The Months Summed Up: October

I realize I am SO FAR behind in my blogging. I am going to attempt to catch up! Unfortunately this means skimping on details and mostly letting the pictures do the talking. A photo is work a thousand words right? So sit back an relax and prepare for a multitude blog posts trying to cover the last 4 months!

OCTOBER:

Working on Cait's LONG overdue birthday present while listening to General Conference

Dylan picked me up from a particularly long and stressful day of school begging me to make
him something delicious for dinner bc he was starving. Turns out he had already made dinner!
Just had a few things to finish up when we got home. I sure am spoiled!

First attempt at cinnamon rolls. Turned out I packed them in WAAAY to tight but boy were they delicious!

Dad-you know how you like 2x as much frosting as cake when Mom makes you German chocolate cake for you
birthday? That's how Dylan is with his frosting on cinnamon rolls. 

Our pumpkins!

I asked Dylan if he would help me make some treats for our pumcarty. He asked if
bringing his guitar into the kitchen and serenading me counting as helping. I said of course!
He wanted to help anyway when he saw what I was making! He alternated playing and stirring the
pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

Dylan's punpkin

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

being a goof

I accidentally cut my pumpkin in half trying to carve the Death Star :(

Jess's pumpkin

Terrah's pumpkin

Dylan's final product

The whole crew! (mine never got completed....)

Digital Media Assignment

Just wanted to post what my Digital Media assignment was today. I'm actually pretty impressed how it turned out and can't wait to experiment more with it. I took a color picture and converted it to black and white and then moved the RGB (red, green, blue) channels to created 4 different images (same image, 4 different contrasts) then on each layer changed all the white to a color. The last image is all of the layers put together.

Red

Chartreuse

Gray

White

All of the layers put together

Daddy Long Legs, Who Did Name You?

Dylan stumbled across this website, wimp.com, and this video came up. It made us laugh so hard. I needed to share it. Enjoy.

Lately

My sister Kimberly posted on her blog a bit ago a picture Asher drew and I loved it! Next time Asher got out his markers Kimber told him I liked his last drawing. He then proceeded to draw me a bunch of pictures and sent them to me in the mail!

It reads "Dear Aunt Heather, I drew you a snake, and a duck, and two snakes. No, not two snakes,
a Rainbow! Its gonna have lots of clouds. Will you please put these on your fridge? And I want
you to come to my house. I drew these pictures for you because I love you.  Love, Asher

His drawings. Top Left: Rainbow. Bottom Left: "Hotsy Potsy Caterpillar"
Top Right: Snake and a duck. Bottom Right: A silly caterpillar

Stella came over later that day and drew me a picture too!
This is her when she was a pig and had black hair
[her words not mine!]

Dylan and I have been working on changing out diet to
eat healthier. Dylan is showing signs of dairy allergies
like his Mom and sister so we've been eating careful for a while.
I've also replaced our white rice and pasta for brown rice
and whole wheat noodles!

Quinoa replaced our macaroni noodles in my "frequently used foods jar"
and boy do we love it! 

Quinoa and Beans

1 tsp vegetable oil                                          

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 onion, chopped                                           

salt and pepper to taste

 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped              

1 can corn

3/4 cup uncooked quinoa                               

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth                            

 1 can kidney beans, rinsed

1 teaspoon cumin                                          

 1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic and saute until lightly browned. Rinse quinoa and mix into saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Stir in corn, beans, and cilantro. [I used dry cilantro bc that is what I had on hand]

Quinoa [keen-wah] is a whole protein by itself and cooks almost just like rice. It is extremely versatile and so yummy!

I made a strawberry sorbet and topped it with avocado pudding!
yes, delicious chocolate pudding made from avocados.

I tried to make it pretty and stuff.

Avocado Pudding

2 avocados

2/3 cup agave or honey

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Mix! I mixed mine in my Vitamix and had to add quite a bit of water/milk to move it around. I also used raw honey and it was a bit sweet for me so I added more cocoa powder [next time I will just use less honey]. For the STRAWBERRY SORBET I just threw a bunch of frozen strawberries in my Vitamix and added a tiiiny bit of water.

With school getting so busy I decided to start relying more on my crockpot!
It's so nice to come home from school and not have to worry about one more
thing. I made Santa Fe Chicken tonight

Served with rice [in my peacock bowl I painted at color me mine]

Sante Fe Chicken

2 chicken breasts                                         

1 can kidney beans

1 teaspoon garlic powder                            

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper      

1 small onion, chopped                               

1 teaspoon cumin

1 can diced tomatos with green chilies  [or add 1 small can green chilies]        

1 teaspoon garlic powder         

1/4 cup chopped cilantro   

1 can corn                                                    

salt and pepper to taste

1 can black beans                                         

Combine chicken broth, onion, tomatoes, chilies, corn, beans, cumin, cayenne, garlic, and salt and pepper in crockpot. Lay chicken on top. Cook on Low for 10 hours or High for 6 hours. [I did Low with frozen chicken and it was done when I got home from school 7 hours later] 1/2 hour before serving remove from crockpot and shred. Return to crockpot and stir. Serve over rice or quinoa.

Blueberry Pie

My second homemade pie! I used blueberries from Mom and Dad's. Not too bad looking! And quite tasty  if I do say so (which, I do). My first pie attempt with huckleberries we had picked in the mountain turned out veeeeerry liquidy, so I was careful of that this time. It was still a little liquidy, but not bad at all. Dylan ate the whole pie in 2 days. He did save me a piece though!

Year One

Saturday, August 20, 2011 Dylan and I celebrated our First Anniversary! I can't believe it has been a year already. I feel like we have been together for so much longer, but I also feel like we just started! Everyone says the first year is the hardest, and maybe when we look back on this in a few years we will feel that way, but it sure hasn't felt like it! This has by far been the best year of my life. Dylan is so precious to me. He really is my best friend and knows me better than anyone else. This year has shown us lots of trials in terms of school and moving and other such things, but having Dylan be with me through all this has made these trials a joy. He has helped me grow into a better person. He alone can calm me down when I am a complete stress case! I have learned how to manage myself better and not take certain things so seriously. I have never felt so happy as I do being with Dylan and knowing we were married and sealed together for eternity. Thank you Dylan. I love you.

Okay, I got the gushy stuff out. Now about our day! Even though it was our anniversary, Dylan still had to work. Luckily just one job today! I decided I would go with him. So we woke up at 5:00am and hit the road for North Powder. We spent the morning together changing the irrigation hand line in the farming fields. Dylan made it look so easy! Each span is 40 feet long. Once you drain them of the water they aren't that heavy, but boy are they tricky to manage! Dylan has big hands and long fingers and lots of experience so he had no problem balancing those pipes. Me on the other hand, with my pudgy little fingers, could not for the life of me keep those things balanced! I couldn't keep the sprinkler head on top. I couldn't keep one end off the ground and of course once that hit then I over compensate and the other side hits and then all the sudden I'm trying to manage a 40 ft metal teeter-totter and I can't even walk in a straight line. I finally sort of got the hang of it a little, but I had to stay 2 spans ahead of Dylan to not be in the way! He could easily manage 2 spans in the time I got 1, and then he would come help me hook mine up. It's tough work! (note: I have pictures, they are just on my phone and I haven't figured out how to get them to the computer yet!)

After 2 hours of changing pipe and watching the sunrise, we made our way into Haines. Dylan LOVES huckleberry pie so I was determined to get some for him! We went into the mountains with Tom and Glenda, Glenda's parents, and Carly and Shem and their family. We picked the wild mountain huckleberries and even found a large patch of wild strawberries! They are tiny, but boy do those things pack a punch! So much flavor! After spending the rest of the morning and into the afternoon picking we had enough for two pies (yet to be made. I'll post when they actually get baked :). Dylan and I headed back to La Grande to clean up.

Dylan surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers! Lilies, dahlias, daisies, and another type I don't know the name. I loved them! We then dressed up a little and headed out to Foley Station for dinner. And what a delicious dinner it was! We had a nice calamari appetizer while waiting for Dylan's steak and my shrimp and scallop alfredo. We finished it up with some silk chocolate truffle and key lime pie. We will need to make another trip to Foley Station!

It was such a fun day and I was so grateful to get to spend the whole day with Dylan. I look forward to the many more years we have together!

Portland Adventure

Dylan and I got to Portland Sunday night. Monday morning we hit the road for Seaside! My parents honeymooned here :) I had never been and Dylan hasn't been since he was little.

Asher and Brayden wanted to ride this....until it started moving

neither of them liked it

so I had to finish up the quarter!

Next stop: Candyman! We spun the wheel to win free taffy

Even Everett loved it!

Asher, Brayden, and I looked at EVERY flavor in the store and made sure we
got the best ones!

Kim took the boys on the carrousel while Dylan and I
watched Everett 

They didn't love it at first, but after a round they were
really enjoying themselves!

"That was so much fun!!"

Here is us!

Everett has the cutest faces!

We visited a hat shop and tried on EVEY silly hat they had.
Brayden is being Medusa and Asher is a Birthday Cake

The rooster

She moose

He moose

Moose love

Brayden had the crab hat covering his face and was
swinging around his "pinchers" as fast as he could

lunch!

Enjoying the view

being adventurers. They sure love their Uncle Dylan!

Asher INSISTED he had his picture taken in this window
(it's a home decor store)

Beach Time!

skim boarding

Everett loves the beach

Brayden skim boarding!

Throwing the board for Asher

running to jump on

he lands just to have the board shoot out from under him!

he wanted to go again! what a champ.

waiting for the board to come

WIN!

I fall a lot.

Dylan never falls. Ever.

almost took out Brayden hah.

oh look, I'm in the water again. surprise surprise.

sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it REALLY hurts

Asher warming up

garden fresh!

The next day we went to the temple! Kimberly and the kids waited outside
while Dylan and I did some temple work. It was fun to be back at the
Portland Temple 11.5 months after we got married there!

The many faces of Everett Bradford Janeway

What a beautiful place

This was an awesome bridge! We crossed it like 20x because the gps kept
leading us the wrong way. We just wanted to get to OMSI!

We went to the Narnia exhibit first, but we couldn't
take pictures there :( 

Gross. Earwax.

Waiting for the submarine tour to start!

All of the gray pipes on top would retract into the top of the sub when
it submerged.

Brayden could not wait to get in there!

The stairs were really steep so Dyl helped out a little

Captain's chair

Sonar room. We hear orcas and dolphins!

Torpedo. the silver cap on the end stays with the sub and inside is a spool of wire that is connected to
the torpedo. It's 20 miles long! If the target changes course or speed or anything the sub wires the info to the
torpedo so it can correct it's course. If for any reason the wire gets cut the torpedo also has sonar on the nose to
find it's target.

The best beds in the house, second only to the captain's quarters!

66 beds for 73 men

Galley

Control room

Asher couldn't go since he wasn't old enough. We met up with him and
Kimber and the baby at the science playground after

This house simulates different strengths of earthquakes

When we weren't out adventuring we were cleaning house and helping Kim and Sean get things organized. We went to the farmer's market a few times and Kimberly and I probably played a million rounds of rummikub. We had so much fun! We were going to leave for La Grande on Friday, but decided to make a quick trip up to Mom and Dad's since we were so close! We spent Friday and Saturday morning in Enumclaw before heading back home. It was such a great trip and so fun to spend time with the Janeways! I can see this trip happening again!