We're getting into double digits...

Today marks the '100 days until our wedding' milestone! Its coming up so fast, we can't wait for it to be here already.

We had a little practice over the weekend... Steven's cousin Ryan married Emily out in Hillsboro. It was a beautiful wedding, and we were so lucky that the weather held up (no rain!). I have some pictures from the day...

Here's 'the girls'...

And that's my boy!!

Happy Tuesday! J

Tell me something good...

I saw this on a friends blog, so I thought I'd put my own spin on it...enjoy!

1. Ten years ago I was…in middle school, just being myself (tragically uncool!), taking tennis lessons and playing softball. It was about now that I realized that my hair was out of control and I started wearing make up...and jeans.

2. Things on my to do list today...clean our house, get a manicure, finish up an air flow diagram at work and try to enjoy the sunshine (while I can). Also, set up time with Aunt Donna to make jam!

3. Things I would do if I was suddenly a billionaire: I would put some of it in the bank, some of it would go to charities, but to be honest with you, I'd be at J.crew in a heartbeat. I'd also buy some land and put a house on it. A house with a laundry chute, huge kitchen with state of the art appliances and a large theater room for Steven. I'd also get some dogs to hang out with in the new house.

4. Bad Habits: Um...well, I clean too much. I used to bite my nails (but not so much anymore), I tend to say what I'm thinking sometimes, which does not always end up well. I swear, probably my worst habit.

5. Places I have lived: Springfield OR, Corvallis OR, Fairview OR and Lake Oswego OR.

6. Jobs I have now or have had: Administrative Assistant Extraordinaire, Lab tech/intern at U of O Chemistry Dept., Lab tech/intern at OSU Chemical Engineering Dept., Kindercare weekly Chemistry Teacher, SESEY Camp Counselor, Chemical Engineering Consultant.

7. Things people don't know about me (quirky things about me): I didn't own or wear a pair of jeans until I was 12. I enjoy a nice peanut butter and cheddar cheese sandwich. I can't keep a plant alive.

8. Things that make my life superfabulous right now: Well, the wedding is pretty superfabulous, although I wish it were here already!! My Steven is also pretty superfabulous (but more like superfabulous awesome!)... I also really like our apartment and living in Lake O (its a much nicer drive in the morning)...but looking for a house is starting to materialize as a achievable now. I have pretty amazing friends and family who love and support me. Come to think of it, I can't really think of a time that my life wasn't superfabulous. I'm pretty blessed. :)

Engagement Announcement Update

Our Engagement Announcement is now up on The Gresham Outlook website! That means it will be featured in tomorrow's newspaper.

Check it out online if you can't get the paper at http://www.theoutlookonline.com/features/story.php?story_id=120856499814778000

Love, Julie

Beach trip weekend

So last weekend seemed to be the perfect time to get away from the city with a beach trip. The weather was perfect, sunny, clear skies, no wind and about 70-75 degrees in Cannon Beach! The perfect (rare) day at the beach in April. All this disgusting weather (like the SNOW we're supposed to get this weekend) was giving us cabin fever.

We ended up getting to Cannon Beach around 9:30 and we had a lovely breakfast and a nice long walk down the beach front.
Then we hit up the cooking school (EVOO) and got some tasty treats!! After that, we walked through some shops and then headed over to Seaside.

We spent forever trying to find a parking spot in Seaside, and all day Steven accidentally drove the wrong way through the parking lots. We finally got ourselves settled, and hit the promenade. Spent a little time going through shops, shared an ice cream cone and then the people were outnumbering us, so we got ready to leave.

It wasn't until we got home that things started turning sour on us. We decided that since we had wanted to have dinner at the beach, we should go out and went to Bridgeport for some pasta. Which we laughed at our good fortune to find a parking spot in front of the resturant (that never happens at Bridgeport!) . Our dinner was fantastic!

Well the combination of sun, fun and richness of the food we ate really got to us. We were pretty sick the entire night. I'm sure it was a sight, the both of us, in misery, trying to watch Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day.

We had fully(ish) recovered by morning, when we discovered another sour note to a perfect weather Sunday morning...an ant problem in our kitchen! While we have it fully under control now, the sight of them crawling up my and down my kitchen makes my stomach turn. I am a clean freak, and I've accepted that about myself, but more to the point, Ants are just GROSS!!

I'm so glad we at least got to enjoy a bit of the nice weather...and I'm really happy to be with someone who can maintain a sense of humor in a bad situation :)


- Julie

Julie and Julia...and Julie

I'm having a great morning. I got up, the sun was shinning... I got to work and my coworkers are happy...Its going to be a great day tomorrow and I get to go to the Beach! I'm doing my daily www.people.com pilgrimage when I see a picture of Amy Adams (whom I adore) on the set of "Julie and Julia"... I'm intrigued.

I discuss it with my Project Manager and she informs me "Oh yeah... I just read that!"... I saw "Can I borrow it?? I had no idea it was a book"... "Let me try to find it amongst the shoes!"...

So I begin my quest on www.amazon.com. This is a story about a lady who decided to make every recipe from The Art of French Cooking in a year. The math dictates about 1.25-1.5 recipes a day! Hilarity ensues.

So I begin thinking about my own disastrous cooking attempts and find myself laughing out loud at my desk! I have been and always will be a baker and cook. I'm not a chef, because that requires professional training (and to some extent talent) or a domestic goddess...but I do have my fair share of kitchen mishaps which I have decided to share:

1. The time when I saw a food network program chef make a banana cream pie of some kind... I couldn't get my custard to thicken! *Custard, in general is a horrible thing for me to try to make, honestly, I've curdled more milk than I care to think about.
2. My more recent banana creme cheesecake, in which again my pudding (custard, what's the difference?) would not thicken.
3. My disastrous caramel making experience, in the middle of which I managed to sneeze so violently that a rib popped out of place in my back, where I spent about 30 minutes agonizing over what constituted a "dark amber color" as I did not have a candy thermometer. *Thank you Steven for putting one in my stocking this year!
4. One of my first attempts at making a cake and frosting, in which I spaced the difference between regular and confectioners sugar. The frosting was nice and gritty...but still somewhat tasteful.
5. The peanut butter cookies that my Dad asked me to make that came out horribly flat and unappetizing. Sorry Dad, my heart just wasn't in it that day. *I'm happy to make you some to make up for it though, I was only 15!
6. The chocolate cake I made from scratch when I realized that I didn't have enough cocoa powder to finish it off... So I added chocolate chips instead. *Side note: If you are going to do this... melt them first! The chips all sunk to the bottom of the pan, which was greased and floured, but no match for partially melted chocolate chips sticking to it! My inverted cake came out in chunks, which were then held together by MOUNDS of butter cream icing. It was the leaning tower of chocolate cake. *I have since bought parchment paper for lining my pans!
7. The chicken that I tried to cook like Giada from Food Network... My lesson learned is that just because there is wine in the fridge, that does not mean you need to cook with it and I should ALWAYS cook the first time with a recipe. *Only after making things dozens of times do I feel like I can stray from the normal tried-and-true.
8. My pumpkin rolls which I tried to roll out on my granite tile counter tops, sans pastry mat! T-O-T-A-L Disaster! Sticky, sticky, sticky dough...meet tile grout...I also remember a particular moment when I'm standing over my dough with both hands covered and needing more flour...unable to open the canister without covering my entire kitchen in dough, when Steven walks in the door. I'd never been more happy to see him. *Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit here.
9. Anytime I've tried to melt chocolate over a sauce pan of boiling water, huge clumpy mess! *I've since discovered the microwave...works wonders...but also, throwing a bit of butter in the clumpy mess will smooth it right out too. Thank you Alton Brown!
10. Any time I've thought the chicken was done...but it wasn't. *This is what meat thermometers were made for! And also, this is why I don't use the BBQ.

By now you're probably wondering why anyone would even let me in a kitchen. I'm generally fearless about trying new recipes... even custard (despite my experiences). But once in a while you mess up...and sometimes you learn from it and sometimes you don't (see custard!). But I love to cook and I love to bake and I love to eat!! This is why I watch food network constantly, I'm trying to sharpen my skills. And usually, the end result is pretty tasty, if not, we have a good laugh and open a can of soup.

Engagement Announcement...

We finally submitted our engagement announcement to the paper. The announcement will most likely be featured on next Saturday 4-12-08 in the Gresham Outlook.

You can access the online version at www.theoutlookonline.com under the "features" tab along the top of the website page.

I'm sorry we couldn't put an announcement in any Eugene/Springfield papers. The Register Guard will only let you submit an announcement if an immediate family member lives within their circulation. Since my parents have moved, it seems as if the Outlook is the only source.

I hope you can access it online, and I'm sure we'll scan the article and post it later.

Much Love,

Julie