Matt

The other night I made hamburgers for dinner and they were great! It was hamburgers with the works, including a fried egg on Matt's burger. Homemade fries and a side bean and corn salad. A nice tasty meal. Matt was so proud of his burger, he felt the urge to take a photo (the whole time I was rolling my eyes). Here is the burger he was so proud of.

Now, after Matt has a good meal, he gets...how do I put this...stupid. His full stomach made him hyper and then a big crash came about 15 minutes later.

New Kitten!

I don't know what I was thinking, but I went to the flower market for work, one of the girls that works there had brought in free kittens. My mistake was asking to hold one. It took about 2 seconds for me to call up Matt and say, "Honey, please she is so cute and we'll just try it out for the weekend. If Casper totally hates her, we'll give her back....p-l-e-a-s-e?" This is in my cutest voice that makes it impossible for Matt to say no. That day we brought her home and we tested it out. At first, Casper wasn't so found of her, but by the end of the weekend, they were playing together. And just the other day, I caught them snuggling. I guess she's a keeper. We've named her Rogue.

They're so happy together!

Tour De Lab

A few weeks ago Matt and I finally had a date!!! Instead of going to a bar to get a drink, we would bike 30 miles around the Portland Metro area to get a free beer. Allow me to explain.

The Lucky Lab Brewery hosted the Tour De Lab bike race to raise money for the 24 hour animal hospital in Portland. The choices were to be a "Puppy" or a "Big Dog". We chose the Big Dog because if you do, at the end of the race you get a free pint (and the glass too)! The tour went to all three brew pubs. We started at one in SE where they gave us quite a spread for breakfast, then road to the second at Multnomah village. At this restop we were treated with smoothies, cookies, and of course our dog tails. That's right, we had to dress like a dog to get the beer. Amazing what we'll do for a free pint.

Next stop was in NW Portland where we had pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and dog ears. Finally, our last stop was at the starting point and we got hot dogs, beer, and, to complete our look, dog nose.

It was good beer, good company, a great way to spend a date!

At the start of the race

Restop #1: Tails Getting in a quick stretch before getting our dog ears

Ear and nose! The race is done and we sat enjoying our beers!

The complete dog look

Coleman Hop Farm

For those of you don't know, my dad's sister, my aunt, married a Coleman. For those of you don't know, the Coleman family is huge in St. Paul, Oregon. Why? Because they grow hops that make beer of course! Last weekend Matt and I were able to get a tour of the farm and had such a wonderful time hearing the process of harvesting hops. This weekend we are brewing beer with Willamete hops from the Coleman farm! Here are some photos...

On the hop picking truck.

View of the rows that have already been picked and the rows that had yet to be picked.

Once we collect the vines, we take them to here to get the hops taken off the vine (what a process!)

Inspecting the hops - John (my uncle: The farmer) shows us various damage from wind and mites. That is my aunt Liz in the photo with me.

Once the hops are clean, they are taken here to dry for possibly 7 hours. They dry from underneath. The hops cannot be dried too much or too little. It is a precise timing when to stop drying the hops - thus it is left up to John to decide when the process is done. For him, he can just feel the hop and know when it is ready. Neat, huh?

Thousands of pounds of drying hops. In Matt's words, "This is just beautiful"

A video of the truck picking the hops (it is all done by machine with a little guided help from the workers).

Who wants some beer?

We Can Breathe!

Wow! What a busy couple of months. Since we moved into the new house, we have been unpacking, Matt and Jordan leaving for Michgan for a week, Matt starting a new job, doing some finishing touches to the house (and it is still going), going to Sunriver for a week, having an open house party, going to a concert, and now we have a chance to catch our breath and update our blog. Well there you go. Two months of our lives in one run-on sentence. Man life goes quickly!

Here are a few photos of the house with everything moved in. Granted, since the photos were taken we've put up some curtains and a few new plants (I can't resist). That reminds me...I need to water my plants.

Anywho...here are the photos. We had an open house party...that's why there is a beverage cart in the middle of our kitchen and many flowers and food.

The Mud Room

The Kitchen/Buffet for the Open House

Jordan's Bedroom. Andrea and I painted it when Matt and Jordan were in MI

Sliding Glass Doors to the Backyard

The Bedroom (Bow-chic-a-bow-wow)

The Main Room (sorry its blurry)

The Kitchen (duh)