Thanksgiving Recap

Hello all! Sorry for the delay on the Thanksgiving post. Since Thanksgiving fell so late this year, I was swept away in final projects, papers, and presentations as soon as I got back to Ellensburg.

Instead of going down to California this year, we all went to Leavenworth to have Thanksgiving at my mom's house. Luckily my mom's dining room is the biggest room in the house, because there were 12 or 13 (Debbie, Carson, and crew; Paul, Laura, and crew; Gramoose, Nick, Mom, and I... Lots of dogs!) of us crammed into that house. Also, luckily, my mom was able to get cabins for all of us at her work, because that made the whole thing a lot easier. The weather was clear and cold the whole time, which was a bit of a change from the usual California weather! 

I drove over from Ellensburg on Tuesday afternoon. We went shopping for all the dinner supplies and won a free frozen turkey on top of the fresh one we had just bought. We went home and celebrated with some hot buttered rums :)

The next morning, I took Sunny on a gorgeous walk around Blackbird island which is down below town right by the river.

 Everyone arrived in waves on Wednesday. We had beer and brats with Debbie, Carson, Nick, Gramoose, and the girls, and then when Paul arrived we got everyone settled into their cabins to prepare for the work that lay ahead on Thursday.

On Thursday morning Paul prepped the turkey and got it started in the barbecue, and then mom and I made pies.

The turkey turned out beautifully! Paul has the barbecue method down! We had to take turns in the kitchen and wash each dish we used in between turns because there is also no dishwasher in the house!

After Thanksgiving dinner, a group of us went on a walk down to town to get our wiggles out and see some Christmas lights.


Jay wasn't able to make it for Thanksgiving dinner, but he was able to come over the day after and see everyone for a little bit before they all left on Saturday morning. Friday night we went out to dinner at a nice pizza place, and then since Debbie and crew's flight was pretty early on Saturday, Debbie, Carson and crew left around 7a.m. with Nick and Gramoose.





Jay and I went on a short little hike. It's called Icicle Creek Gorge, and it's a short little loop. The dogs loved it, although it started drizzling a short ways into it and I was freeeeeeezing!

Before Jay and I left for home on Sunday, we piled into my mom's truck and drove out to Cashmere to find a Christmas tree. We ended up finding a really cute little tree farm that we're planning on going to again next year. There were a lot of trees with blue pine needles, so we decided to go for one of those since we had never seen them before. One of the people working there told us the blue trees are Colorado blue pines.

Overall, the holiday felt like it flew by way too fast! I think that's all the pictures I have... We were all so busy trying to cook on Thursday that I wasn't really able to get too many family pics. Overall, the food was good, the family was good, the location was good! Definitely looking forward to heading back to Leavenworth during this winter break so I can go cross-country skiing and play a little in the snow! I will update again with more pictures around the start of the new year!

A New Version of an Old Favorite

Growing up, there were about three things Nick would eat: candy, cereal, and beef stroganoff (the Hamburger Helper kind). It was always one of my favorites, too. Who doesn't love mushy, salty, greyish brown slop (well when you put it that way... bleck)? But really, there are some chilly winter days when you just want to eat something warm and salty and hearty, and beef stroganoff lends itself well to warming you up :)

I've been looking around for a good beef stroganoff recipe, and have found some good-looking ones, but I always get a little turned off by the copious amounts of cream of mushroom soup that most of the recipes call for. I think the soup often overpowers the flavor of the meat and makes the stroganoff too salty. So when I found this recipe, I knew I had to try it. And you cook it in a crockpot! How perfect is that??

I modified the recipe a little. Here's how I did it:

1.5 lbs beef stew meat
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
olive oil (use your best judgment on the amount here)
1 small onion, diced
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced (my roommate doesn't love mushrooms so I probably used about half of this)
1/4 tsp rosemary
1 garlic clove, minced
1.5 cups beef broth (the original recipe called for only 1 cup, but I added a bit more)
1 cup sour cream (I just used a large spoonful, probably about 1/2 a cup. Any more than that would've made it taste too sour-creamy)
Egg noodles or brown/white rice to serve it with

• Mix flour, salt, and paprika in a large ziploc bag. Place chunks of beef in the bag and seal. Shake the bag until all chunks of beef are evenly coated
• Fry beef in olive oil in a frying pan until all sides are lightly browned
• Layer onion, mushrooms, rosemary, garlic clove, and fried beef in the crockpot (onion on bottom, beef on top).
• Pour broth over the contents of the crockpot. 
• Cook on high 4-5 hours, or on low for 8 hours.
• Add sour cream in the last ten minutes or so
• Serve over noodles or rice

I cooked mine on high. At four hours I took the lid off to add the sour cream and check on the meat. The beef chunks were falling apart, so no need to worry about cutting them if they seem too big before cooking. I started the brown rice in my rice cooker at four hours also, and let the stroganoff keep cooking while the rice was finishing up, so I guess it cooked for about four and a half hours.

This stroganoff tastes really natural and delicious, although I added a little salt and pepper into my own bowl. Next time I make this I think I'll add an extra teaspoon of salt into the crockpot, and maybe some pepper. The beef chunks tasted a lot like the pot roast my roommate makes, which makes me want to try throwing some carrots and a splash of red wine in next time to make a pot roast slop! I don't know how I'll ever modify this for Jay (who doesn't like onions at all). Slop without onions is not worth eating in my opinion.

I wish I had some pictures for you, but greyish brown slop doesn't photograph very well and I'd hate to turn anyone off from making this recipe. Also, it was so yummy we ate it all before I could even take a picture!

October/September in Review

Boy what a crazy month!

I think the biggest piece of news I have for you all is that I have a kitten. Some of my mom's co-workers had this kitty, but didn't want her anymore so my mom asked me if I wanted her, and I figured I'd try it out and see how it goes... So far it's going well! Our apartment isn't totally destroyed (yet). Her name is Koli and she has no tail although we're not sure what happened to it or if she just wasn't born with one.

As far as actual school goes, I'm taking a few education classes this quarter along with a philosophy class. The education classes are Multicultural Education, Assessments, and Teaching Methods. Multicultural education is really the only class that I'm getting anything out of right now. Assessments and Teaching Methods are really dry (although super useful need-to-know teacher stuff), and I have a hard time focusing on the material. My philosophy class is really interesting though; the title of it is Women in Philosophy, but it's sort of morphed into a philosophy of gender class.

A few weekends ago Jay and I drove out into the country roads north of Ellensburg. We ended up on a gravel road, typically used by hunters, and ended up out on Lion Rock. There was some snow up there, and the view was amazing. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it was a nice little half-day trip to a place we'd never been.

A couple weekends ago, Kara and I went to Oktoberfest in Leavenworth. I didn't think I'd enjoy it much because of the crowds, but we ended up having a really good time! I actually met Nick's pre-calculus teacher from Skyline completely by random and we ended up talking for awhile about teaching at Skyline. Overall, it was good beer, good food, and we met a few really cool people! It's also really nice to go to Leavenworth and not have to worry about hotels :)

Another piece of good news: Jay no longer works at the Plateau Club! He started working at a golf course in Gig Harbor about a week and a half ago, and so far so good! The job is a nice step up for him, and he seems to be enjoying it so far.

I think that's pretty much it on this front. Haven't heard a lot from Nick or how he's doing at Western, but I think he'll be joining us in Leavenworth for Thanksgiving so I'll have to grill him then!

Back to School!

Hello all! I am currently doing field experience in a high school, and it is going well so far. I've only been at it for three days, but I've already learned a lot about the technical aspects of teaching such as how to take attendance and create seating charts using the online program the school uses, how to keep track of papers when you have five different classes, and how to enter grades into the gradebook. I've even had a chance to grade some papers too! I'll be doing this for the next two weeks, and then it will be back to Central. Classes start on the 25th. All my classes are in the education department, except for one philosophy class.

Over the summer I worked with the City of Redmond at a day camp. It was a lot of fun and really hands on because the two other counselors and I had to plan all the games and all the activities for every day of camp, except for field trip days that were planned months in advance by the camp director.

Other than work, Jay and I managed to have some adventures on weekends. One weekend we decided to do a little spontaneous car-camping trip. We packed up some sleeping bags, food, water, extra clothes, and drove out to the peninsula to see some beaches. We left on a Saturday morning and made it to the beach by about 2 in the afternoon. The weather was stormy all the way there, but as we got closer to the coast the sun started peaking out. By the time we got to Ruby Beach (North of Beach 2), the weather was perfect!

 We spent a couple hours exploring the beach, climbing on rocks, and inspecting barnacles and anemones in tide pools. Jay had never seen these things (they don't have tide pools in Ohio, I guess. Weird.), so it was really fun to show him how the barnacles stick their little legs out to grab food in the shallow pools, and how the anemones fold in on themselves to prevent from drying out during low tide. We found some limpets and starfish attached to the rocks too!

At about four in the afternoon, Jay decided he wanted to see Mt St Helens. So we left the beach and drove all the way to Mt St Helens. We got to the Johnston Ridge lookout point at about 8 at night, which was perfect timing to watch the sun go down while we got attacked by killer mosquitoes. We drove back down the mountain after that, looking for a forest service road or logging road to pull off on to spend a night in the car. After much searching (and almost running over a slow-moving porcupine), we finally found an old logging road.

 I did not sleep well, mainly because I was paranoid that a park ranger was going to find us and then we'd be in trouble. The whole Mt St Helens area is closed for restoration so I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to be where we were on that logging road. So we woke up at five the next morning and planned our route home. We decided to drive through the Mt Rainier park on the way home.

We made it to the park around eight in the morning, which is the perfect time for a hike on the Naches Loop trail! I think it was around three miles. It wasn't too hot out yet, or too crowded, but we passed a ton of people on our way back to the car.

 After that, we headed home and made it to the couch just in time for naptime and 1 o'clock!

Jay and I flew out to Chicago the last weekend of August. One of his best friends got married on August 31st. Jay and I explored the city a little before taking the train out to the suburbs where the wedding was. Jay was in the wedding, so he got all dressed up and looked pretty snazzy!

 Other than that, I spent a lot of the summer working and relaxing. I watched my brother graduate from Skyline in June! No pictures of him, but I do have a picture of the cupcakes I made him (before they were melted in the car).

Busiest Spring Ever

I'm sure it seems like I say this a lot, but this spring is going to be the busiest ever. I have a lot of work for my education classes, plus an advanced poetry writing class, and all the SOURCE stuff. Luckily I'm taking a one-credit yoga class twice a week to keep the stress levels down!

I'm working on my abstract for SOURCE right now and thought I'd procrastinate a little by stopping by here to recap Spring break (which wasn't much of a break at all). I did my observation hours in high school English classrooms at Issaquah High School, and managed to meet up with Grandpa and Grandma for lunch/dinner after school one day! Other than that, I got a taste of how high school will consume my life when I'm a teacher. A lot of my friends balk when I tell them about the antics of students and how long it takes to grade things and how I'll have to get up super early all the time, but my education professors say that teaching is a calling and I truly feel that teaching is exactly that for me.

In other news, on the Thursday of my spring break I had to rescue Jay from feet of snow. His car doesn't do too well in the snow so he was stuck at the bottom of his hill.

And the next day it was sunny and snowy! Isn't it supposed to be spring now?

 We've been watching some March Madness, especially since Jay's OSU Buckeyes have made it so far. Natron likes to be right in the middle of things, so this is how we watch basketball (or anything):

And lastly, here's a picture I took coming into North Bend. I've been re-watching Twin Peaks episodes with Jay. It's such a weird show, but I love it!

I don't have very many pictures to share, but hopefully that will change with the coming of nicer weather! I'm going to try and get some hikes in around Ellensburg this Spring on weekends when I can find some spare time!

Classroom Observation and SOURCE!

I'm in the midst of finals week, but I thought I'd do a quick update to tell some exciting news!

First, I'm going to be observing in a classroom for part of my major requirement (must be completed before I sign up for certain Ed classes), and I'm observing the teacher who made me want to be a teacher at Issaquah High School! So this should be really fun and interesting. It'll eat up an entire week of my spring break, but that's totally okay since what do I usually do during spring break anyway? If you guessed nothing, you're correct!

Also, one of my professors from Fall quarter has asked me to present one of my papers at SOURCE this year! I will be on the Magical Realism panel presenting my paper on Haunting History in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Hopefully this plan doesn't fall through for any reason. Last winter, I was asked to present at SOURCE and decided not to, but I've regretted not doing it so I've already committed to presenting this year.

Anyway, back to editing my portfolio for my final that's due today! Just wanted to drop in and share the news!

Crazy Month

I went home with Kara and hung out with Jay for the Superbowl weekend. This picture is from up by his house. He lives up the long and winding road to Rattlesnake Lake, and this little lake is just down the street from his house.

January/February so far have been pretty crazy. I'm signing up for Spring classes tomorrow, and I've been doing a lot of meeting with advisers and planning out my schedule. Right now it looks like I'm going to be taking a few online summer courses this summer so that I'll stay on track and be able to take all the classes I need to when I need to. I'm getting to that point where if I don't get into a specific class, it will push everything back and I won't be able to student teach until 2015, which is definitely NOT an option!

This picture is from January 26th, and that was the last snow we've had in a while. All the snow here is melted, and it's been sunny and warm here since (well, relatively warm... like above 35 degrees)! Makes me think the groundhog was right in declaring Spring is on the way!

 

For Christmas, mom got my a box of Fisher Scone Mix, and I have been absolutely hooked on making scones ever since. They're the perfect breakfast treat to go along with my potato and egg hash/scramble!

For the Superbowl I made creamy Avocado dip with avocados, jalapeno, garlic, lime juice, salt & pepper, and plain Greek yogurt. Next time I think I'll make it with sour cream instead of yogurt though, because the flavor of the yogurt was overpowering and I don't particularly like Greek yogurt anyway. Still, not too shabby with some pita chips!

Jay and Natron came to visit in late January. Natron is a 66-pound bulldog who likes to think he's still a little lap-puppy!

We don't have very good Asian food on this side of the mountains, but since Erin and I crave it so often, we decided (well, mostly she decided, I just helped) to make homemade gyoza! They were so good, and the recipe made a ton of them so we still have a bunch of raw ones frozen in the freezer. We went through two whole packs of gyoza wrappers, and we still had a bunch of the meat mixture leftover, so there's some frozen meat mixture in our freezer too.

That's about all I have for news on this front. No word on the car being fixed yet, but we're still working on that. Hope all has been well for everyone!

Hello 2013!

Well, I'm back at school now, and boy is it snowy here! I'm really going to try and update this more often this quarter, since I have a bit more free time on my hands with the classes I'm taking. No literature classes means not having to spend all my extra time reading, which will be a nice change.

I realize I didn't write anything about Thanksgiving, but in a nutshell: mom, Jay, Nick, and I flew down to California to spend Thanksgiving with Debbie and the family as usual. Instead of spending the holiday at her house, though, we went out to the beach house in Inverness. Talk about an amazing way to spend a holiday in November! It was sunny and 70 degrees every day we were there! On Thanksgiving morning Jay and I kayaked around the bay, and ran into a little pack of harbor seals! They were so close to us, but unfortunately neither of us got a very good picture of them.

After Thanksgiving break, I went back to school for about a week, and then came back home where I finished all my final papers. I had 3 classes last quarter, and 4 final papers to write. Ridiculous, right? But they all turned out fine, and I was able to finish the quarter with two B's and an A.

Winter break was a blast! I got to hang out with lots of friends and family, went skiing a couple times, and even went to Ohio to visit Jay's friends and family for almost an entire week! I'll try to report these events in order... First, we went skiing at Steven's Pass on December 6th, and if I didn't know any better, I would have told you it was February. The snow coverage on the mountain was amazing, and we were skiing in knee deep powder all day. We got to the mountain at about 8:30, and by the time we left around 2 or 3, my car was buried!

About a week after that, we left for Ohio. Maybe I've just gotten used to the short plane-rides down to San Francisco because a 3 hour flight, and then a layover, and then another 3 hour flight was torturous. The Denver airport (where we had our layover) is a nice airport though! I don't have any pictures from Ohio, but it was a lot of fun to finally meet Jay's friends that I've heard so much about.

When we got back from Ohio, we spent a few days recovering from the time-change and all the traveling. I made a ridiculous amount of sugar cookies.

We spent Christmas Eve with my dad and his side of the family. Everyone was happy and looked in relatively good shape! On Christmas day, Jay and I went skiing at Mission Ridge, which was quite a trek from North Bend (it took us about 3 hours), but it was well worth it thanks to the light and fluffy Eastern Washington powder, and the reasonably priced lift tickets. I had never skied there before, but I am completely hooked after that one day!

After Christmas, we had the annual Seattle Slog, which will forever be one of my favorite Christmas traditions. We were talking about it this year, and I think the Seattle Slog is one of the oldest family traditions that's been maintained throughout my entire life! The people who show up for it change from year to year, but I hope us regulars will keep the tradition alive for years to come. You can bet your butt that I'll be there, anyway!




We start off the slog the same way every year, that is by stopping for humbows at a little shop across the street from the Market. And of course, the annual humbow picture must be taken!

The slog then goes along the market, up into an alley where there's a nice little tea shop, and then to the end of the market where the "team photo" is taken by the totem pole. I don't have that picture yet, since David hasn't uploaded any to facebook yet.

This is the sunset from Pike Place Market on Seattle Slog day. After the team photo we head down into the depths of Pike Place to check out some shops, and then go down to the street level where we head down towards the water front where we end with dinner at Ivar's! Despite the hunger and tiredness that develops as we slog from one place to the next (because it's tradition, dammit!), the Seattle Slog will always be one of my favorite traditions. This year Laura and her girls Isabella and Daniella were with us, and it was funny for me to remember the miserableness of the slog in those younger years when you're hungry and tired and don't understand why we spend so much time in a fancy shmancy furniture store.

On New Year's Eve, I stopped by to visit with Christy and Gramoose at their condo New Year's Eve get-together. It was fun to see some people I hadn't seen in a loooong time! After that, my friend/roommate Kara and I went and saw Les Miserables, which was pretty good.

And that's pretty much all of winter break in a nutshell! The amount of snow here in Ellensburg is pretty great. Here's a picture of the snow and icicles around our place on  New Year's day:

I'm not teaching at Powderpigs this year, because my car is completely unreliable at this point. I don't even have it at school with me right now, because it overheated when I tried to drive it over the pass on New Year's Day. In November, I had the thermostat replaced to solve the overheating problem, but apparently there's another problem in there somewhere!