silence for the past 3 weeks, but life got busy and complicated and I just felt like curling up into a ball and sleeping the stress away instead of blogging.  But I'm back!  And there will be a life post soon, but since it is Tuesday, a recipe blog was required.  It gets me back into the swing of things too.

My Aunt Carla follows my blog and has to endure the torture of seeing all the cupcake blogs I post, but never getting to taste them.  (I'm sure she's part of a large group out there...and by large I mean all 30 of you that read my blog.)  But she put in a special request for her birthday, Chocolate Orange cupcakes.  I've known that this is one of her favorite flavor combinations and I had all sorts of ideas of a chocolate cupcake with orangey essence in it, maybe an orange curd inside and a chocolate ganache on top.  The time I had didn't allow for curd making however, so off to Pinterest I went and came back with Dark Chocolate Orange Cupcakes by Bake for Coffee.

Now I tweaked the recipe (of course!), trading out the milk in the cupcakes for buttermilk and trading out the milk in the frosting for heavy cream.  The buttermilk trick was from my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe which was almost identical to this one without it.  And the heavy cream was to make the frosting creamier, obviously.

They turned out really good and I topped the cupcakes with pieces of Lindt Intense Orange dark chocolate bar.  They went over great, though Carla said that buttercream wasn't her favorite frosting.  We both agreed that next year it should be chocolate ganache!

Recipe Tuesday :: How to Use Up a Large Zucchini

Things are a-growing in the garden and that means dinners and food planned by what's available.  I checked the garden yesterday when I got home and the baby zucchini that I saw last week have turned into pickable sized zucchini.  I ran in and scoured Pinterest for something to make with zucchini for dinner and found this lovely one-pot recipe by Damn Delicious.  So out I went to bring in one just big enough for that recipe.  I swear that from the time I went in until I got back to the garden to pick it, that the zucchini got bigger.  Swear to it.  So as I was slicing it up for dinner I could tell I had too much to use it all up.  This called for a quick recipe for some zucchini bread for dessert, which meant it HAD to include chocolate chips.  Had to.  Enter the amazing it-sounds-like-it's-healthy-but-we-know-it's-not Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread recipe by Flavor the Moments.

I added a grilled chicken breast on the side to the dinner meal for some protein.  I also didn't have cremini mushrooms on hand so I omitted them and instead of fresh thyme I used fresh basil (which was delish).  That said I wasn't the biggest fan of this one-pot recipe.  I wanted it to taste like the picture looked on the website; flavorful with steamy fresh vegetables in a creamy sauce over noodles.  Instead I got bland watery-cream sauce on noodles with over-done vegetables.

I loved the flavors together though, so this recipe had that going for it.  My suggestion is to take the zucchini and peas and steam them so they are fresh and just done perfectly.  Then take my cousin Melinda's expert veggie spice (salt, pepper, garlic powder) and make them go from meh to a-meh-zing.  I'd also get that cream sauce up to par with my favorite light alfredo sauce from Cooking Light.  Cook those noodles al dente, top it with the sauce and veggies and some some fresh cut basil and then a grilled chicken breast on the side and BAM!  That picture just became reality.

The zucchini bread was, of course, awesome because how hard is it to make zucchini bread?  I really did love the coconut and chocolate chips in this one though.  It helped it go from brunch staple to dessert.

And who doesn't love a warm dessert with milk at the end of the day?

To the Cabin...

We headed up last Friday to The Cabin.  For those of you who don't know about our cabin, it's not the nice, well kept cabin on the lake that you're seeing in your mind.  This is a four-walls-and-a-roof-no-glass-in-the-windows-walls-don't-really-reach-the-ceiling-in-some-places-home-to-packrats-more-of-the-year-than-people kinda cabin.  But it's ours.  Since the weekend was forecasted to have highs in the 100s we decided to buy dry ice to put in the food coolers so it wouldn't spoil in the heat.  We headed up to Ellensburg where we stopped at the Fred Meyers to pick up the dry ice.  Uncle Fred said that they'd have some and we'd called to check and they said they carried it.  They didn't say that anyone ever checked to see if they'd ordered any.  When Mom went in and the lady took her to get it they unlocked the chest and it was empty.  So then we drove over to Safeway, but they didn't carry any at all.  Our last stop was at the Super 1 Foods and the third time was a charm!  We put 5 pounds in the "refrigerator" cooler and 10 pounds in the "freezer" cooler.  Then we headed out on the drive up to Wilbur to meet David and his fiancee Jennie.  Last year as we climbed the hill on the other side of Vantage we had a tire start to fall apart.  This year all went well with our tires but there was an accident on that same hill.  It looked like a little red sports car clipped a white suburban and they did such an excellent job of it that the back axel on the sports car broke.  The back passenger wheel was sitting at quite an angle.  It hadn't happened long before we got there because there were people in the road stopping the traffic all the way across our side of the high way.  There was only a semi-truck in front of us so we had front row seats to the action.  Lots of guys from the semi-trucks and vehicles came forward and they pushed the sports car off the road.  While they were doing that however, idiots started driving in the ditch up the side of the road to get around the traffic jam.  A semi-truck a few cars behind us started to pull out too and Mom and I were like "Really?!"  But he was just blocking the side of the road so those a**holes couldn't cause more of a jam than we already had.  After the suburban got itself off the road too the traffic started moving again, but there was one car from the jerks-r-us train left on the side of the road and you better believe not one of us let them in.  The rest of the drive was uneventful and we met up with David, Jennie and Tayla at Doxies in Wilbur.  We had to eat outside because we brought the dogs with us and they couldn't be left for a moment in the truck.  We made it to the cabin around 5 PM and it was really hot, probably around 100.  The door had been left open and it was full of crap from packrats.  There was probably a whole tree in there.  David cleaned it out and Mom burned the debris in a small fire because we were afraid of any sparks getting caught up in the wind and it wasn't like we needed more heat!  After getting the camp set up we ate our dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs and fell into our beds.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of the moon...

Jennie, Mom, David and Tayla

Saturday morning we got up and you could feel it was already getting hot.  We ate our breakfast and then David and Jennie went up to get trees for cutting up to bring back for firewood this winter for us.  Mom and Tayla went in to Colville to get wood for a deck that we had decided to build at the front of the cabin.  I stayed and removed the old concrete blocks and tried to get the new blocks in place.  When they got back, Tayla went up and helped her dad and Mom and I set to work building deck.  First we put up a blue tarp and moved David's canopy over so the place was shaded.  When we put up the tarp a whole bunch of wasps started swarming at the end of the cabin's roof.  We sprayed them but there were a couple that still would come back and pester us but at least most of them were dead.  Then we leveled the blocks and got the frame made.  We had to move the blocks at this point because we didn't have them placed correctly.  We were going to do two framing posts in the box of the deck, but we didn't have enough brackets to do that, so we only put one in.  When we laid the boards across the top it seemed to give in places and was going to be too weak.  So then we used the L brackets we had and put in two more posts, ending up with 3 instead of 2!  Somewhere in the middle of doing this it felt like to me that all of a sudden the heat just really built in, like the temperature had risen quickly in just a few minutes.  Mom had brought a thermometer with us to be able to see just how hot it got.  It was around 2:30 PM and the thermometer said it was 103.  By the time we were getting tired, Leslie and Justin had showed up and so they and Jennie helped put the screws in the top boards.  Then we all brought chairs up and admired the new deck with some front porch sitting.

On the way to the creek we found some fauna...

Justin showing us up at carpentry

The high temp on Saturday

I french braided their tails to try to keep them clean

When we were doing the calculations the night before we thought we would need another step for getting into the cabin, but once it was all put together we didn't need a step at all!  The deck was perfect.  As a present to ourselves we set up the shower and each took one to cool ourselves down.  It didn't take long to heat up the creek water to lukewarm for the showers.  Dinner that night was spaghetti and it was delicious and well earned.  Through dinner we started drinking and got Justin and a few others of us drunk and had a blast trying to teach Justin how to dance.  We also roasted marshmallows and ate smores and had a rocking good time.  Leslie and Justin stayed the night with us, so Mom and I slept on the queen bed together and gave Leslie the "matriarch" bed and set up another cot for Justin.  When I got into bed and settled myself in, it sounded like something cracked under me.  But when Mom got in and settled herself, there was a definite crack and things falling under the bed.  We thought it was the plywood and just slept carefully that night.  Both of us clung to the outside because we knew the framing boards were still good, but the mattress dipped in the center, which made that difficult.  We both slept poorly that night because of the mattress and because it was so hot.  I slept in a tank top and shorts, mosquitos be damned.

Sunday morning most of us rose early as it was supposed to be even hotter.  You could tell it was getting warmer earlier than the day before and Justin and David ran off to cut up the trees David had brought in.  Mom and I wanted to go up to the beaver pond, so while Leslie and Tayla ran into town to get more ice we went off.  The pond was REALLY low!  It looked like the beaver were gone and you could hear a lot of water going over the falls.  The dam looked pretty much intact and we couldn't see where the water was going through.  I took pictures and we walked a bit around the perimeter and then headed back.  It was getting hot.  

The beaver lodge almost out of the water

Next we climbed up Mom's mountain to the circle of rocks and I read the readings for Sunday.  A little church in the mountains.  Then we headed back to the camp.  We were really sweating and the temp was at 99.  

Justin and David cutting wood

We sat on the deck and placed wet rags on ourselves to cool off.  The heat was rising and we kept drinking water and wetting rags.  I'd brought two little fans and a solar powered battery, but eventually we turned them off because they were just blowing hot air.  I would take my rag and wet it in the ice water in the cooler and then put it on the back of my neck.  We were just completely soaked.  Your entire body was sweating and you couldn't do anything but sit there.  Eventually everything just looked hot, it was like the whole world was tinged with yellow.  The temp got up to 114 that day.  We talked and read some magazines but couldn't do much in that heat.  That afternoon we lifted up my mattress and found that there wasn't any plywood under the springs, just some framing in the middle which had broken.  So Justin and I cut a new piece of 2X4 for the center frame and created a post out of the broken piece to strengthen the frame.  

The high temp on Sunday

He ripped off the sleeves of the shirt and made a headband...and he's burping.

Copper wire LED lights make it look so home-y

Innehecute?!

Leslie and Justin were going to leave that day, so after help fixing the bed they took off and Tayla went with them.  She was not doing well in the heat and really needed to go back to some air conditioning.  But not 10 minutes later they were back because Justin felt really bad about leaving his dad to load all that wood.  So we made hamburger stew for dinner as the temperature started dropping.  After dinner Leslie, Justin and Tayla took off again and the rest of us made smores and I worked a little at my wood carving.  It started getting really dark so we headed to bed and another hot night, sleeping with all the windows in the cabin open.  During the night or early Monday morning it rained a little and you could really feel the temperature drop, thank goodness.

Monday morning we got up and it was cloudy and a really nice temp.  We ate breakfast and David wanted to take Jennie up to the Madonna tree.  Mom and I hadn't made it up there the day before so we went and saw both that and Grammy's tree.  

We eat well at the cabin

The Madonna Tree

Tallest tree in the forest folks

Grammy's tree

Then I had wanted to scout out this path I'd seen in the meadow near the cabin to see if it went around the other side of the beaver pond.  I'm looking for a new place to possibly build a new cabin in the far future.  It did come out on the other side of the pond and David and Jennie were on the dam, seeing where the water was going through.  There was a big hole under the dam where it looks like a big rain storm washed it away.  Because the water was so low you could see an old sluice on the other side of the waterfall and some manmade piece of what was an old dam.  We worked at putting some branches in the hole so that other debris would start blocking it up again.  

Pieces of a manmade dam

See the old sluice?

Mom and I found a pretty nice flat place above the pond that could be a good spot for a new cabin.  There isn't a creek, but it wouldn't be too far down to dig a well.  As Mom and I headed back to the cabin and David and Jennie went up to the mill building and the other cabins.  Then it was time to pack it up.  We got it all broken down and headed out around 2:30.  I wanted to stop and pick up some slate on the side of the road that I'd seen on the way up, so Mom and I stopped while David and Jennie headed on to Sandy's Drive-In, where we were meeting for lunch.  While I was looking through the rocks a truck with a single light on the top turned towards where Mom was parked on the side of the road, took the road behind her, paused and they were sort of watching me, then turned around and took off really fast.  I thought, "Great I'm going to be arrested for picking up rocks on the side of the road," and so I grabbed the few I'd picked and put them in the truck including a really heavy large one that would have made my Grammy proud.  Then we took off back on the road to Sandy's.  I saw a couple more cars pass us heading the other way and thought maybe they were going to turn around and ask me to give up the rocks.  But I managed to avoid the coppas this time!  We ate lunch and then all took off our separate ways.  Mom drove back down to Wilbur and then we switched drivers and I drove home.  Around Almira you could see this hanging smoke cloud extending out over the wheat fields.  In the far distance there were giant smoke columns and as we drove out of Ephrata to I-90 you could really see how big the fire was.  We found out the next day that was the Sleepy Hollow fire near Wenatchee.  We could see the smoke cloud and columns more than 100 miles away.  And now we are set to break a record number of days with highs at or above 100 degrees.  The old record was 7 and we met that today with the forecast looking like we could have up to 5 days or more of 100 degree weather.  What a sticky way to start summer...

Teepees on Soap Lake on the way home