Priest Point Park

Today we went and explored some more. We ended up going to Priest Point Park it was gorgeous, there are miles of trails, trails that go down to the rocky squishy beach. Picnic tables galore, tables that are hidden away and private so you don't feel on-top of the next picnic spot. A sweet playground with a pirate ship, a rose garden.

So here's the one picture I took. It's a daisy, it's happy

I didn't take any other pics because while we were down on the beach area I was busy trying not to get too much mud on me and trying to stay upright. That stuff was slippery! Then while we were traipsing around through the ivy and ferns I was worried about spiders, there were webs all over the plants and I was sure one was going to try to hitch a ride on me.

Tumwater Falls Park

Tonight after dinner we decided to go exploring. Josh had googled some places he thought might be fun. So we started off by going to Marathon Park that is by Capitol Lake. It has a nice path around the lake and in some spots a great view of the Capitol.

Afterwards we headed down to Tumwater Falls Park. It's a series of small falls that used to be used to run the machines that ground grain. It was a really nice walk down in the gully, very green. It's kind of funny because you drive right past in on the freeway but don't really see any of it. We were told by our real estate agent that it was there so we knew where to look.

This is towards the end of the walk, there was part of an old cement pillar that had a plant growing right out of the top.

The upper part of the falls. Where we were standing to take this pic was right over a series of salmon ladders.

A pic of the river further down

The I-5 freeway over the river.

The lower falls

Day #.......

We went exploring today. Josh had the day off today and this morning went on a bike ride and did some preliminary exploring. He came home and told us all about it so that we could go later. We found a cute trail to walk on with Koda that has a little stream near it. He also found railroad tracks, well he found where the end of the railroad tracks are.

Here are Keegan and Koda walking on the tracks. And before you think I'm nuts for letting my son and dog play on the tracks I'll just say that 20 feet behind where I'm standing the tracks end. So I was pretty sure we were safe.

Day #..the day after the last one

found a yummy recipe for the easiest bread ever. My sweet cousin had it on her blog and when I saw it I knew I had to try it.

It turned out so so yummy, the perfect combination of soft but chewy.

No Knead Bread
(yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf)
3 Cups flour, more for dusting
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
a bit of cornmeal

1. Combine your flour, yeast and salt with 1 5/8 Cups of water and stir until mixed. Dough is still sticky (some call it shaggy). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave on the counter for 12-18 hours. I start this part of my dough making in the late evening and bake the next afternoon.

2. The dough gets kind of bubbly on the top, that means it is good to go. Dust a bit of counter-top with flour, scrape the dough from the bowl and fold it a few times with flour coated hands - remember "no-kneading" (it helps if you take your rings off btw).

3. Shape the dough into a ball, put the dough ball on top of a floured kitchen towel (not the terry cloth kind). Cover with another towel and let it sit, rest, rise for about 2 hours.

4. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Find a 6 to 8 quart heavy pot you can cover with a lid (cast iron or enamel seem to work best for me). Here's my pot. I have also baked gorgeous loaves with a metal mixing bowl turned upside down on top of a ceramic lasagna pan...find something you already have around the kitchen. Turn/flip/plop the dough over into the pot (it doesn't look too pretty - its okay). Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake another 15 minutes until the bread is a gorgeous golden brown.

Day # unknown

So with all the other excitement that went on in our life over the last 2 months my project 365 fell through the cracks. It wasn't because I was tired of doing it, but I just found myself busy a lot of the time, and honestly forgot to take pictures. When we are home in UT we easily fall into a routine, one which is familiar and similar from day to day. Because of this, I feel less inspired to take pictures of things, at places I been over and over again. So, I will start again today! We are in our new home, in a new city where everything is new.

That said, the picture today is nothing new, just something old that after last night took on a new shape......

Last night after Keegan was in bed and Josh was getting ready to do the same I ended up smelling something funny. Now I live in a house of boys so sometimes that just happens but this was a burning plastic smell. I have some strange fear of an electrical fire so I walked around the house checking all the plugs to see if that is where the smell was coming from. I ended up walking past the dishwasher and new instantly what the smell was.

Finally 20 minutes later Josh finally smelled what I was and asked if I found what was causing it. When I told him that it was a plastic spoon that melted in the dishwasher he couldn't figure out why I was washing plastic utensils. Silly man, I don't save plastic spoons and forks, this was a mixing spoon. He said "Oh" and went to bed.

Kind of unpacked.......

So here is a little peek at what the inside of the house looks like. It is somewhat unpacked.

Here is the kitchen, I'm standing at the bar looking in. while it isn't my "dream kitchen" it was one of our best options, we really had a hard time finding a house with everything we wanted and the kitchen I wanted.

Here's the spare room, still a mess but since my mom and aunt are coming in 5ish weeks I've got to work on it! If all else fails, it has a large walk in closet and I'll just shove it all in there.

Keegan's room so far. He still has many boxes of books that aren't unpacked but that's because we haven't gotten him a bookshelf yet and his dresser is still coming too.

And a view of the family room area from the stairs. We bought couches but they had to be ordered so for now we have the trusty brown chair and the rocking chair.

So there you have a little tour of our still in progress home. Come visit and I promise to have it in better order.

Olympia, Washington

We are Home Sweet Home

After MUCH thinking, weighing our feelings, and options we chose to buy a house. I was initially hesitant to buy a house in a city that we had only spent 2.5 days in. But..... we ended up coming up for a crazy weekend FULL of house hunting and we ended up with a couple of favorites. We ended up putting offers on 3 different homes and really fate kind of decided for us.

Our cute front door and the cute flag decoration that my friend Lisa gave me ages ago.

Keegan has a strange obsession with addresses. He is always pointing them out "hey look mom that building has an address" "Hey mommy, why is Pa's address over the garage and Grandma Sue's is by the front door?" So just for him here is our address.....next to the garage.

I spent an afternoon staring at this

Since we had been in town a week and still hadn't had our stuff delivered I got to spend part of an afternoon staring at this. Can I say Rip Off!!! But there is something relaxing about watching your clothes go round and round.

Mushroom Festival

So we arrived in Olympia on the 17th and camped in a campground for the first 4 nights till we were able to close on our home and get our keys. That first weekend after we finally got the keys we were still camping in the house while we waited for our stuff to come on the moving truck. So to get out of the EMPTY house we went to the Ostrom Farms Mushroom Festival. We live about 2 miles from a mushroom farm and they have a fun festival featuring what else....mushrooms. There was a contest between a few different chefs and you got to taste and then vote. Yum!!

Keegan's favorite part was all the stuff they had for the kids. Bounce houses, water balloons, a "fishing pond", playground.

Here's my 1st or 2nd or even maybe my 3rd attempt at getting a pic of Keegan on the bounce house slide. That thing is FAST, I missed multiple pics.

I finally got it!

And on a clear day you can see Mt. Rainier

Crater lake

Day 187

We decided to head up to the Provo for some fishing.....well, it turned into slogging through marshland. The river is so so high, the area that we normally stand on dry ground to fish from the bank was under 2-8 inches of water. We found a place that Josh could try to fish and Keegan wasn't going to get swept away. Keegan LOVES to throw rocks and Koda LOVES to fetch them.

Day 186

Tonight we went fishing to try and get Keegan his 1st fish.....since this is a pic of a wee little mushroom you can guess what didn't happen tonight.

Day 185

Happy 4th of July!!!

So I know there are a bunch of days missing between here and my last post. We are in UT right now and I just couldn't seem to find the motivation to blog everyday. So I will go back and fill in the blanks sometime, but for now I refuse to get even more behind.

Day 153

Sunset at a baseball game. Well technically I was facing East not West but the sun setting behind me was making the sky pink.

Day 152

At the Pride parade