Jennifer's Birthday Celebration

Remember this girl? I have known Jennifer for about 14 years now. I made her a special birthday dinner the other night. Lemon dill baked salmon with rice, veggies, sparkling wine, and a Boston cream birthday cake with a single pink candle. I made sure to let her know not to waste this birthday wish. I told her to put ALL of her heart, and energy into this one single exhale. Hoping that moment of positive energy will bring good things, and possibly her wish WILL come true!
Her and her boyfriend stayed over for a couple of nights, and the weather cooperated! We took advantage and went for a little day drive out to the waterfalls.

We had to hike to the falls in the snow. 3 out of 4 of us did not have the right shoes on for this adventurous hike, making the experience hilariously memorable.

We went on down the road a little bit, and ended up at Odell Lake Resort for lunch. The frozen lake was a treat to see. We made sure these city slickers were not easily going to forget this trip.

All of the food on the menu is fresh, homemade, and delicious!

As always our adventure was a blast, and I think our guests had a great weekend "away from it all".

Our First Wind Advisory at the Homestead

Wayne and I were entertaining guests that had just arrived at our house when a wind storm picked up. There was so much debris in the yard, and I said, "Whoa this is crazy!" Then Wayne suggested they bring the cars closer to the house. As soon as he said that 2 trees fell knocking over a 3rd tree and one of them dented our guests rental car. The guys instantly went to work clearing out the driveway.. The ladies and I stood watching from the window. It was how I imagine hurricane winds to be. I saw Wayne start running towards the house and I looked out at the wind directly head on. The debris was blowing down and back up at the house hitting the windows. We looked out at the yard and saw another tree had fell. We all felt in danger. The only thing I could do was watch where the wind was coming from, and watch the trees. If I saw one coming towards us we were going to run to the opposite side of the house. The whole experience was unreal. We expect that we had 40+ mph wind gusts. Our guests wanted to get out of here ASAP! It was going to be dark soon, and they wanted to be able to see the roads and be able to call us to meet them if there was something that fell on the road. I insisted on staying at a hotel if this kept up. No way in hell I would be able to sleep seeing what we just saw. Trees are snapping like twigs! Somehow as our guests left so did the wind. What are the chances?! We are QUITE embarrassed by their experience of our property.. 

The tree we thought fell in the yard was actually half of the top of this tree below. 

On the plus side:

We have TONS (literally) of new firewood!

Also Kola brightens things up a bit. She doesn't have the slightest clue as to how much work this storm has caused us, but she is just filled with joy that we were all outside and able to throw toys for her in between hauling, raking, and cutting the debris & trees. She helps us take mental breaks from the work and keeps us laughing.

What a goober pants! ♥

SUNRIVER - A Great Start to the New Year

Wayne has a friend visiting from Hawaii and he and his fine lady wanted us to come out to Sunriver to catch up on things. We have also been dying to go out to the observatory! Having watched 4 Seasons of The History Channel's "The Universe" (so far). We have been looking for an opportunity just like this. You also can't beat the views both of snowy mountains, and perfect starry nights.
Our visit was a blast. Great food, and company. We had intellectual conversations with a side of sparkling wine and a movie night. My kind of people!

We showed up for the solar viewing to see the sun up close, and we had just missed a solar flare an hour earlier but could still see remnants of it. The photo of the sun is the photo that the Observatory at Sunriver posted on their facebook page. I couldn't help but share exactly what I saw! 

These are also photos from their facebook page down below. I couldn't capture the mind blowing experience in my camera without a tripod, but wanted you to see exactly how beautiful the view was(I'll be more prepared next time).

Visit the Observatories website HERE.

Happy New Year! 2014

Time to celebrate Page 1 of 365.

We enjoyed a quiet evening with some champagne for New Years. I put my stocking stuffer Rifle Paper Co. notebook to work with some new ideas for the shop. I am getting ready for Valentine's Day. That may sound weird to a lot of you.. But I am trying to stay ahead of things. So I should have a lot of new things listed very soon!

I wish you all a VERY happy and successful 2014!