Camping at Crater Lake

I thought our pictures would do the best job at summing up our camping trip. However, to sum it up in words I would say this:

Beautiful Blue Lake. Lots of yummy food. Lots of fun games. Lots of Mosquitoes. Great campfires. Great company. A little chilly. And snow.

To elaborate: My dad called the Crater Lake campground and warned us that the snow was very slow to melt this year. Because of this slow snow melt, the campsites were left wet, and therefore the Mosquitoe population was thriving. We were optimistic and packed extra bug-spray. Because of the snow they allowed guests to choose whichever site they wanted, so basically it was first come first serve. Some of the sites were so covered in snow that the table and fire-pit weren't even visible. Fortunately since Wes and I only had a 5 hour drive (as opposed to the 7 hour drive my family had) we got there just in time to nab a good spot. We found a nice big dry site with table and fire-pit! Yay! The bugs were a bit annoying, but we managed and it was totally worth it. All of Crater Lake was completely breathtaking. The walks and hikes we went on were gorgeous. The pictures I have are nothing compared to the great pictures we got on my Dad's nice camera. I will post those pictures to Facebook or the blog once I get my hands on them. We had such a great time.

Thank you to my family for driving all that way to camp with us in Oregon. Thank you for the great laughs, we loved it!

Quinoa Cakes

You must try this recipe. You have all heard me rave about quinoa before, so I won't bore you with all of it's nutritional benefits. However I will say that, nutritional benefits aside, quinoa is also amazing because it is a blank canvas. You can do anything to it, sort of like rice (though I feel it might be even more versatile). This is a great way to use up leftover quinoa. You can find the full recipe here at Seven Spoons blog. I followed the basic directions and then through in whatever we had on hand. At the time, the only leafy green I had on hand was cilantro so I sliced up some avocado and cilantro. I hope you do try this one out, you won't regret it!!

What have we been up to?

Homemade tequitos (sp?)

Modest Mouse Concert

Hosting bluebirds and fending off the neighbor's cats

Sondre Lerche Concert

Picking berries and attending my art class on a local farm

We celebrated my birthday by going out to eat at a nice french restaurant and then seeing the movie Bridesmaids. Had to get my redvines for the movie!

Le Pigeon house made chocolate truffles

Lamb & risotto

bread with butter

bowling with family

Starting my internship: this was the back of my car on my way to a wedding.
Read more details on My Paper Airplane.

and most recently, made jam.

Our next adventure: camping at Crater Lake with my family. I hope you all have a great week! We'll be gone Monday through Friday.

Be Fruitful, Not Busy

(no pun intended)

Fruitful (adj): Producing good, or helpful results; productive.

Today is one of those days... Busy? most definitely. Productive? almost. I have the jitters now as I type this because as I look around our house I see a thousand unfinished projects. I have taken on quite a bit today. All projects that I have been wanting to do, however I have started them all at once and now am left with many unfinished projects that now need to be finished.

• Jam made and cooling.
• Monstrous pile of laundry needing to be folded.
• Jam dishes needing to be washed.
• And a craft project at my fingertips.
  

I am reminded of my tendency to start things and not finish them. 5 pm you do not intimidate me. I will finish these projects. I will sit at the end of this day with a clean house and know that I was productive. Be fruitful Katie! Not just busy.

Ashley's Visit

It has been one of those weeks where Monday actually feels like it was a month ago. That is what happens I suppose when you successfully pack your days full of ultra-fun, out-of-the-ordinary activities. One of my best friends Ashley Whipple has been touring the North West for the past week and a half. What I mean by "touring" is just that our other friend Rachelle lives in Seattle, so Ashley made the most of her travels and visited us both. I made the 3 hour drive North to pick Ashley up and spent the day enjoying cupcakes, coffee and burgers with the girls. The 3 hour drive home gave Ashley and I much needed time to catch up and well, I'll let the pictures tell the rest:

Meet Ashley and Rachelle:

Meet our cupcakes in honor of my birthday: Salted Caramel, Strawberry Shortcake, and Chocolate Coconut.

First breakfast and one of the only places open on the 4th of July:

Our 4th of July plans consisted of shopping, picnic, bocce ball and fireworks.
This is the vegan apricot pie with coconut whip cream that Nina made. So delicious!

Some familiar faces.

Ashley and I one the Bocce Game

For firework-watching we drove to the waterfront. After wandering around to find the perfect spot we happened upon these big window ledges a little ways away from the river. It was a perfect spot. We brought out the blanket and the beers and laughed a lot.

The gang on the window ledge:

The next day we decided to pick strawberries for a second picnic that would take place at the Rose Garden.

Ashley and I attempted to have a picnic last summer when she visited; however, two weddings were taking place on the day we went and we couldn't find parking. We were actually successful this time around. So after taking a trip to Pastaworks to get yummy cheeses, salami, olives, drinks and a baguette, we staked out a spot at the rose garden

And for dinner: Nuestra Cocina

Chocolate pound cake with Cinnamon ice cream

And for Ashley's last night in Portland we went to Sushi. And boy oh boy was it amazing!

Our last dessert together: Gelatto!

I promise you we did more than eat dinners and desserts. Though we do love good food!!! (But surely I don't have to tell you that?) I think one of my favorite parts of the trip was being the only two people out in the strawberry fields on a beautiful morning. Thank you Ashley for visiting. I am so thankful for the good weather and the good times we had.

Cake

This was my birthday cake! At some point in time I got it into my head that this year I would bake a birthday cake from scratch. It may have started long ago when I saw a 6 page spread in Real Simple all about cakes. Cake, cake frosting, cake toppings, cake filling, you name it- it all looked amazing. We started dreaming up the perfect birthday cake and before almost settling on a german chocolate cake (my favorite) we found this beauty and decided to go crazy. To view the website and the recipe click here.

This is a picture of the cake we were copying.

We decided that we liked the way this cake looked but that it wasn't chocolatey enough (or well, in any way at all). So we decided to go with a chocolate orange theme (you know like the yummy chocolate oranges you break open at Christmas time?) We made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in the middle and then orange citrus frosting on the outside. I'll tell you right now, yes it is as rich as it sounds. So rich that I don't think we will make it again but all in all it was a fun time. I had some difficulties with the cake due to not buttering the pan enough and having it stick a little bit. This resulted in, ummmmm, well... like 6 "layers" of cake rather than 2. I very creatively had to "paste" the pieces back together with chocolate frosting. This is why the cake is not perfectly round and sort of blob-ish looking. The orange citrus recipe we took straight from that website and it had way too much butter. I know that cake has a lot of butter, and frosting does too, but this was just too much. Too rich, it practically tasted like butter. So anyway, all in all it tasted good but not amazing. Next time, German chocolate it is! :)

We enjoyed the cake with a couple of friends last night! A good time was had by all. Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes, cards, phone calls, and text messages. I had a great birthday! I will be spending my first week of being 24 with one of my best friends Ashley Whipple. We have been busy and I can't wait to share all of our pictures and stories with you. More again soon! Have a great 4th of July on Monday everyone!

Birthday

You'd think I was making a cake from scratch or something...

(oh just you wait!!!!!!!!!!)