Raspberry Jam

Adam has a fantastic boss...Bill. When Adam first starting working at his law firm, Bill sent him home with a dozen fresh eggs from his chickens. On Tuesday, Bill invited us, along with anyone else from the office who wanted to come, to his house to pick raspberries. He had a TON of berries. We picked quite a few. Adam ate most of the ones that he picked! My basket was much more full!

When we got home I gave the berries a little photo shoot. Some of the raspberries were as big as strawberries.

Then...I made jam. It is my first time making it by myself. Aunt Maylene would always invite Alona and I over to help her make jam when she ordered berries. I gave Maylene a call and got to work. (I only had one mishap...I accidentally turned on the wrong burner. I put a pot of water on to boil and turned around to start on the dishes and I heard a loud popping noise. I turned around and noticed that I had turned on the back burner instead of the front. Unfortunately, I had a zip lock bad full of breadsticks on it. My burner now has melted plastic on it. Does any body know how to get that off?)

I haven't actually tried the jam yet. I just made it yesterday and it is supposed to freeze for 24 hours. While I waited I couldn't resist making these little labels for them. They stick right on. And I am proud to say I used one of the pictures from our photo shoot...taken right on my kitchen counter!

Palouse LaTrek

The "Palouse LaTrek" for those of you who don't know, is a hiking group compiled mostly of retired women. You might be wondering how I know about this group...well, I suppose I am part of it! One of Adam's co-workers, Anne, is part of this group. Every Wednesday they pick a new hike and hit the trail. Today we went to White Pines. It is about 45 miles from Moscow.

Here is a picture of a 600 year old White Pine. They had to cut it down last year because it finally died.

Here is a shot of some of the group. There were 15 of us today. (They all thought I was much younger than I am!!!) All of the ladies were very nice. I got to know quite a few of them. Moscow is quite a melting pot. In this group there were women (and this is a women only group) from the US, Germany, France, Poland, England, Malaysia and probably a few others that I am missing. I loved listening to all of the accents.

In it not publicized nor posted anywhere, but up on the White Pines trail, if you know where to go, you can find this old WWII plane wreckage. It was spread out over a good chunk of the mountain top.

We had to hike through some pretty thick brush to get to it all.

The soldiers survived the plane crash. The ejected before they hit the mountain and then had to make their way to the bottom for help without a trail.

This fallen sign was posted by the majority of the wreckage.

All in all it was a good day. They have invited me to join them next week (where we might add a little huckleberry picking to the hike). It keeps me busy and helps me meet new people while I'm looking for a job!

The Perfect Weekend

Last Friday Adam texted me from work and asked if I wanted to go camping when he got home. I said "YES" and began preparing for the outing. I got the foil dinners ready and packed up the car. The only thing I forgot was the lawn chairs and MY CAMERA...Dang! Thank goodness my phone has a decent camera. We drove 50 miles to Elk River and drove around the creek looking for a perfect spot. We found a good one! There was an opening in the trees so we could see the stars from our tent! We didn't do much that night but eat and sleep!

In the morning we woke up and drove down the creek and found some good fishing spots.

The creek was so beautiful. The phone camera didn't do it justice!

I just like taking pictures of Adam! He's down in the creek looking for a good spot.

Adam was the first to catch a fish. They were just little guys! He did catch a 5 or 6 inch fish that he was pretty proud of. It was good for that creek.

After a morning of fishing, we drove up to the cedar grove. They have HUGE red cedars there. Adam said it reminded him the Redwoods. The tree behind me is 3,000 years old. It was amazing.

This shot gives a little more perspective.

It even had a nice little seat...

After the cedars we ended up fishing for a few more hours. I even caught a few and am proud to announce that I took the fish off the line by myself. I was still a little traumatized from the last fish I caught (see previous post), but these were much more manageable.

We finally left Elk Creek and got some dinner and huckleberry ice cream. It was delicious. We headed home and stopped at every camp ground between Elk River and Moscow...just to scout them out for our next adventure. We already have one planned!!

Weekend in Donnelly

Adam's good buddy, Brandon, invited us to spend the weekend with him and his family and a few other friends. We couldn't turn down the offer...so Adam took Friday off of work and we hit the road.

Disclaimer: Okay...so these next three pictures are supposed to be at the very bottom! I forgot about them, and couldn't move them without too much trouble, so here they are...at the beginning.

The GPS took us by Dworshak Dam. It was huge. I think it said it was 717 feet high.

More of the Dam...

Here is one of the little dirt roads the GPS took us on. I loved this little barn out in the middle of no where.

This is where our weekend really began!

The good thing about leaving late was that we got to enjoy a beautiful Idaho sunset. I wish I could have taken a picture of Adam taking these pictures. We opened the sun roof and he took it from there. Don't worry...I was driving.

Here is another shot with the silo's.

Once we got to the real mountainous area, the sun was down. As I was watching the truck in front of us I noticed that it said "Humble, TX" on the mud flap. It was a little shocking! Who knew I'd get a little reminder of home on a small Idaho road?!

It was too late for anything fun that night, but the next morning we were up bright and early wake boarding and surfing. It was only 60 degrees in the morning when we would go. I froze the whole day!

We decided to go hiking and fishing in the afternoon. That helped to warm me up! Here is Adam and Brandon up ahead.

Here is a shot of the lake we hiked to. I can't remember the name of it, but I think it is Loon Lake or something like that. Perhaps near Boulder Mountain? Don't quote me on that!

We brought our lunches with us and found this nice spot to eat.

While Adam and I ate, Brandon got started fishing. At one point, he got his fly line caught in the tree behind him and got so frustrated trying to get it out that he threw his pole in the lake. Adam laughed and laughed for a good long time.

This log was by where we ate. I think those are termite trails...I'm not sure, but I thought they looked really neat.

We went to a spot where there were no trees for us to get our lines caught in and started fishing away. I had never fly fished before, so Adam got his all set up before he gave me lessons.

And what do you know...I caught a fish!!! In fact, I was the only one to catch a fish. I don't think these two expert fishermen were really happy with me...neither was the fish for that matter.

Adam got some nice shots of me fishing...by nice, I mean the angle and the scenery.

When we got back, some other friends had arrived (Josh and Emily). We hit the lake again and had a lot of fun watching these guys to all their fancy tricks. This is Josh doing a flip. He just needs to work on the landing!

Here is Adam out on the wake board. He is really good.

And it's my turn. It was my goal for this trip to be able to cross the wake. Mission accomplished. I was successfully able to go back and forth!

Unfortunately, I got a little too over confident and tried to catch some "air". I was only going for a couple of inches...In stead, I got a face full of the lake. After a few face plants, I decided to take a break.

Brandon was up next. He was so close to doing a 360. It was the landing that killed him too!

The next day we went for another hike. Well, we drove most of the way, but we were in nature! We are up by the Brandage ski resort.

This rock made me a little nervous. It was a long way down.

Adam was a little more daring than I was and was climbing all over the place.

The highlight of the day was throwing/pushing boulders over the edge. Don't worry, there was no one below us. They would fall forever and then shatter into millions of pieces. I liked it more than I thought I would!

We found another little lake for some rock skipping and throwing contests.

Adam and Brandon definitely won those. I didn't know it was possible to skip a rock so many times.

Adam had been dying to go out on "The Maharajah", this giant wooden ski that no one likes and is supposedly really hard to get up on. (That is the cabin we stayed at in the background)

Getting ready for his big ride!

He actually got up really easy. Brandon got up to 43 miles an hour. We were going so fast. Adam stayed up the whole time, but it wore him out pretty quick.

We went the church the next day in McCall, ate lunch, played Scum, and headed home...the back way. We decided to follow the directions the GPS gave us. We ended up on some crazy dirt roads. Fun...but not quick!

The Fourth of July

We had a really fun 3rd and 4th of July. The Costello's came up to visit Sean and we kind of invited ourselves along! We count them as our first visitors, even though they didn't come to visit us. We loved having them here. On Friday morning we rounded up all of the bikes we had and road out near Pullman, WA to the Grizzly Bear reserve.

It is about a 7 mile bike ride out there.

The weather out here is amazing! We went riding at 11:00 in the morning and I wasn't even really sweating! Definitely not in Houston any more!

The bears weren't really out that day, but I go back often and I snapped a few shots of them playing.

They are pretty amazing animals, and I am more certain now that I never want to be involved in a bear attack!

Here we are getting ready to go! We invited everyone over for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches when we got home. Nothing like a hot bowl of soup to cool you down after a nice long bike ride! (It's all we had!)

On Saturday morning the Costello's took us all out to breakfast at Adam's favorite morning restaurant. "The Breakfast Club". It was delicious. I had potato pancakes. After breakfast we went to the Farmer's Market and got some stuff for our afternoon BBQ. We even got a strawberry rhubarb pie. It was delicious! The park was really nice and there weren't many people there, which was perfect!

The Costello's brought their dog, Phineas, and the boys were having a lot of fun playing with him. They are watching him fetch something that they threw in the stream!

I couldn't resist taking some scenic shots. The sun was just setting, and it was beautiful!

They have giant dandelions here. They were too tempting not to photograph!

That night Adam and I wanted to go into Pullman to watch the fireworks. We invited our neighbors, Jon and Stephanie, to come with us.

It was an awesome show. What made it even better was the fact that we were right under the fireworks. We just laid down and enjoyed the show. We were right by a playground and this kid climbed to the top of the slide and was watching from up there. It looked so cool when the fireworks would go off behind him.

We were playing with the shutter speed on the camera and got some cool shots.

Happy Independence Day!

After the fireworks, we came back home and set off a few of our own. Adam couldn't resist making a Piccolo Pete bomb...or two!

We had a lot of fun messing with the shutter speed. Here I am trying to write "Adam". You can almost read it, if you look closely.

Some more of our little fire crackers exploding.

We pulled in all the forces for our last tribute to America! God Bless the USA!