If you've been thinking of a visit...

Vivian's latest thing to say after guests leave is:

"You come here, you stay here. You don't come here, you don't stay here."

Hard to argue with that.

She first said it after Kat and Marley left. Marley, Sabine and Vivian invented "fun land" -- a game in which the king and full size mattresses get pulled onto the floor (well, part of the way) and much jumping ensues.

The photo above is of Vivian, Kate, and Sabine on a display bed at IKEA. We had a great visit with the Fredrick/Fleury clan -- the girls played pretty much non-stop for 7 days. Wahoo!

We finally hooked up the wii...bought a $30 tv at Goodwill tonight so wii can play whenever wii want to...When we first got the wii, Granny Jean and Boopy were in town, so we made miis of them when we made ours. While in WY, the favorite of the girls was bowling, but they moved to another sport tonight...somehow Granny Jean became...the BOXER. I think maybe she thought she was fighting W.










The man behind the wii...

Best Cat Ever

I remember trying to dress up our family cat, Annie, in baby clothes, but I don't ever remember her being this patient. That Cisco is one cool cat.

Halloween, Corvallis Non-Con

Bret preparing to take the girls trick-or-treating


In the wagon (they went to a neighborhood a few blocks away)


At the Lugo's in Corvallis...this is what happens when the mommies go out for an hour or so...swinging on a hill above a creek and dart-throwing. Can't see anything wrong with that, can you?

Somehow we forgot to take our camera out of the bag at the Gold gathering (too much fun playing music and talking with the great folks there...), but we had a great time!

You do the hoky poky

I have a new favorite cleaning tool. OK, well, seeing how much I dislike cleaning, you can take that for what it is.

But.

Our new home has solid dark color carpets. Everywhere. (Don't get me wrong, we LOVE the Purple Palace (so named by my friend Memet). I found in the first week or so that I was pulling out the vacuum every 2 days. And that's just...wrong, IMHO.

So.

I spent a few weeks looking at "discount" stores (i.e. Target, Fred Meyer) for a non-battery operated vac. Apparently, people feel intimidated at pushing something weighing less than 3 lbs. without some power. Whatever. I wanted nothing to do with something that needed to be "recharged" or constantly filled with batteries. I also didn't want to have to purchase bags for the thing.

Therefore, when driving down the road the other day and saw Stark's Vacuum outside my driver side window, I stopped.

They had three "stick" style vacuums. I had to pass on the less expensive one that kept falling apart every time I picked it up (it even fell apart on the salesman...he laughed).

I went with the smaller model Hoky (it's made by Oreck), and couldn't be happier. Unless I had a cleaning person come to my house on a weekly basis...but that's probably a long ways off...

Giant Pumpkin Regatta

What's that, you ask? Well here it is:

Yet another reason to love Oregon. We went with friend Dave to this annual event in Tualatin (a few miles west of Portland). It was pretty darn funny, seeing these folks paddle 500+ lb. (if I remember correctly) pumpkins. Bret also got to see the biggest pumpkin grown in the US this year (2nd biggest in the world). How big is it, you ask? REALLY BIG! Over 1200 lbs. Now that's some pumpkin.

Holy Crepes!

I hadn't eaten a crepe since my first winter in Jackson Hole (1992, if you must ask), when the unfortunate folks who, in marketing their "Tram Car Crepery" forgot to put an expiration date on their "Free Crepe with Coupon" that was printed in the paper. I rode the bus to work every morning that winter, and newspapers typically had holes in them where the crepe coupon was printed. I must admit, I made many of those holes, hoarded more than my fair share of coupons, and ate many-a-crepe on my way to work at the Kinderschule (the Swiss-Mountain-Chalet-Inspired name for ski-daycare. Now, Jackson Hole markets itself as a Western Mountain Town...so the crepery is a thing of the past...sigh). I thought crepes were exotic, a food I never experienced growing up in the mid-west...and didn't realize how easy they are to make...

Ok, so it was Sunday morning (I had woken up at 5 am, and after tossing and turning for almost an hour, decided to go downstairs and just be awake...the crepes recipe said to let it rest an hour before cooking, so this was perfect)...the pictures aren't great, but take my word for it...crepes are both easy and yummy. For Alton Brown's recipe, see the "What we've been eating" section below right on this blog. (BTW, I still recommend the Turkey Meatball Escarole (I use chard) soup...we've had it multiple times since moving.)

I must admit, I was inspired by Amy over at Angry Chicken for the crepes...(as with many other things, but only just recently unpacked the sewing machine.)

I was feeling exceptionally lazy, so I threw some frozen blueberries, maple syrup and butter in the pan I had cooked the crepes in...and made some kind of filling...served them with full fat (why would I use any other kind?) yummy yogurt. I cooked them in a stainless steel pan, just put butter in before each crepe. They slid out beautifully. Next time, however, I would make the filling in a small sauce pan.