All the outdoor excitement has been great recently but I've still made time for artistic and crafty endeavors. I've taken a hiatus from copper wire sculpting and worked with some other mediums like plasticine clay, wood, and plants!  Check out some of my more recent creations here:

CLICK HERE FOR PICS

Another Year, Another Birthday

This time marks the 27th year of my being alive. I have to say this past year has been one of the most amazing and exciting times of my entire life. I have done more, and seen more beauty and wonder than I could ever describe in words. I have met some extraordinary people and have reconnected out here with some old friends from the past. I can genuinely say I am the happiest I have been in a very very long time. Casey is one of the newest additions to this life I'm building out here and so far we have been having a splendid time together. She wanted to make my birthday special so she drove me up to an adorable historic seaside town in oregon called Astoria. She packed us a fancy picnic and we went hiking and sightseeing all over the place. It had one of the best panoramic views I've seen to date and no photos could ever do it justice but I tried lol. Here are the pics from my excellent birthday trip:

CLICK HERE FOR THE PICS

My Favourite Time of Year

Most people would probably say Christmas... but for me my favorite time of year is the fall, particularly since moving out west. Here's a little post I did on facebook singing the praises of the season: "Oh Fall. How I love your brilliant colors- orange, yellow, red.. I love the way your cool breezes feel on my skin encouraging me to wrap up in my favourite hoodie... the way you smell and taste brings a smile to my face- cinnamon and other dark spices, pumpkin, apple, pear, and carmel and lets not forget the wild mushrooms.... You are my favourite time of year :)" Cheesy yes, but I really do have special love of the harvest season.  Here's some pics showing off the spectacular foliage colors, as well as the results of a Pumpkin Carving party I had at the house... some mighty creative friends I have!


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Perfecta Trifecta

Life has been even more fun and interesting since Tressa moved out to the west coast. She and Casey have been getting along famously and the three of us tend to spend a great deal of time together. We have been showing her all the fun things to do around Portland and have been getting her out into the woods for hikes. I took both of them Chanterelle mushroom hunting, showed them the Bonneville Dam in Stevenson, and we all went hiking/picnicking at a place none of us had been to called Eagle Fern Park. When she first arrived in WA Ash joined us for a hike up Beacon Rock to celebrate her arrival... no better way to break someone in than 800 feet of switchback hiking up the side of an extinct volcano! LOL. Tressa and I had some one on one time exploring a place called Mc. Iver state park... really beautiful, lots of nice trails, a river to play in, and a fish hatchery to explore. We missed out on the bat barns but we will be going back to check out the rare species of native bat.

Here's some random photos of our adventures: CLICK HERE FOR PICS

Fun with Friends

In Florida when you think of a beach BBQ, you probably have something very different in your mind from the beach bbq we had a few months ago. Casey's friend's knew of this secluded spot on the bank of the Washougal river where we decided to gather and have a nice meal by the water. First we all went to the grocery store together and bought the ingredients to make top notch Shish-Kabobs. Then, we piled into the van and Shawn's truck and took the 30 min. drive to the "secret spot. We had to hike down off the side of the road packing in all our goods. Not too far through woods the trees opened up onto this awesome freshwater beach covered in smooth river stones. It was so picturesque! It didn't take long before the group of us had gathered firewood, built the firepit, assembled the food, and got the grill going. The kabobs were so delicious. We sat around the fire, ate, and chatted, then some of us got brave and tested our mettle in the cold river water. None of us lasted more than 15 minutes before temperature got the best of us and we ran back up to dry off around the flames lol. We finished off the perfect evening laying on our backs looking at the stars.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PICS!

Once Upon a Garden

 

 Many of you probably remember that Ash and I had a garden when we lived in Stevenson. We were composting and growing organically a wide variety of veggies and plants including peas, carrots, onions, herbs, broccoli, brussels sprouts, amaranth, spinach, chard, squash, and some non edibles.  Thanks to Alia for a majority of the seeds! Some did better than others, but all in all we had a pretty good haul for out first time growing in an unfamiliar climate and soil type. What a satisfying feeling being able to walk out to the back yard and eat a pea right off the vine! Sometimes when out working in the garden I would find myself singing this song called "Hammer and a Nail" by the Indigo Girls. I identified with the lyrics in relation to wanting to be more hands on and self sustaining in my life, so much so that I decided to put all the photos I'd been storing up into a slideshow with that song. Here's a link to the video (Dont forget to turn up your speakers!): 

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO

Here's a link to the individual photos  if you want them: 

CLICK HERE FOR PICS

Finishing the Falls Creek Falls Hike

A while back Ash did a solo hike of Falls Creek Falls and blogged about it. She loved it so much so took me there but because of my job schedule that day we were unable to complete it. A few months ago we went back and finished it together and boy am I glad. It was spectacular! It had one of the best trail destinations I've seen so far. It was a moderate hike through an old growth forest that had the largest trees I've ever seen. The falls so massive I couldn't get it all in one photo! And with the sun shining down through the mist it was just a magical place to experience. There were parts of the trail that looked alot like the scrub pine woods in florida, but then we turned a corner and we could have been in the redwood forests of california. The roar of the falls was almost deafening and could be heard way before it could be seen. We had some fun climbing around on the giant boulders near the falls and soaking in the sun rays. A very highly recommended hike.

Click here for the photos: Falls Creek Falls Pics

3,000 Miles.. again

Turns out keeping up with the blog had some unexpected effects.... we inadvertently convinced some of our friends to move out to the west coast too! The first one to actually make the jump was Tressa. I flew down to florida and helped her load up her truck with all of her earthly possessions, snacks, lots of bottled water, tons of music, and huge books of mad-libs to keep us from getting bored on those long stretches of highway. Before we embarked I took the little time I had in FL to visit some friends and family which was really nice. Over the course of 4 days we took turns driving through 13 states (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington)  and covered approximately 3,100 miles. We didn't make many stops.. only for gas, leg stretching, and sleep (we averaged 14 hour driving days)... but it was still a great opportunity to see the country. What exactly did we see you ask? Mostly corn. And cows. But corn, soybeans, and potatoes took up at least half of the landscape of the entire middle of the country. Oh, and did I mention all the corn? When we finally made it past the mid-west we saw mountains, plains, big sky, big rocks, rainbows, fields with covered in trees, fields with absolutely no trees or other plants at all, a couple of large cities, and antelope! Wait...did I forget mention the all the corn?!?! I took photos all along the way.. Tressa took some too, and when I got home and stat down to edit them I realized that many of them looked the same. It was a big surprise to me that it was really hard to tell the difference between many of the states we passed through. Things truly didn't get interesting till we hit Wyoming. Another surprise. I had never considered Wyoming a place I'd ever want to visit... But of all the places we drove through it's the one of the only ones either of us would have any desire to re-visit. Tressa's Aunt was lovely enough to let us stay at her house one night in Salt Lake City Utah. We were mildly concerned about being abducted my the Mormons but luckily none such thing happened...  although one night the gps got us lost driving through some corn fields and we though we would be abducted by some other scary things like aliens or creepy children with scythes lol. All in all it was an epic drive, one I would do again but probably take a different route. Tressa quickly became at home in her new environment and is still doing well and loving her life in Oregon.

On to the photos!

 CLICK HERE FOR PICS



Here are a couple of short video clips from the trip, the quality is crappy but I'm trying to show the scale of the landscape:

Welcome to the new blog! This is where all the new action will unfold. If you ever want to take a trip down memory lane no problem, I've kept the old blog and all it's photos up, it can be found here: THE OLD BLOG