I'm Moving!

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Family Visit

This month Rob and I had the wonderful priviledge of hosting some of my family members for a visit: mom, dad, Jeff and Christie!! I kept asking before they even made their plans why on earth would they ever want to come in May - for god sakes it rains the whole month of May in Oregon. Still, they went ahead and booked it and wouldn't you know: in some freak twist of fate it was sunny the entire time! Let's stop and contemplate this for a minute. They were here for a whole week in May and IT DIDN'T RAIN ONCE. Hallelujah! Praise (Buddy) Jesus! We had originally planned that if we had just one sunny day, we would take the fam up to Mt St Helens, but we ended up being able to spend every day outside. I want to reiterate to my family (who now LOVE Oregon and want to move here - you know you do...) that it is not normally this nice in May. IT RAINS. Anyway, what they experienced is more like the amazing summers out here, but I won't elaborate on that at the risk of making it seem too nice here and convincing too many other people to move here, hence crowding out the Oregonians(kind of like you Massholes who move up to New Hampshire - you know who you are. I'll admit, I'm one of them).

Anyway since we had such glorious weather, we tried to give everyone a taste of the best of Oregon: a ride through the wonderful town we call home, a hike up Multnomah Falls, the Evergreen Air & Space Museaum, the Saturday Market, skiing @ Mt Hood, superstar seats @ the Roller Derby All-Star game, Mt St Helens, wine tasting in the Willamette Valley (for mother's day - love you mom!!), the fish ladder @ the Bonneville Dam and a walk through both of the mythical gardens (after talking up the Japanese and Chinese gardens for a whole week, we ended up finally going on the last day - they DO exist!).

Rob and I were also enthralled to find out that our dog Sheena will now stay in her crate without destroying everything inside it - thanks to Rob's genius creation we like to call "The Peanut Butter Solution" (in which he coats the inside of her hollowed-out bone with a small amount of peanut butter - not to be confused with the 1985 movie). It keeps her busy for hours and she no longer needs day care when we need to go out for just a few hours. We also found out that she loves my mom - she hearded her to the inside of the path all the way up to the top of Multnomah Falls (well, almost the top, the last section of path was washed out - go figure) and slept in her lap the whole way to and from the Bonneville Dam.

It was so great to see everyone and to be able to take advantage of the nice weather. Now we just have to get Joe and Kristen out here! Take a look at the family vacation pictures on my Flickr page.

Homemade Oregon

It all started with yogurt. I don't know how it came to me. Maybe it's the exorbitant amount of yogurt we eat every week, or the suggestion from my friend Wendy years ago that popped back into my head (that I could use some of her yogurt culture). I had never really looked into it before. Recently, I came across a recipe for homemade yogurt and I laughed to myself - could it really be that easy?? So Rob and I got a gallon of milk and a new cooler. We followed everything in the recipe, all the while scratching our heads saying, "Are we really making yogurt right now? It can't be this easy!" But the next day, voila! 9 jars of thick, creamy yogurt in our fridge! Here is the break-down: for the cost of a $3 gallon of milk, 20 minutes in the kitchen and 3 hours waiting, we could make enough yogurt equal in cost to a third of what we would have spent in the store - and it tastes BETTER than the store-bought yogurt!! Go figure! The new cooler has since been designated "The Yogurator" - Quite an appropriate name don't you think?

So each week, we go through this process now and it's so satisfying. Each time we make a new batch, it tastes better and better. Last weekend we made our second batch and with that, we started thinking - are there other things that are this easy that we could make ourselves? When we had our farm share in New Hampshire years ago, I used to use the ridiculous amounts of basil we got every week to make homemade pesto. Did you know you can freeze pesto? You can put it in a zip lock bag and break small pieces off when you need it. It thaws in about 5-10 minutes. Anyway, we didn't make pesto (because fresh basil isn't out yet) but I made my first attempt at homemade wheat thins and homemade hummus. Both came out amazing! Who knew it was so easy to make wheat thins? Or hummus? What's the best part about making homemade wheat thins? You can roll the dough a million times and it won't fall apart and you use a pizza roller to cut the little squares, which makes it fun! What's the best part about making homemade hummus? Um hello, do you have to ask? Instant gratification, of course! It whips up faster than baking cookies from a Nestle Tollhouse log. Here's the entire process: Add ingredients to food processor. Press button. Done.

Rob and I also happened to buy 3 horseradish roots at the grocery store last week. It was inspired by my sister-in-law Kristen, who had made incredible horseradish a few years ago. It was also inspired by our frustration with all store-bought horseradish options - not one horseradish at our grocery store is made without high fructose corn syrup. What's the point of adding HFCS anyway? I don't get it! Anyway, Kristen told us her story about how she accidentally leaned over it after she ground the root and it stung her eyes so badly - it's about 1000x worse than cutting an onion. So Rob and I were very careful. After grinding the horseradish root in the food processor, waiting 10 minutes, then adding the remaining ingredients (we also had the kitchen fan and 2 other fans going in the house), Rob donned his old gas mask - that's right people, he put on a GAS MASK - in order to transfer the completed horseradish into the jars. It's one thing to put on a gas mask in the kitchen and another to put it on and actually need it. And let me tell you, he needed it! I had to leave the kitchen because the air was so spicy-hot. It was all worth it though, because now we have horseradish without the HFCS and is also hotter than the gates of hell, which is how horseradish should be if you ask me.

So in one weekend, we made yogurt, wheat thins, hummus and horseradish. We had so much fun in the kitchen together (and everything was so easy) that I had to blog about it. We aren't always this industrious by the way...

Singapore 2012

This month, I travelled to Singapore for the first time. It is a long flight (about 18 hours plus layover in Japan), but totally worth it. Singapore reminds me a little bit of New York City because of its endless shopping possibilities and the beautiful skyline. It also reminds me a little bit of Las Vegas because people are out and about at all hours (this makes a lot of sense because it is cooler only at night) and because of what I have heard about the island of Sentosa off the coast of Singapore (I didn't have time to actually go there). It is very clean, very safe, most people speak English (so it is easy to communicate), the water is safe and the food is absolutely amazing. The only drawback is that it's really expensive. The hotels in the popular areas are expensive - like staying in Manhattan - and restaurants (other than hawker stalls or food centers) are pretty pricey.

That being said, I mostly ate at the food centers/hawker stalls because this is where the best local food can be had - for about $5 a meal! It is completely safe to eat at the food centers - each food stall is rated online and most are very clean and safe. The food centers reminded me a little bit of food courts in American shopping malls, but each food stall specialized in only 1-2 dishes and the food was much better than eating at a food court in an American shopping mall. I got in the routine of walking around the entire food center to see all the options and either picking what looked best to me or standing in line for the dishes that all the locals were waiting for. One of my favorite meals was from a food stall called JJ Yong Tau Foo in the ION Food Center which served a Chinese noodle soup in which you could pick what you wanted in your soup and they would cook it right in front of you. It was delicious, fresh, and really filling!

Singapore is really small. It only takes about 1 hour to drive from one end to the other. That's smaller than most US cities!! This is why it is extremely expensive to drive a car in Singapore - it is an attempt to limit the number of people driving and causing congestion. I was surprised to learn that in Singapore it costs over S$60,000 for a 10-year driving certificate. Cars cost much more than in the US - like S$200,000-S$300,000. And insurance will cost you about S$1000 per month. This is why most of the cars I saw on the roads in Singapore were nice cars - like BMW, Audi, Mercedes, etc. It seems mostly white collar workers are able to afford to drive a car in Singapore, therefore those who can afford it buy nice cars. Most people take mass transit (bus or train) or a taxi.

Singapore is crowded, but not Thailand-crowded (Thailand will always be by baseline for this until I experience some place even more crowded than Thailand - which I hope never happens, but I digress...). Because of its size, they build UP to accommodate all the people. One of the funniest things for me while I was there was trying to navigate through the shopping centers on Orchard Road. The shopping centers are all interconnected by underpasses and overpasses, nothing is labelled, and depending on which shopping center you are in the connection will be on a different floor. The ION Orchard shopping center was 8 floors (4 above ground, 4 below ground) and every single time I went in, it took me at least 20 minutes to find the place I wanted to go and at least 20 minutes to find my way back out. I suppose it's smart - once they get you in, you are prone to buy more if you can't get out!! I can only laugh at myself for getting lost in the mall - multiple times!

While I was in Singapore, I also had a chance to visit the Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Gardens are free (except the Orchid Garden, which is only a $5 entrance fee). In the gardens, there are all kinds of tropical flowers and plants. One of the coolest parts was the Ginger garden - an entire garden devoted to different types of ginger plants. I learned a lot and got to see beautiful flowers I've never seen before. If I go back to Singapore, I will definitely return to the Botanical Gardens. In fact, if I go back, I already have a list of places I want to see and things to do! Here is a link to my Flickr album from Singapore!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629543567106/

First hike at Latourell Falls

Today was one of those rare days in the spring in Oregon when the sun shines all day long and the threat of rain becomes a [somewhat] distant memory. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful, sunny & warm day by going for a hike in the Columbia Gorge. Rob picked one that was relatively short because it was our first hike of the season, and it was awesome! We went to a lesser-known place called Latourell Falls, off of the old scenic highway. The hike was about 2.5 miles and has an elevation gain of 520 feet.

We took Sheena along and she loved every second. She sniffed everything along the trail and was good when passing other people [I'm a proud dog owner!!]. Trillium was in full bloom all along the trail - the most I have seen since we've moved out here. The trail is a nice loop. We hiked it backwards - starting from Latourell falls, under the scenic highway, then up a steep climb to the first viewpoint. From there we hiked down to the second waterfall, Upper Latourell Falls. Then it loops back to the first waterfall where we started.

It was cool because unlike other waterfalls I've seen since we've been here (maybe around 20?) Latourell Falls has distinct basalt columns. The entire cliff is made up of the basalt, which is incredibly thick. I've seen basalt around the Gorge before, but not in the columnar structure like Latourell Falls. This is the same type of rock you can see in the famous "Giant's Causeway" in Northern Ireland. Basalt gets pretty crumbly over time - which is why falling rocks are a hazard in the area and the cliffs aren't entirely safe. We saw a group of people standing at the top next to the falls - on a cliff that was detached underneath from the crumbling basalt.

This is a hike I will definitely return to again. It's just as cool as Eagle Creek, without the obnoxious visitors and steep drop-offs along the trail, which is better for Sheena's safety too! We had an awesome day. Check out our photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629400788860/

Sheena Queena

I love our dog. As some of you may know, we adopted our dog Sheena in August 2011 from Out West Pet Rescue in Prosser, WA. This is my first time owning a dog and let me tell you - I am in love. She is so sweet and we have so much fun with her - we are truely lucky to have her! Rob tells me I have no idea how lucky I am to have her as my first dog. I really don't I guess. We didn't have to house-train her. She isn't dog-agressive (in fact, she's overly friendly!). Her nickname suits her perfectly - she certainly rules our lives! She loves to play. She doesn't chew furniture and she doesn't want to eat the cats. She would love to be firends with them, but our two cats Onyx and Tabby have not been very accepting. I think Tabby and Sheena might end up as friends, but Onyx still hasn't left the spitting and hissing stage of their relationship yet.

At the risk of sounding like a crazy pet lady, I am starting a pet photo album on Flickr for our 3 furry family members, or our "minions" if you will. Why not? They are part of our lives and I think it is imperitive to document all of their crazy antics. Sheena - soaking wet in the Oregon spring rain, tongue hanging out the side of her mouth, happliy trotting back to me with her precious ball. Tabby - laying on her back with her legs spread wide (not very ladylike by the way) with a dumb look on her face as if she is thinking in her walnut-sized brain "everything looks so funny when I'm upside-down". Or Onyx with her silent meows - begging for "ups" as we call it - she needs her shoulder time! And there are questions to be answered. Why does Tabby wake us up at 3am every night? How much of what we say does Sheena actually understand? Is Onyx really that sweet, or is she just using us to stroke her and feed her? The world may never know.

One thing I do know is this: I love these animals, and they love us.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629711416699/

Time spent with old friends is good medicine!

I flew to Burlington, VT this March to visit one of my closest friends, Jess. When I exited the airport in Vermont, the rush of cold air nearly killed me. I thought maybe I had mistakenly boarded a plane to Antarctica! There is one thing I don't miss about New England - that's definitely the weather. Thankfully I packed some thick sweaters and Jess put up with my whining :)

Jess and I took photos @ Lake Champlain, walked the mall, checked out the stores in the downtown area and had some local Vermont beer. I even had one of my faves - Magic Hat #9 - which is actually really expensive in Oregon compared to Vermont. After our day of retail therapy, Jess took me to experience her new hobby - archery! I absolutely LOVED it! Major kudos to Jess for having such a badass hobby! I got an intro lesson and we had targets to shoot. I was so excited - I got a couple bullseyes too! After shooting at the targets and moving them back from 10 to 15 to 20 yards, the trainer set up a tic tac toe board with balloons. It was tons of fun. I could have stayed all day if my arms would have let me. I have a pretty good eye for it too and now she's got me thinking of buying a bow!

It was so great to visit Jess for a few days. I miss her terribly already. Check out the album on Flickr from my trip! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629177430018/

Vegas Vacation 2012

For the first time in many years, Rob and I had a chance to go on vacation together. What better place to celebrate his birthday than Las Vegas!! It is one of our favorite places. Since I have so many Delta miles from travel last year, we booked through Delta Vacations. We got upgraded seats on direct round-trip flights to Vegas and due to my medallion status, we were able to skip the lines for airport security and boarding. We got a great deal for the Paris Hotel, which is directly across from the Bellagio fountains in the center of the strip. Since the booking was only for a standard room, we tried the "complementary upgrade" trick (in which you pass a $20 or $50 in between your licence and credit card to the check-in person) and it worked!! We got a "complementary upgrade" to the 21st floor facing the Paris tower and the Bellagio fountains. It ended up being one of the coolest parts of the vacation - we could watch the fountains from our room any time we wanted!

We did a TON of walking as usual. We strolled through the Bellagio conservatory to see the 2012 Chinese new year "Year of the Dragon" display. We did a Venetian gondola ride and we were serenaded - I highly recommend it! We watched the Mirage volcano, the Sirens of Ti show (which is admittedly not as good in the cooler months than the summer) and we went to Fremont street to watch the light show. Fremont street is so full of lights it is like DAY in the middle of the night. And there's great people-watching there. It was just plain awesome. Rob has always wanted to see David Copperfield and I have never been to a magic show, so we got tickets and that was fun too - he's very entertaining. He made a car appear on the stage right before our eyes! A big highlight for me was learning how to play Craps. I watched Rob the first day then decided to try it on the night of the show. I was there for 3 hours and was up $150, then we cashed out and went to the show. It was so much fun that we went back to the Craps table after the show - and ended up losing it all!! I'm not disappointed though, it was all money from our change bin we've collected for this very purpose. It was fun to learn and I'll definitely play next time.

Here is a link to our 2012 Vegas photo album! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629177315376/

I want to draw a cat for you!!

Last month, Rob and I were watching "Shark Tank" on ABC - where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of investors. Steve Gladin pitched his idea for www.iwanttodrawacatforyou.com, where people submit their cat drawing idea and he draws it, sends it to you and posts a copy on his website - all for $9.95! He was funded by Mark Cubin and since then the website has exploded! When we watched the show, Rob and I were hysterical. Steve did a song and dance - it was exciting to watch him get funded by Mark! Rob turned to me immediately and said "Buy a drawing from that guy." So we went to his site and submitted our idea.

Onyx and Tabby have now been living with Sheena for about 6 months. Tabby sometimes shows signs of possibly becoming friends in the future - maybe just to mess with Sheena? And I have given up the idea of Onyx and Sheena ever cuddling. Although the spitting and hissing has toned down, Onyx has made it clear she is not interested in any kind of friendship. Tabby is known as "The Striped Fury" due to her unwillingness to let us sleep through the night and constantly causing trouble climbing on counters and messing with the dog. Onyx is known as "The Black Devil" because although she is sweet and cute on the outside, she is a viscious mouse killer on the inside. When we rented the log cabin in NH, she hunted down 2 mice and left them as presents for me at the bottom of the stairs. And anyone who has met Sheena knows how sweet she is. We have been so lucky to have her. She loves us and the kitties and it pains us to see her wimper and whine when the cats look at her threateningly.

Therefore, what better representation of our wonderful pets than to have Steve draw us a picture of Tabby and Onyx (one with a bat, one with a torch) running after our sweet dog? The drawing is already posted and we can't wait to get the original in the mail and frame it! Go to his website to have him draw a cat for YOU!

http://iwanttodrawacatforyou.com/?p=7289

Visit to the Philippines

This year I had the pleasure of visiting the Philippines for 1 week. I went to Muntinlupa City, which is just south of Manila on the island of Luzon. I travelled there for work so I didn’t have the opportunity to see very much, but my co-worker Jeever took me on a drive one afternoon to a town called Tagaytay City. Tagaytay City is on the top of a large hill (approximately 2400 ft). On the way to Tagaytay, we passed pineapple plantations, Jeepneys (more on that later) full of people, rows and rows of fruit stands and a motorcycle with a sidecar filled to the brim with bananas. Tagaytay is somewhat economically depressed, but people there make their living off of fruit crops, hand-crafted wooden furnature and selling Philippino coffee. Amazingly, there is a Starbucks built right at the top point in Tagaytay. After getting our coffees, I followed Jeever to the back, where there was an outdoor sitting area and a panoramic view of the Taal Volcano. We were offered a boat ride across the lake to the volcano crater (1500 PhPs for our group, or a special price of 4500 PhPs for our group in which the seller would make 1500 and my friend Jeever would make 1500 – how nice!) We declined, but I don’t blame the guy for trying. On the way back from Starbucks, we stopped at a fruit stand where I bought a bundle of mangosteens. A mangosteen has a semi-hard purple shell. When you press on the sides, it pops open so you can pick out white pods of sweet/tangy fruit. It tasted a lot like a sweet plum – in pod form!

Although I didn’t go to downtown Manila, I was told the traffic is much like the traffic in Bangkok. In the Philippines, people can catch rides in Jeepneys. Jeepneys are adapted from US military jeeps which were left in the Philippines after WWII. They transformed them into jeep-like buses and they’re used to transport people, produce, and livestock. They’re painted bright and shiny colors and sometimes I saw people hanging off the back! Overall the traffic was not bad in Muntinlupa. In fact, it was a better commute than I have at home! It was not completely safe for me to roam around by myself (mostly because I am about a foot taller than everyone else and I stick out like a sore thumb as a western woman). People thought I was a movie star. I hear there are famous resorts on other parts of the island. If I ever come back for longer than a week, I will bring Rob and we’ll go to a beach resort! All in all, it was a nice trip – a good break from the overcast, cold winter at home. There’s nothing like a little sunshine and warmth in January!!

Here is a link to my Philippines photo album on Flickrr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629160631207/

New year's resolution 2012: More Blogging

I was sitting on the floor at the Nantucket house with Sheena snoozing at my feet and Rob watching American Pickers. I took a puzzle piece from the box and connected it to the matching piece on the table. Rob glanced over and said "That's sick!" I have always been good at puzzles. I can't tell you how, but I finished this 1000-piece puzzle in about 4 hours then started and finished another one in the same day. The thing is, that was the first time I've even thought of puzzling in the last year and a half - since the last time we were on Nantucket!!

We had an amazing year in 2011. Happy to say mostly positive memories - a new and exciting job in a beautiful place, adopted a beautiful sweet pup Sheena, took amazing international trips together, and had some amazing adventures on the West Coast too! This year we even got to see both our families for the holidays. Now it's 2012 and I'm excited for this year. Doing the puzzles and the general relaxation of this trip made me reflect on all the positive people, experiences, and things I have in my life. Now I'd like to share more of that through blogging rather than Facebook. In 2011, Rob made the choice to remove his Facebook account. I also hate the ever-changing profile and security settings, the negativity of so many of the posts I read, and the overall addiction I had (thinking "This will make a great profile picture" when I'm standing at the castle in Brno, Czech Repiblic looking at the sunset over the cathedral - that's sick). Even though I still have my Facebook account for now, I think blogging will be more positive for me personally. I also decided to start a photo-a-day blog on Flickr (more on that later).

This year, I am definitely going to keep the positivity going with some resolutions. My mom will laugh at me, but I'm seriously trying to stop biting my nails (3 days so far!!). I'm going to re-visit P90X since I liked it so much a few years ago and I'm preparing to hike Mt St Helens. We are also starting a small garden and continuing our healthy "mostly" meat-free eating habits. So I hope you will follow us on Blogger this year - here's to a great new year 2012!