Magic Carpet Ride

Growing up my parents owned and operated an herb store.  It was right off the main road through town, and the house I grew up in was on the same property.  It was a part of my world growing up because it was just right there in our front yard.  I saw the store as a place of wonder and adventure, so many different smells and things to look at.  There were shelves upon shelves of jars of herbs.  But there was also so much more. My dad like to mix and grind his own coffee.  At first I hated the sound of the coffee grinder, it was loud and it rattled something fierce, but I came to love the smell of the freshly ground coffee. My parents also sold tea, soaps, shampoos, books, magazines, candy, tobacco and tobacco paraphernalia.  I liked to hang out in the shop with mom, and smell all the things.

Love to our Feathered Friends

We have so many lovely little feathered friends...we've been enjoying feeding them over the last year. We have all kinds of parakeet/finches, starlings, chickadees, a coopers hawk, humming birds and crows that visit us.  We've added more suet cages and humming bird feeders, and I don't think we are close to done.  The newest thing we've been doing is feeding our crows peanuts (and yes, I do kind of feel like they are our crows-mostly David's-because they watch for us (him)).  The crows are L-O-V-I-N-G the peanuts.  I snapped some pictures of a couple in a tree in our yard, watching David toss out peanuts for them.  Just had to share!

(This one is my favorite, and if I didn't already have a tattoo on my back I'd have something like this on my whole back)

Bauman Farms, October 2, 2010

We were able to share a "first time" experience at Bauman Farms with my friend Angela and her family.  It was their first visit to the farm, and it was our first time witnessing the helicopter pumpkin drop.  Here are some pictures from our day!

This alpaca looks all sweet and innocent, but just after this picture was taken this alpaca went and started some "poop" with the geese and caused quite a ruckus!

The geese just after the alpaca incident.  Is this enough geese for a gaggle?  Anyway, this is the goose gang.  Don't mess with them!

This goose and I were trying to figure each other out.  The gang came up to the fence where we were standing acting all tough-necks shaking and squawking like no body's business.  They did like to be called pretty birds.

David made friends with the two calves in the animal barn this year.  They are such sweet things.  Sometimes (only sometimes) I wish I could have a cow in the back yard.

They both wanted attention.

David getting some calf kisses!

Pretty bird!

David's happy face after shooting an apple canon.  I think everyone should have one of these...

The Strehlow family!  Angela, Avery and Dave.

David enjoying one of our new favorite things-the apple slushie!  (Sara & Ben, we can't wait to introduce you to these!)

Avery in hay jail-Angela giggling in the background :)

Pretty lil pumpkins!

This is the beginning of something awesome!  This helicopter is lifting a HUGE pumpkin.  In a few moments it is going to let go of the pumpkin and hopefully drop it into a kiddie pool.  It. Was. Awesome.  We saw it happen three times-David has video footage we'll post at some point.  :)

Avery really liked this hay bale dragon, so it seemed like a good time for another family picture.

We had a great time!  I think we'll be making a few more trips to the farm-and I can't wait!  Hope you enjoyed the photos, I'll post more from any other trips.

~Emily

Fun Weekend

I am fighting a headache this morning, and a good way to do so seemed like blogging.  Let us see if that does the trick.

Saturday night we had dinner with Michael and Pamela's house.  Ben and Sara were part of the merry party.  This was our first time at their house, and they have a very warm and cozy place.  We met the Sam, the bunny.  He is the softest, cutest bunny I have ever seen!  Dinner was wonderful, as was the strawberry shortcake after.  After dinner we played Catchphrase.  I felt bad because Pamela asked us all if we wanted to play a game, and I think the room went completely quiet.  I don't know what my adversio to games is, I guess I hate being the center of attention at any point for any reason.  I don't think I'm worried about making a fool of myself, I'm pretty good at doing that without the help of a game.  At any rate, we were talked into Catchphrase, and I have to say I'm so glad we did!  For those of you who don't know what Catchphrase is, it is a game where have a phrase you need to get your team to guess, but you can't use any of the words etc.  So we split into two teams (boys vs. girls) and started passing the beeping electronic phrase giver.  That timer ticks fast, and some of the phrases were pretty hard to figure out.  Some of them ended up being pretty hilarious!  There was "Trigger Happy," "Fish or Cut Bait," and "Pull My Finger."  I can't even begin to describe how those were depicted, but you'll have to take my word for it that we were laughing so hard there were tears involved.  David and I had a blast, and are looking forward to the next dinner date!

~Emily

Ooo...Monkeys!

Last night I had a girls night out with my friend Carrie and her Sara and Sara's friend Carrie.  We had dinenr at the Rock Bottom Brewery, visited Nordstrom's Rack and saw Wicked.

Wicked was awesome!  I was not sure what to expect; this was my first Broadway Musical experience.  I was pretty much sucked into the show right from the start.  Carrie's comment "Ooo... monkeys!" as they climbed up the sides of the set had me giggling the rest of the night.  The music was catchy and fun.  The sets were colorful and ever changing-it was almost as much fun to watch the sets move around as it was to watch the cast dance around!  The costumes were colorful and exactly what I envisoned they should be.  The story was whimsical, and clever.  Wicked is the story about how the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch become the characters we know in the Wizard of Oz.  I love stories that are a spin-off or side story to an already popular story.  I can't wait to get my hands on all the Wicked books by Gregory Maguire.  It was certainly a magical experience, and I'm so thankful (Carrie-you rock for making last night happen!) I was able to go.  I can't wait for the next show!  

Of course, I have to take a moment and devote some of this to reviewing the viewers that were sitting around us.  Sara and her friend Carrie had a super leaner-who kept leaning back and invading their space.  They also had a constant giggler, who giggled loudly through most of the show.  Sitting next to my friend Carrie were a couple of girls who were incapable of sitting still or being quiet for more than five minutes.  One kept being loud with her water bottle, and finally one of the viewers in front of her turned around and told her to be quiet.  The girl sitting next to Carrie, who was wearing pajama pants with a tutu on top-and all in pink, kept crinkling paper.  I was ready for one of us to lean over and take away her paper.  The people infront of Carrie and I all looked like they went to the same hair dresser.  They were all about taking pictures of themselves at the show, and spent at least 15 minutes in different poses.  There will hopefully be one picture of them that as an extra finger in it-Carrie, that is going to be my new favorite game.  You ROCK!  The guy behind me would repeat random lines.  If any of you have seen the movie "Emma" with Gwyneth Paltrow, think of the part where Miss Bates is telling Emma about a happy little porker they were enjoying and repeats (loudly and for emphasis) random words like "PORK!"  This guy was giving the full sentence, but it had the seem effect.  Despite the cast of characters around us, we still had a great time! :)

~Emily