Portland Weekend with Alee

This past weekend Ed and I packed up the car (with Alee) and headed to Portland to see Matt Insley's latest musical, Hearts Beating.  (Matt is the music director.) The show was hilarious and we really enjoyed it - we highly recommend seeing this one if you have the opportunity!  It plays in Portland through November 20th at the Coho Theater. 

  2 Pathological Liers trying to ask each other out...Funny scene!

While in Portland, we got to check out our favorite pet store, Furever Pets.  This place is just super cool and they have so many all natural and locally made doggy products!  We stopped in before the show to check them out and they told us that the Pacific Northwest Rhodesian Ridgeback Rescue organization was holding a fundraiser photo shoot there on Sunday to get holiday pet photos.  How exciting!  Of course we came back to get the photos done - only $10 for a ton of great Alee shots!  Plus, the whole store was filled with other Rhodesian Ridgebacks for Alee to meet and play with - what a great time!  Here were some of our favorite shots:

On the way home on Sunday we headed over the Cascades on Rte 58.  This road goes fairly high into the mountains (around 6,000 feet) but we didn't even think about the possibility of winter weather yet - it's only October!  About 5 miles outside of Oakridge, OR we hit a major snow storm that stayed with us for the next 5 hours!

View from the passenger seat as we were going 15 mph.

 Alee in my lap as we were driving through the snow - she kept looking at the "white stuff" with a very confused look

Once we got home, the next morning the snow also hit Klamath Falls!  Not nearly as intense as it was in the mountains, but enough to give everything a pretty white shade.

 Out the front door

Back yard

As you can tell, Alee was not super thrilled about the snow...

Cooking weekend with Terri and Elsie!

Once we finished moving everything into the new place, Terri and Elsie came to visit for the weekend!  The weather was kind of crummy, so we decided to make it a cooking weekend!  Our cooking included: 

Pumpkin/Onion/Feta Pie in Filo

Homemade chicken stock

Blackberry cream pie

Wine-marinated pear muffins

Friday night we relaxed and caught up and chowed down on Papa Murphy's pizza to prepare for the heavy cooking!  Saturday we took the dogs to visit the Klamath Falls Farmer's Market to get some fresh veggies and herbs, then to Link River trail to pick blackberries and then to the Ruff House to play!  

Picking blackberries!  (Alee picked her own too...)

Klamath "Falls" along the Link River 

Alee exploring...

Muddy feet!

Alee trying to play with a black Shepard...brave girl!

With fresh berries and tired dogs, we came home to start on the evening's cooking!  We started with the chicken - to make the home made chicken stock, we made Terri and Ed some great chicken to go along with the dinner pie.  Terri came up with an herb mix of lavender, lemon-balm, rosemary, salt and pepper to stuff in the chicken.  It smelled WONDERFUL!  After cooking for around 90 minutes, we had some pretty excited dogs!  We made the pumpkin/onion/feta pie in filo dough and had a great filling dinner! I tried to get a pic of the chicken, but it was devoured before I could get the camera over there!

After eating, we stripped the remaining meat off the chicken and put the carcass in a crockpot along with some shallots, carrots, celery, garlic and herbs and covered them all with water for about 18 hours.  Boy the house smelled wonderfully!

We cleaned our blackberries (and removed the MANY spiders) and mixed them with a sour cream/sugar mix and poured them into one of my home made pie crusts to bake for dessert!

With bellies full, we headed to bed for a good night's sleep!  

Sunday morning we made wine-marinated pear muffins!  This is a recipe that I've been wanting to try for a while.  The recipe calls for cooking pears in a wine/cinnamon/clove mix until soft and then marinating in the fridge for 2-3 days.  We cooked them on Friday and pulled them out this morning to make the muffins.  They were delicious!

Sadly, Terri and Elsie had to go back home to Portland and we were all sad to say good bye.

Afterwards, we spent some time taking some cute pics of Alee outside...

New Place!

The past few weeks have been pretty hectic for Ed and I because we moved houses!  We moved from our furnished rental in a resort area (15 miles outside of town) to a cute little geo-thermally heated home in town - just 1 1/2 miles from downtown!  As you can imagine, moving with a puppy is challenging...Alee was certainly confused about everything that was going on, but she understood once we got her crate and bed in the new house.

The new place is sitting overtop of a geothermal well (220 deg) so it stays pretty warm...also the heat is FREE and we won't have much snow accumulation in certain areas.   Our well (which we share with the neighbors/land lords) is one of the shallowest geothermal wells in the area at only 88 feet!  Here's the explanation of geothermal energy from the Oregon Institute of Technology:

Geothermal Energy is heat (thermal) derived from the earth (geo). It is the thermal energy contained in the rock and fluid (that fills the fractures and pores within the rock) in the earth's crust.

In most areas, this heat reaches the surface in a very diffuse state. However, due to a variety of geological processes, some areas, including substantial portions of many western states, are underlain by relatively shallow geothermal resources.

These resources can be classified as low temperature (less than 90°C or 194°F), moderate temperature (90°C - 150°C or 194 - 302°F), and high temperature (greater than 150°C or 302°F).   Direct use, as the name implies, involves using the heat in the water directly (without a heat pump or power plant) for such things as heating of buildings, industrial processes, greenhouses, aquaculture (growing of fish) and resorts. Direct use projects generally use resource temperatures between 38°C (100°F) to 149°C (300°F).

So far Alee seems to like the new place except for the wood laminate flooring which she slides across regularly.  She is LOVING the back yard for playing and chewing her bones and we are LOVING the backyard for the gravel!  (No grass to kill with puppy pee!) 

Ed and Alee in front of the new house

Honeysuckles!

Overlooking the City from our front porch

Nice gravel backyard!

So far Buster and Alee are NOT friends, but they are making progress.  Alee would love to play with Buster, but he just isn't having it.  This weekend, we hit a GREAT milestone where Buster actually came into the living room where Ed and I were sitting with Alee and he actually looked right at Alee without hissing or growling!  I even caught it on camera:

Now to start unpacking...

Weekend Fun with Alee!

2 weekends ago we took Alee to her first puppy socialization class!  She did well in the car and COMPLETELY worse herself out by playing with Jasper the 4 month old Boxer!  Afterwards Ed and I got lunch at a deli and sat outside while Alee people watched.

Alee on her way to puppy socialization!

This past weekend was  fun filled and certainly exhausting for Alee!  Klamath Falls held a "Be Kind to Animals" Dog Festival this weekend as a chance to celebrate dogs.  There was a "show ring" (just for fun) and competitions like "cutest couple" and a "confidence builder agility course." Alee got to meet lots of new dogs, put her paw print on a certificate, try out some home made chicken cookies and try out the agility course.  The little boxer she met the weekend before at the puppy socialization class was also there, so they got to play again!  They even got on the news for playing together!  Alee did so well and loved the agility course so much we have definitely decided to start her in agility training once she's old enough (about 12-18 months).

Alee doing the agility training - about to "jump" through the tire

Alee after her playing

After the dog festival, the 3 of us went to Moore Mountain to help the Linkville Lopers running club set up for the Moore Mnt Half Marathon the following Sunday.  We hiked up a hill to see the area where Ed and I will be manning an aid station and helped put markings on the ground to direct runners.  Alee was EXHAUSTED from hiking up that hill - she kept trying to sit in the shade instead of walking with us. 

Sunday morning we worked the aid station and handed out water, gatorade and gels to the runners - they all seemed to have a great time and really enjoy the views.  Of course Alee was a huge help in motivation!  She really enjoyed collecting all the sticks around the site.

 A little blury - but here's Alee collecting her sticks...

Trying now to figure out how to chew on it

Just a beautiful shot of our girl

Ed with Alee

Our Mile 7 Aid station

All in all we had a great weekend and are looking forward to this week where we get to move into our new house!  We're still renting, but this house has geothermal heat and some really awesome neighbors/land lords.  PLUS there's a yard for Alee!

Adkins Company Outing

This post is a little out of order, but I just got the photos off the camera!  Last weekend, the weekend BEFORE we got Alee, Ed and I went on the Adkins Company Outing.  Ed's company, Adkins Engineering, paid for all their employees and spouses to head out to Grants Pass to take a ride on the Hells Gate Jet Boat tour on the Rouge River and have dinner at a riverside restaurant.  To top that off, they also paid for everyone to stay at the Riverside Lodge that evening.  We had a great time and I really enjoyed meeting all of Ed's co-workers.  The event was coincidentally held the day before the Boss' birthday, so they definitely had some fun letting everyone know about the birthday boy!  The lodge was super cute and the boat tour was really fun.  They did some unexpected moves that soaked several people on the boat but Ed and I stayed mostly dry. 

Ed and I on the boat before dinner

Coming into Hells Gate Canyon - the scenery of many famous movies!

Dinner...where they also had some fun singing for the birthday boy (boss)

After Dinner on the way back to the boat

Hells Gate Canyon

Alee!!

This week we brought home the newest member of our family - ALEE!!!  Alee (short for Alethia, the Greek Goddess of Truth) is a 14 week old Rhodesian Ridgeback from Pacific Grove, CA.  She is still a puppy but is growing quickly!  A few things we've learned so far:

• She would prefer to sleep than go for a walk (most of the time)
• She prefers to sleep with or on someone...instead of in her doggie bed
• She doesn't have any interest in Buster although Buster despises her presence
• She doesn't like the leash so she chews on it the entire time we're walking
• She LOVES Kristin's home made garlic-cheese biscuits
• She doesn't like being cold or hot...cuddled up on the couch seems to be the perfect temperature!

Chewing on the rawhide

Watching NCIS...trying to figure out why Gibbs is so smooth... :)

Ready to go to bed! (and it's only 8pm!)

Christina and Paul Visit!

Christina and Paul came to visit us for Labor Day weekend!  It was so great to see them and their Baby bump!  Christina seemed to do very well and was even up for some hiking!  We took them to Crater Lake where Kristin and Christina hiked around Pentacles and Ed and Paul hiked Mount Scott.  We spent Labor Day relaxing by the pool and checking out Ashland.  Ashland is such a cool town with great shopping and fantastic food.  That night we continued the tradition of Blockus  before taking them to the airport on Tuesday morning.  We really look forward to meeting their baby on November!

 All 4 (5) of us at Crater Lake

Baby Gosling's First National Park

Ed and Paul at the Mt Scott summit

Kristin and Christina at Crater Lake