Blogs to come!

Spring break has been good to us. As I sit here late on friday (Thank.goodness.its.friday), I am feeling every minute of the lack of sleep I got this week due to late night movies, and early morning work days. We have accomplished the majority of our Spring Break To-Do list, but most importantly we are refreshed. Relaxing and enjoying ourselves was the first priority and we definitely have. From Powells Books to date nights, to the movies, to the zoo, to having time together, to taking naps, to getting coffee for the fun of it, to good weather, to bowling (and then not bowling)... oh boy it has all been so good!!!! And we have pictures to prove it. This weekend I will be posting all of our documentation. Its all a big blur as of the moment ... but we have been rediscovering Portland. It's always a good feeling when you feel like you have been on a vacation while still falling asleep in your own bed at the end of the day. Pretty darn good. Can't wait to fill you in. The last, most fun-est thing that I am looking forward to: Alice in Wonderland in 3D. Wes got "his" movie now I am getting "mine." We both wanted to see the Green Zone (which was great!) and Alice but I was just nice enough to let us see the Green Zone first. :) Anyway,
pictures and blogs will be posted this weekend. Then monday: duh-duh-duh da: spring quarter starts. Here's to the last two days of freedom!

An experiment with vegan living leads to new way of eating

Hello,

It's Wesley. I generally am not the one to generate new blogs but I thought I would give it a go today. Honestly, I am not really writing a blog, rather I wanted to share an article I read this morning in the Oregonian. Lately Katie and I have been talking to some of you about food, especially vegetarianism and veganism, and I thought this article would be useful. Check out some of the links to vegan recipes if you like. Enjoy!

Click here: An experiment with vegan living leads to new way of eating

Friday Night

Friday night: the eve of my 3 day weekend and the end to a long hard day of work which consisted of: 3 year old poking 5 month old in her clogged-tear-duct-eye, which led to normally calm baby crying all day long ... you get the picture. (and 5 month old is ok now, so no worries) Needless to say, a relaxing friday night dinner with the husband was in order. So we got some wine:



Some Gorgonzola and caramelized pear ravioli:


With homemade red wine marinara sauce:

Some homemade bruschetta (toppings off to the side in that green bowl):

and some squash and mushrooms on the side.



equals === Delicious.

But the best part of all was...


The Ice cream sundae (served in the perfect little ice cream bowls given to us at Christmas) that I ate while watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix (Wes had to go to work and miss out on this part). Yes, we are enjoying ourselves.

And speaking of amazing food. We have recently given the tofurkey craze the boot after 1) getting sick of it and 2) realizing that soy in large quantities is not normal and nothing about tofurkey is normal. 3) Why eat meat replicas when there are perfectly delicious vegetarian sandwiches out there with all natural ingredients, like:

~ sliced pears, brie cheese, spinach, and a walnut pate' on a crusty baguette. <--which we made yesterday!

~ sliced hard boiled egg, black olives, tomatoes, lettuce, and mustard on whole wheat bread.
~ sliced figs, walnuts, sprouts melted together with a blue-cheese spread on whole wheat bread.

We have been craving interesting sandwiches. So when going to Powells the other day we did some recipe investigating and found some great ideas for fillings and spreads of all sorts. These were a few of my favorites.
So yesterday, we made a homemade walnut pate': onions, carrots, celery, walnuts, bread crumbs, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper all chopped up together to spread onto a crusty baguette alongside this amazing goat-brie cheese:

sliced pears and spinach. Again, Delicious. So, now that you have heard about our latest food adventures I'm sure I have made you quite hungry! Sorry about that, but come on over and eat a sandwich with us! :) miss you all,

Love,
Katie

PS: There was recently an error discovered on the black bean burger recipe after Ashley tried making them last night. Error to be noted: I forgot to include the breadcrumbs. Blast! I promise I will be more careful in the future and that you can trust I will give you error-free recipes from now on. I corrected the mistake on the b-b burger blog and the black-bean burgers are now normal and better tasting than ever! ;)

First Day of Spring Break!

Clearly this quarter was hard. You've heard us update you on the latest things keeping us busy: pine cones, papers, jobs, projects: the looong list of them.

And a break just tastes that much sweeter when you know you worked hard getting to it. So, yesterday marked...
OUR FIRST DAY OF SPRING BREAK! (Well, together anyway, my first day was monday but its so much more fun when Wes is off too!)
It was our first day getting out and enjoying Portland in quite a while. For the past month to two months (basically this past quarter) the majority of our days were spent at Palios in the evenings and our couch or the library in the mornings. It was a chaotic quarter, the type where you just have to keep pushing through, suck up the fact that you can't have a social life, and accept that this is your life. So, we fought the good fight and now the intermission has arrived.

And oh it tastes so sweet! Yesterday started with sleeping in. We did have to go to campus to tie up some loose ends but after all of twenty minutes we were born free!
Our first stop: Powell's Books.

Full of any book you can dream of. We went our separate ways and browsed books we've been wanting to check out. We then went to the coffee shop inside to flip through them all. You don't realize how one-track-minded you have been until you allow your brain to drift any way it would like to. I can think about watching a movie tonight... because, well, I actually can!!! :D
Our Second Stop: Life of Riley Tavern

This place is hopping at nighttime. We have passed it many times to see a line out the door. However, it was only 3 in the afternoon when we went yesterday so we were like one of 5 tables being served. It was really nice. We ordered french fries, a burger, and a personal pizza. ha ha a smorgasbord of bar-junk-food and shared it all (with plenty of left-overs for today). However, the thing I am MOST proud of is... drumroll.... I ordered my first beer. me. Katie Scoville. I have never even popped the top off of a beer in my own home let alone, order one out. But hey, it was St. Patty's day- gotta go a little crazy right? ha ha Don't get too excited though, I drank half of it. Not too bad for my first, right? I ordered a red-something or other by these people:

We had SUCH a great time.

Our third Stop: Home, for a nap.

Our Fourth Stop: Home Community! It has been a good two months since we had been able to go. It was great to finally be able to even considerate it. So we went!

Our Fifth Stop: Home, for a movie. Just so you understand how RARE this is, I will point out that we had to temporarily stop receiving netflix because we were too busy to watch them. It was so much fun to be able to sit on our couch together and watch one of our own movies. We watched....


It was a great movie! Loved the unique story.

So that concluded our first day of spring break. Though, this morning might as well have been a continuum. I got to go to the zoo with little (almost) 3 year old and little (almost) 5 month old. I love my job. :) And, I love the zoo-- had an amazing encounter with an elephant and a giraffe. A not so amazing encounter with the lions (where were they? They were not to be seen. :( ) and some amazing weather! So here's to another great week and a half before the cycle starts all over again!

Love,

Katie

This is what it smells like outside.

This picture was taken last summer and it just makes me so excited for the upcoming months. It has been mostly rainy these past few days but before that we had a good run of about 4 days of sunshine and boy oh boy was it gorgeous. Now today, the buggies have all come out, there are bees flying in our courtyard and spiders crawling out from their hiding places to see the gorgeous sun... spring is coming! Today, I am not only celebrating this beautiful day, but I am also celebrating the beginning of my spring break. Winter Quarter is OVER!!! It was over as of 9 pm last night when I finished up the last of my short essays for Gothic Art History. Today I bask in the glory of it. This was probably the hardest quarter I have had since we moved here. We have endured many difficult things here: ceilings falling in, the flood of '09, moving, the loss of jobs, etc... while all of those things were very hard they weren't accompanied with a full time school load/ full time job combo. This quarter was a big period of adjustment for me. I endured, and now its over.

So today, I celebrate the finish line. I am celebrating in my sweats. My plans for the day? Get some laundry done, do some dishes and become one with the couch as I watch a movie and eat popcorn. mmm sounds absolutely divine. The only thing that would make it even better? If Wes were doing it all with me. Wes has not met the finish line yet, but he will on wednesday! We will be celebrating on that day with a relaxing afternoon at Powell's books and happy hour at whatever bar strikes our fancy downtown. Now thats a celebration! :)
We also have quite the growing list of things to accomplish over spring break, a couple of them are:

1) Join a gym. Woohoo! Finally, we are so excited!!!
2) Spring cleaning: dusting, sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, vacuuming, junk-chucking, and windexing: The works!
3) Paint pretty pictures for our kitchen (finally), as well as Marisa's apartment. For any of you out there who don't know yet, my best friend Marisa has decided to move to Seattle to live with another one of our friends. I get the honor of painting a picture for her. :)
4) Date night! Can you say Alice in Wonderland?? oh.... wait..... we are watching a matt damon movie instead because I'm so nice and Wes is so obsessed. :) Just giving you a hard time honey.

So, if you haven't already, go take a big deep breath outside your front door. If Portland is seeing spring, everywhere else should too right??? I hope you are all experiencing this like I am today.

Lastly on the list of announcements I must give a shout out to my Dear friend Meghan Muhlig. Who is no longer a "Muhlig." Congratulations to Mrs. Meghan Olsen, who got married on saturday!!! I used to work with Meghan at Borders and in the jr. high youth group at church. I cannot even begin to express the joy I feel for her. --Love you Meghan!

Well, time to go check on the laundry, happy monday everyone! I'll talk to you again soon,

Katie

Debbie's Pinecones

Mission: Final Project for 3D design.
Assignment: To work in nature. There were several rules given to us: it had to be outside, we had to use all natural items (no glue wire etc), we had to title the piece, and we had to break ONE of the rules. :)
Background info: When we were assigned this project my teacher played a completely inspiring movie about an artist named Andy Goldsworthy. This man works entirely in nature often times out in the wild where no one will see it. He preserves his pieces with photography and his story is amazing. If you are ever curious. You tube him... he's amazing. (three of his works below)

This morning I turned in my last and final project for 3D design. So, what was the magic ingredient this time? duh-duh-duh-da: Pine Cones. Yes, the real kind... the pokey, sappy kind... 400 hundred of them to be exact. So, what was I doing with 400 pinecones?

well....

First I strung them all together with wire...

Then I walked around campus staring at trees, bushes, and stairs. After I decided on a location, I hung them in this tree...


My first idea involved purchasing sod from Home depot and lining a section of a bridge on campus with grass. (what can I say I was excited) a couple phone calls later and I discovered that a single roll weighs 60 pounds.... that wasn't going to happen. So I hopped onto craigslist (love you craigslist!) and scrolled through the "free" section. I saw: soil, gravel, soil, bark, soil and pinecones. hmm... pinecones..... when I first saw this ad I did not think I would actually end up driving myself to vancouver, WA to meet up with a stranger and pick up pinecones from her yard. But I did, and it ended up bringing my project to life. I titled my piece "Debbie's Pine Cones." Debbie was a 60 year old lady, wearing purple sweats-suit and purple bandanna, living on 4 acres with one lama and 5 Alaskan malamutes. She felt that the pinecones were so pretty that she couldn't just throw them away. While cleaning up the pinecones from Debbie's yard I learned a lot about Debbie. Debbie was raised in this very house I was meeting her at, she moved out for two years of her life and then moved back and now owns the house. She used to have two lamas but the second died last summer which she discovered upon finding lama parts dropped off at her house from the coyotes. Then she proceeds to tell me that she couldn't afford to have his body taken away so it is still sitting on the hill beside her house. I learned that Debbie is a vegetarian but will eat fish because "the bible says its ok." :) Debbie apparently is a Christian. After telling her of my plans to eventually have my own wedding planning business she, in all seriousness, wanted me to hire her. "I wish I had a business card! I can type 50 words per minute and have an Associates degree in business." I assured her that my business would not be happening anytime soon. I had no idea of the joy I was bringing to this woman's quiet life until I was loading my car with the garbage bags full of pinecones. I gave her a $5 donation to help pay for the lama/dog food to which she grew entirely teary-eyed and hugged me. Wow, its amazing how art projects can take on lives of their own. You never know how one will be inspired or touched by your creation. Clearly, this project was about Debbie and her pinecones and after stepping back and looking at the pinecones on the tree and all its un-impressiveness, I learned that some projects are more about the process than the outcome. This was definitely one of those projects.

Ahhh art.... mmm mmm good. nothing like it. Am I right or am I right? :) Happy Monday everyone!

Love,
Katie

This week....

Finals Week Has Arrived!!! And this is how I feel about it...




blank faced.

Those are my brothers and this time last year we had my family, two best friends, and Wes' family all visit in the month of March! I remember it was so busy but so much fun. Awwwhhhh... to be hanging out with friends and family would be pure bliss right now instead of the 10 page paper due friday. Speaking of which, I have to get back to but I wanted to drop in and say "Hello." Hope you are all enjoying you wednesdays.

Love,
Katie