CHRISTMAS COOKIES

As a part of our pre-Christmas tradition, we like to make cookies and decorate them with friends. I took them to work, then Mike and I hit the Greene's, Tomlinson's, and the Smith's houses to complete our rounds. I tried a new frosting recipe this year that allows more FUN decorating. Below are some examples.


Christmas Gingerbread man with spirited plaid.



The never before seen Zebrapotimus.



A stylish star.

A BLIZZARD IN MY OFFICE ?!?

Well, I went to Dad's retirement party in Texas and left my staff to run the show. Upon my return, I was greeted with a flurry of snowflakes of all different sizes, shapes and patterns. A Blizzard. I think this is a bit of revenge on me, although I am innocent. I take NO part in acts of random fun in the office. Don't listen to those who say different. Anyway, I thought it was worthy of showing off. On a side note, we initially thought it would be cool to do the whole office in snowflakes like on the movie "Elf," but I think after this feat, that dream is gone for this year. Maybe we'll just continue to add in the upcoming years to eventually accomplish our dream.


Notice that it is snow the full week. I think this means that I shouldn't come into work. Just a thought.


Myk made the big ones. I had made a request the prior week and I came back to two BIG HUGE ones. We are definitely saving these are for next year.

Gobble, Gobble - Turkey Trot

Thanksgiving day, I participated in the Mid-Valley Turkey Trot. I put the challenge to two of my friends to participate and both "willingly" participated. Supposedly I forced them. yada yada yada. Anyway, Mike and I arrive to get him situated to volunteer but realized that we were too late for him to get his position as a volunteer and so he grabbed some coffee and joined the fray. Soon after Malissa and Jill both arrived. Britney (Jill's daughter) after spouting off that she was going to kick out butts, was no where to be found. Hm...a bit scared I think. We all got our free stuff and headed for the starting line. Mike positioned himself at the corner, but somehow didn't cautch us leaving. However, he did get a couple of shots of us crossing the finish line. This time, Jill got her name announced over the speakers.


We were drenched! I, of course, was blamed for coaxing them into running AND for the rain. I must say though, the temperature was perfect. No freezing lungs. I care.

AIR SHOW

Nellis Airforce Base was putting on an Airshow so Mike & I decided, hey, it's free and its planes. We're in. We headed to the Base to take in the sights. There were some amazing planes. Huge, small, WWII, current, you name it. There were several Air Acrobatics that took place. I tell you, these men and women can fly. I was truly in awe.


This is the C5. Humongous! The front and back open up to load Hummers, tanks, and the tactical big stuff. Crazy!


I was talking to the airman and he said that the gun fires 750-1000 rounds per minute. Per minute. I asked what the usual trigger finger pull was and he said one would typically get off 5 rounds with one short trigger pull. kack,kack,kack,kack


I really wanted to get behind the gun on this chopper. I bullied my way past some 5 & 6 year olds and went straight to the seat.


The military started adding what they title the "Heritage Flight." There basically are different planes from different eras, wars, etc that fly together. It is neat to see the evolution of technology and tactics. This picture doesn't do justice, but I think there is a WWII fighter jet, F15 and some other planes. Mike knows the names, ask him.


This is just cool. A craft you would find on a naval vessel.

Viva Las Vegas

For the past 3 years I've been contemplating getting Mike a "Race Car Experience" package. This year I decided it was as good of year as any and I purchased an Indy Style Racing Experience. I really wanted to get the BMW Road Racing Experience, but my timing was off. Mike and I flew down to Vegas, stayed with Vegas Josh & Teri, and lived it up for a few days. We arrived at Vegas Motor Speedway Saturday morning. Mike was pretty excited. I was too. He got to put on the handy dandy driving jump suit and take in about a 30min. training. The catch phrase we both liked was "you can drive on the freeway going 100+ mph, but can you do it turning left?" Here are the pictures. Mike will have to blog with his words later.

Hitting the top speed of 146.5mph. Speedy!


The pit crew member gave Mike the low down again. Then once his time was up and he was to hit the oval, the 4-runner would give him a push and Mike had to pop the clutch.


I wanted Mike to drive the blue or the maroon car. He got the blue. It looked fast and was really shiny. It reminded me of picking out go-cart cars at Boon Docks. You size up the cars by how fast the previous driver drove and its passing ability.


Mike at full attention during the training. Sweet jump suit.

OINK'S

Hello all. Most of you know Mike is going to school full time at Oregon State University. He is pursuing his GIS certificate and is slated to finish at the end of Spring term. During this time we are living off of one income. I was thinking the other day that Mike and I are no longer DINK's (Dual Income No Kids), but rather OINK's (One Income No Kids). I got quite the chuckle when I thought of it. I tried it on Mike and his response was similar. I think I've come up with a new acronym. OINK's. During this time where families are adjusting to the economy and incomes fluctuate, I think this gives us something to laugh and smile about. Please feel free to use it. It has a ring to it.

Fall Festival Fun Run

Malissa is a runabee (runner wannabe) and we decided to challenge ourselves with a "fun" run. Of course we wanted the t-shirt as well. Any runner wants the t-shirt. Mike and I headed to Corvallis to meet up with Malissa. Malissa and I would run the 5K and Mike would cheer and drink his coffee. Mike caught us coming and going. Notice that we have running chips (the stuff that REAL runner use to time themselves). We pretty much rocked the course. We're thinking about doing a 5K on Thanksgiving Day, The Turkey Trot, so we can eat to our heart's content the whole day and not feel guilt.



They announced our names and numbers as we crossed the line. That was neat!
"Malissa Larson from Corvallis and Susie Friberg from Albany"

Iron Mountain

We also hit Iron Mountain on the same trip as Smith Rock. It was rated difficult in our little handy dandy hike guide, but really it was simple. A steady uphill march, but nothing compared to Rooster Rock.

Smith Rock

Mike got a taste of Smith Rock when he tagged along with Josh, Jess and hoods on their summer time fun and fishing. The pictures looked so amazing, that I suggested we go there for some rest and relaxation. We took Misery trail around the mountain to see "Monkey Face." The primate was amazing. There were folks climbing it early in the morning. Amazing stuff. The structure itself is God's handy work. Incredible!

Susie's birthday

The one downside to going camping is that we came back on Susie's birthday; meaning i didn't wake up early to make her breakfast in bed, like i usually do. Instead she was woken up by Ned who was crying for his breakfast, although he's not all that into having it in bed.



I got home while she was at work, so i cleaned up and prepared the gift - i was considering leaving it in the bag it was shipped in, but wisely chose to wrap it in a box with wrapping paper



... although that didn't mean that i took it out of the bag it shipped in ...



She had been eyeballing a new pair of mountain biking shorts a while back, so i decided that would make for a pretty good gift. Unfortunately when you purchase clothes online, there's no way to see if they fit correctly; so they have since been returned and the next size smaller is on it's way.

That night we went out to Johnny Carinos for dinner, then topped it off with going to bed at 9PM since we where both beat.

Lake Billy Chinook & Smith Rock

I was invited along with the Smiths for a couple days camping and boating at Lake Billy Chinook. At first it was mentioned that it would be like having another parent around to keep the hoods in line, but after careful consideration of this statement (about the blink of an eye) it was restated that it might be more like having three kids. Although this statement hurt me deeply, i wasn't about to miss out on a chance for camping and boating with a "little" fishing thrown in on the side.



For those of you who have never heard of Lake Billy Chinook, it's in central Oregon, a little north of Redmond. The lake is at the bottom of a large ravine and extends off in several arms. It's a great lake for water sports since it's fairly well protected from the wind. Along the walls of the ravine, you can see the incredible rock formations - i don't know enough geology to describe how they were formed, what kind of rock it is, etc, but it's incredible to look at.



There are a couple rivers that feed the lake (or are sourced from there, not sure which) - the Metolius is one of them. There are several smaller creeks/streams that end up in the lake, some creating cool waterfalls.



The small mouth bass population in the lake is out of control, so we did our best to bring it down a notch. I lost count of how many fish we caught, but i would cast & hook the fish and Abi would reel them in. I didn't get any shots of the fish, but they were a blast to catch. It was also fun to tool around the lake and watch other boaters and see what animals we could spot on the shore. If i recall, we saw quite a few wild horses, a couple deer, a couple otters, a mink/marten, a couple bald eagles and a goat that was on an impossibly steep cliff (not a wild goat, it had a collar on it).



In the way back home, we stopped off at Smith Rock since it was on the way. We didn't spend too much time there, but it's definitely a place we'll have to go back and check out.

Quick trip to Opal Creek

This has turned out to be quite a weekend ... Saturday morning we got up early and headed to Josh & Jess's house to go over to Yaquina Bay to do some crabbing. It was a busy day because the silvers are out in the ocean, but we had the bay pretty much to ourselves. We loaded pots and let them soak for a while, then started pulling them. Things started a little slow, i think because some of the bait was still frozen, but after a couple pots things picked up and we ended up with a great haul. I'm not positive on the counts, but i think we got 10 red rock crabs and 13 Dungeness. We headed back in, made the quick jaunt back to Corvallis, threw the crabs in water, then feasted like pigs.

Today we decided to work off some of the crab meat and Susie and i headed to a place we've heard of called Opal Creek. It's an old growth forest 40 or so miles east of Salem. The area has quite a few protected areas including a stand of Redwoods that are somewhere in the range of 500 to 1000 years old. We didn't quite have time to go back to see those, but we really enjoyed the short hike we were able to do and are planning to go back and camp out over night to allow for some more exploring.

This first shot is from the drive up to the trail head. The clouds were hanging pretty low and made for a cool shot.



Back in the day, Opal Creek was a mining area, first gold, that didn't last long, but they found nickel. There was also quite a bit of logging. Some of the equipment has been left behind and now serves as a marker 2.2 miles into the hike. It's interesting to see the rusted remains. This was part of a chain we saw.



The trail follows the Little North Santiam River and the water is amazingly clear. Right as we started the hike, there was a bridge over one the the many pools and even though we were quite a ways up and the pool was pretty deep, you could see the bottom. Unfortunately that picture didn't turn out, so we'll have to go back and take another. This was another bridge looking down on the river.



Of course i had to head down to the water and took this shot looking back up.



We're definitely going to have to head back and spend some more time here ...

Cruisin' to Alaska

I recently put my name on a list of interpreters who wouldn't mind interpreting on a cruise. I thought, Oh I'll try it and see what comes up. Well a page came through that had a cruise to Alaska during my break between Spring and Summer term. I was going to rule it out, but asked Mike what he thought. He gave me the go ahead since he was on call that week and off I went.

As happens often with me, I had a doosey of a time getting to the boat. I was suppose to fly out on Sunday at 7:30am. I got to the counter 35 min. before take off and the ticket lady said I couldn't go. I was rescheduled on the 9am flight. I arrived in Seattle and found that I was on stand by for the 12pm flight to Canada. I was hopeful, but a bit weary. My name was called and they said that we have one seat we think. After a walk through, there was NO seat for me. Now the panic set in a bit. I was suppose to be on the boat by 5pm and it was now 12pm. I had 5 hours to get myself to Canada. I looked for a shuttle (nope 5.5hours), I thought another flight (no I would arrive at the airport too late), renting a car? Yes. I rented a car, drove to BC, dropped off the car and had a taxi take me to the dock. All along, I've got the interpreter I'm training with on the phone saying the ship is leaving early, you need to get here. That wasn't helping. I arrive in BC and the taxi drops me off at the port to a lady saying, "Are you on this boat?" yes. "You better run." I don't know where to go. Lady pointing, that way. Ok, susie is off. This nice port man came running up beside me and said, "I'll take your bag, you run ahead to customs." What the heck? Customs. I just went through in the car. I ran to customs, very politely and hurriedly, showed my passport, smiled and gave my best I'm an ok person look. He waved me through. As I'm running down the corridor, all I hear are these women on walkie talkies giving a stage update: She just passed me wearing a green shirt. Next woman: Green shirt just passed me. Funny stuff. I thanked the port man and ran across the gang plank, they pulled the plank, and set sail. Crazy stuff. ButI made it.




These next 2 pics are from a short hike I did at the totem park. Cool stuff. It was a great day. I saw my first bald eagle here. In this park there was a total of 11or 15 totems with explanations



This is Russel Fiord the home of Hubbard Glacier. There are four major glaciers that meet up to form a giant massive sheet of ice but I can only remember Hubbard and Valerie glaciers. Anyway, this glacier was massive and fascinating. I could have stayed and looked at it all day. I wanted to go walk on it, but of course that didn't happen. It is a truely amazing sight. If you have the opportunity to see it, go.






This is Juneau Alaska. I went on this great hike to the peak of Mt. Roberts. It was great. It took me about 1hr 15 min. I saved $27 going by foot. Have a cup of chowder at the top and took the tram down for free. It was great. I also went to the Mendenhall Glacier. I walked to a point on the beach and just took in the view. It was fabulous! Again such a spectacular sight to see. The colors of blue in these glaciers are phenomenal. These pictures don't depict it well. The hues are crazy beautiful.