2011 -- The Highlights

January:

• Discovered Pinterest
• Added a new member to the family:

February

• It snowed

March

• Went to a Once A Month cooking class with a friend and then found a great site called  Once A Month Mom with lots of recipe ideas.  I haven't jumped totally into it yet but there are certain things I'll make double or triple batches of so I'm slowly filling the chest freezer in the garage.

April

• Discovered Jalapeno Cheddar Scones at Whole Foods - can't get enough of them!!

May

• This Ultimate Dog Tease video make me laugh until I cried.
• Fell on my butt in the Safeway parking lot thanks to cheap shoes and rainy weather.
• Got flowers at work from Mr. K because he was thinking about the day we met - how sweet is that?!!

June

• We checked out Red Ridge Farms in Dayton which is a winery and an olive oil mill - I didn't even know Oregon had olive trees!
• We saw Mary Poppins at Keller Auditorium.
• I discovered dessert nachos and homemade iced coffee which we drank the rest of the Summer!

July

• The neighbors set off great fireworks. Koko hated them.
• We spent a weekend at Lincoln City and took Koko on her first hike to Drift Creek Falls, she even has a little backpack so she can carry her own water and snacks!

On the suspension bridge over Drift Creek.

• We took a quick road trip down to CA, stopping in Salinas, Cayucos, and Sacramento to visit some family. It was the first time we boarded Koko and we missed her terribly!





The Farm in Salinas

• Had dinner at The Gilt Club in Portland after seeing it featured on a Food Network TV show where they highlighted the homemade pork rinds, it was pretty good!

August

• We finally made it to the Tualatin Crawfish Festival.  I stuck with the gumbo and chowder but Mr. K really enjoyed sucking the guts out of these little guys.

• We had garage sale in August as well. The little cash bump was nice but it was a lot of work!!  Don't think we'll be doing that again anytime soon!

September

• We discovered the Tualatin Farmer's Market where we had tamales that Karl says are the best he has ever eaten
• We went to Bend to celebrate our sixth anniversary. Karl had never been before and I hadn't been in a long time so it was fun to do something new. We stayed at The Oxford Hotel downtown where the valet guy gave us some great eating advice - Tart Bistro for dinner and CHOW for breakfast! We also hiked Tumalo Falls which was four miles in and four miles back out! I can't believe I hiked that much but it was worth it, there were so many waterfalls on the way up and the perfect little stream where we took a break and soaked our feet before turning around for the hike back down.

Dinner at Tart Bistro.  He's so cute!  I'm so pale!


October

• Went to a pink kitty themed birthday party for my friend's little girl, Kylah, who turned 3!  I had the amazing privilege of seeing this little girl being born and I can't believe it's been three years already!

November

• I cooked my very first turkey which turned out really good!  The gravy on the other hand... it was more like pudding, haha!

December

• Holiday potluck at work which of course required some Cranberry Salsa!
• Headed North to see some of my family for Christmas and ended up going on a hike Christmas Eve and got this pretty view of Mt. Rainier:

 Taken with my phone, it looked a lot closer in person.

And now we're on to 2012...


(updated the recipe blog too!)