Falling into Winter

I just realized it's been a really long time since I posted last, and I don't have much time now to either, but wanted to put up a few pictures I've taken lately. The reason the spiderwebs look white is because they were frozen. It's been really cold out lately... yesterday's high was 32 degrees F. and this morning it was down around 15 degrees F. Brrr, is it almost summer yet?

Soltrek 2009

This is long overdue, but I finally had a chance last week to do a scrapbook page of Jr. High camp. It was crazy and a lot of fun... hopefully this page at least slightly reflects that. :)

Crock Pot Chicken Chili

Sorry there's no picture, but here's a recipe I've made quite a few times that I think everyone who's had it has liked, so I figured I'd share it. It's nice since it's a crock pot recipe so I assemble everything in the morning and by the time I get home from work it's done. :) It's also good for the cold weather. I hope you enjoy.


Crock Pot Chicken Chili

Ingredients:
1 – 16 oz. can kidney beans, rinsed & drained
2 – 16 oz. cans chili beans (plain chili beans, no meat/no extras, un-drained)
2 – 14 ½ oz. cans diced tomatoes, un-drained
1 – 15 oz. can tomato sauce (optional, makes it soupier)
1 small or medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced (or 1 teaspoon garlic powder)
2 Tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 ½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
2 or 3 frozen chicken breasts (plain, skinless and boneless)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients into a 3 quart or larger crock pot, including whole, frozen chicken breasts. Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. Remove chicken and shred, and then add back in to chili. Serve with grated cheese.

And a few more

Some Family Portraits

Another thing I did this weekend while avoiding work was doing some family portraits for some friends from church. I had fun, hopefully they did too.

A new page, finally

I took part of this last weekend off and did no work at all... I know, that's what weekends are supposed to be for, but I always have stuff to do. Anyway, even though I had stuff to do I didn't do it, instead I did a scrapbook page. This picture is from June, so Ducky is all grown up now, but I liked the picture and wanted to do something with it. Mom took the picture, but I had fun scrapbooking it... and not getting any work done. :)

Back from CA

No, this is not me, it's my sister.

Mark's mom gave us some chocolate eyeballs which Mark really enjoyed! :)

This is Mark's dad's leaf art... I liked it.

Ducky's all grown up now.

Dad & Mark on tractors.

Mark & I got to spend a little over a week in CA with my parents and alas, now are back in Oregon. I do like it here, but I don't like being so far away from my family.

School started back up for Mark last week and I'm starting another term at work starting Tuesday, so the crazyness has begun. Here are a few pictures from our trip down south.

Long Time No Post

I didn't think I'd been that busy lately, but aparently I have considering it's been a couple months since I last gave an update. Summer has consisted of moving into a new apartment, working, going to Jr. High camp in Idaho for a week, photographing a wedding, working some more, house sitting for a week, baking while enjoying having a full size oven again and playing with our neighbor's kitten.
Today's the last day of summer term at the flight school, so now we get our summer vacation for a couple weeks before starting another busy term... I think Mark & I are both ready for a break.

Peach Pie

I know it's almost the end of summer and peach season, but if you can still find some you should try this, it's amazing... if you like peaches... and pie (sorry the picture's not great).

Peach Pie

- Pastry for two-crust pie
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 6 cups pealed and sliced peaches (6 to 8 medium)
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon stick margarine or butter

Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare pastry.

Mix sugar, flour and cinnamon in large bowl. Stir in peaches and lemon juice. Turn into pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with margarine. Cover with top pastry that has slits cut in it; seal and flute. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning. Remove foil during last 15 minutes of baking.
Bake about 45 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust. Cool in pie plate on wire rack. Serve warm if desired.

It's also good with vanilla ice cream. Enjoy! :)

God's creativity

Last weekend Mark & I got to go out to the coast and see my parents and grandparents who were staying in a campground there. While we were there I got to enjoy and take some pictures of some of God's amazing creations... some of them might seem ordinary, but I think they're pretty incredible. I'd never seen the flowers pictured in the middle before, but all I could think of when I saw them was, "Wow, God's got a crazy imagination!" Who else would have thought of creating a flower that intricate and weird! I liked it, so I figured I'd share it.

Meet "Ducky"

This is my parents duckling, Ducky, that they hatched. He was the only one that made it, so he's rather spoiled... He gets held, watches movies with the family, runs around the house occasionally and peeps really loud anytime he's left alone. Once he's let out of his box he quiets right down and is happy to follow people around or just snuggle up in someones' lap. Someday he (or she as the case may be) might take off and decide to be a real duck and we'll never see him again, or maybe he'll continue to follow people around and become annoying, but right now he's still a cute little bugger and becoming part of the family.

Family Portraits

Back to work again after a week long break. Here are some of the pictures I got to take of one of Mark's brother's and family. More to come, but now it's time for bed.

Digital Photography Designer

Click on image to enlarge

I don't know how busy work will be this summer, but considering it's gotten pretty slow here lately I figured I'd try to supplement it with something else I like doing. So this is my plan. If you know of anyone who might be interested let me know.

My latest projects

I haven't had much time lately to do creative stuff, but was able to squeez these in a couple weeks ago

Signs of Spring

Last weekend while the weather was so nice I finally got to take some pictures...

here are some of them.

3 Years!

Last week was our 3rd anniversary!

I am so blessed!

Two morning's wake up call

One day last week while getting out of bed I heard a bang on the window. I looked out and there sat a slightly dazed male quail! I felt bad for it having flown into our window, but also took the opertunity to take some pictures at a much closer distance than fully coherient birds allow. After a couple shots he must have been feeling better and seen me moving through the window and flew off. I got another chance though just a couple mornings later when a female quail did the same thing! That time a grabbed my zoom lens and took a lot more pictures to make sure I captured the slightly blind bird... the only thing we can figure is that the lighting is such at that time of day that the quail see a reflection in the window and try to fly through it. We haven't heard it happen again yet, but here are some of the pictures I got when it did.

Life as we know it...

Life is crazy, and by crazy I mean crazy busy. I know people say, "Just wait until..." you fill in the blank, but I'm trying not to think about it possibly being even busier someday because it seems busy enough now. There is only one week left in the term plus finals week and then we get a week break... maybe. On top of my regular work I'm trying to piece together the class I'm going to be teaching next term... it's coming along, but pretty slowly. Mark spends almost every spare moment studying trying to finish up his external studies classes at the same time as his other classes and get good grades in them all (which he's been doing really well with so far). I wish I had gotten a picture of him the other evening when he fell asleep face down on his books while studying. I've been pretty bad at taking picture of what's been going on with us lately, although it's pretty much the same thing every day... pry ourselves out of bed, inhale breakfast, rush to work and school, sit in my office, get in a plane, get out of a plane, sit in my office some more, come home, eat dinner, study, go to bed. I haven't had much time to do much creative stuff, but here's what I have done in the last month.