My first garden!

Well, it finally happened! I have my very own garden. My Mom met me in McMinnville at the start of the long weekend and we bought our garden starts. We were even able to share some things. Then I drove home and hit a sunny spot, so I planted them.There are seven rows, starting from the farthest back:

• 4 Red bell pepper plants: We'll use these to can our roasted red pepper sauce for yummy pasta all winter long
• 1 Yellow and 1 Purple Bell pepper plant: We'll just eat these in salads or as snacks
• 6 Sugar snap peas: We can harvest and freeze these and add them to salads or stir frys all winter long
• 6 Walla Walla sweet onions: This is my 'experiment' for the summer. We love onions and buy at least one a week, so I thought, 'why not try to grow them??' I can't wait to see how this turns out
• A row of Scallions: These are from a seed packet and this way we'll get a late crop to harvest. We use scallions every week!
• 6 green onion/scallion plant starts: This is for the early harvest and is a short row
  
• At the end of the row are 3 spinach starts
• 2 Romain lettuce and 2 Green leaf lettuce

I'm so excited to see what we get out of garden this year!

Steven also made me a half size raised bed for cut flowers. So far I've got dahlias, peonies and gerbera daisies. The sprouts on the right hand area are dahlias. On the left are the peonies, but they haven't sprouted yet. The back corner are the gerbera dasies that I bought at the same time as the veggies.We also have our herb garden with 2 different sage plants, parsley, rosemary, thyme and oregano. To the side is a little planter I put some small dahlias in.I also have a lavender plant (which I will dry and make more sachets out of, like last year). That's closest in the photo, then center is a poblano pepper, then farthest away is a jalapeno plant. We're trying these peppers for the first time!We had been looking for a patio set for a while and we finally got a fantastic deal that we couldn't pass up. I finally snapped some photos that I could post. The umbrella came with it too, but isn't up here.There is also a bistro set that we put on the side of the deck. I am waiting for it to be nice enough to spend some time outside reading this summer. The little table is perfect for a glass of wine and a cheese plate!

Steven also determined that the mystery plants (of which we have several) on the side of the house are strawberries! Uncle Jim let us know that the mystery plant next to our deck are lilies! I can't wait to see both of them bloom.

Wine Tasting at 11 AM...

You kind of have to know that its going to be a great day when your wine tasting is rain-free!

I love wine tasting, but we haven't really been anywhere for a long time. So when Larry and Marlene asked us if we wanted to tag along with them on a Pre-Memorial Day Wine Crawl, we said "Of Course!"...

First stop of the day was Shea. Larry is actually smiling here. Wine Tasting is a win for everyone!He's holding the magnum that the owner of Shea signed for him:

You have to think that he's a little special to get a signed bottle, no?

Then we moved on to Penner-Ash. This is my favorite place to go for sure. The wine is good. The nibbles are fantastic and you get to keep the glass. Our growing collection of stemware is nearly complete for casual and fine drinking! I invite you to come over. Just please do not spill on my new blue slipper chairs or new taupe sofa. Ok? Thanks!

One of the other great things about Penner-Ash is that they actually want you to stick around and picnic. Love that! We had the most amazing spread of food, some would say too much, but not really. Everyone got exactly what they wanted and, well, let's admit that it is a good thing to have a big lunch when you start drinking at 11 AM.

The background is simply stunning, so I made Steven snap a little photo of Me and Marlene: Do I look tired in the photo? Probably because my awesome boss took me to lunch last Thursday and I got a SUNBURN. First time in a long time. It wiped me out. I'm still recovering. I won't be doing that again anytime soon. I promise. At least, not without sunscreen. Moving on...

We hit a few places after lunch. Very disappointed in Beaux Freres. I also managed to spill red wine all over that new white tee shirt I had on while we were there. Tide-to-go pens? They work. They work better when they aren't dead, and mine was on its last leg...but managed to get most of it out. The rest came out in the wash. Phew.

Here we are enjoying the scenery and a rare moment of 'almost' sunshine at Bergstrom:We are all feeling nice and mellow. A great wine tasting adventure for sure!

Speaking of adventure... the mail man just knocked on the door saying we owed Cash on Delivery for a huge piece of mail. The genius who sent it put 0.44 cents on it. I owed 5.20. I had a ten in my purse. The mail man now owes me 5.05.

He said my options were to over pay and he'd bring me change tomorrow or to drive to the post office, pay and get my change when I paid. I hate the post office considerably more than most people so I paid him. But my question is, "Why do I feel like I'm not going to see that again??"

Adventures with Shelley...

I have been lacking on the blog posts lately. I will try to remedy this ASAP as I have a lot of lovely ideas and a wonderfully full summer of things to write about!

On to the lovely Adventures I've been having with my BFF Shelley:

She graciously took me to "Ladies Who Opera", Our yearly ritual of Theater going. Usually we try to aim for October, but Billy Elliot The Musical came to town in April so we held off. Steven helped me make a perfectly French meal for Shelley, Keven and the two us, then we set off.

The musical was quite lovely, even though it had been a long time since I'd seen the movie. There was a little something for everyone, which I think is good in a Broadway show!

Our first photo at the new house:
She even brought me those divine Easter lilies. She is so thoughtful!

Last week we went to see our most favorite Author at Clackamas Town Center. I finally got to meet Jen Lancaster!!

The first time I had to be in Montana and Shelley was so nice to go and get an autograph for me. Last year Jen's book tour didn't stop in Portland. So I've been dying to meet her for three years now!

You know what? Good things are worth waiting for! I wore pearls in honor of the event. (Jen wears pearls to do everything. I mean everything. Even to work out.)I'm only a few pages into her first work of Fiction, "If you were here" and it is already amazingly funny. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a great read and lot of laughs.
I will admit to wanting to steal the Saint Cupcakes that someone brought for her. I'll leave the VooDoo doughnuts though.

Stay tuned for more adventures!

We are still here...

We've had such an amazingly busy April that we are taking a moment here at the beginning of May to have a deep breath.

Since I last posted we've:

• Said Bon Voyage to our friends Chris and Michelle, who moved to Boston.
• Watched Colin's first Tee-Ball Game.
• Invited my cousin Nicki over for dinner after finding out that she lives less than a mile away. We played games and ate and had beers until 1 AM! Her beau is a pretty nice guy. We got to meet him too. Steven made burgers and I deep fried french fries. Yum!
  
• I got to see the 'Billy Elliot' musical with my friends Shelley and Kevin. Steven was gracious enough to cook us dinner and then clean up afterwards while we went to the show!
• We mistakenly went to a Rap Concert. We thought it was going to be a comedy show. Long Story, but pretty funny. We got a call from Darren who said, "Buy tickets to this and go with me and a friend". So we did. Then it ended up not being a comedy show at all. Now we have a huge laugh every time we talk about it. "Hey remember that Rap Concert we went to?" :)
• We hosted our first Easter Sunday at our new house. We created "Super Table" so we could all be at one big table. It was a great meal and everyone got to see what we've done to the house. The living and dining room are pretty much finished and I need to post pictures soon.
• We celebrated Larry's birthday!
• We had family photos taken out at my Parent's house. I'm waiting on the photos to come to us then I'll post some so everyone can see. We used the same photographer that did our wedding photos and he was awesome! We really enjoy Peter. He's a great guy and pretty fantastic photographer.

So that was our April. Very crazy and jam packed. That's the reason I haven't blogged! I've also been working and I LOVE my job. Its crazy busy some days, but I really feel like I'm making a difference and actually get stuff done. I feel so productive at work. Its a great feeling!

I can't wait to post photos of the family as well as the living room. We haven't been sitting around doing nothing though, the backyard is literally transformed. I can't wait to plant my veggie starts and take photos. We now have two raised bed planters, a pretty yard and a lot less excess stuff- all thanks to awesome Steven. He's really working hard to get the yards in great shape. We want a yard that looks beautiful but is low maintenance. Its coming together well, but taking time. Last weekend we found an amazing deal on patio furniture so we got that, put it together and have had some weather breaks that were nice enough to eat on the patio. I love that!

All I can say is: Life is good!