carrie's quilt

One of my best friends Carrie is having her first daughter. I made her my latest quilt. It's a friendship quilt for her and she can give it to her daughter one day if she wants. I based the design off of Proverbs 8 which is called "Lady Wisdom." The proverb talks about God's wisdom being found in the busiest of life (I thought it would be applicable to a new mom.)

Cheetah Conservation Fund

I don’t usually share on my blog a lot about what I do at work but yesterday I had an amazing experience and I wanted to share it with my friends, family, and blog readers.

My boss and I went to a house in Lake Oswego to meet Dr. Laurie Marker. Dr. Laurie is American but has lived the last 19 years in Namibia (just above South Africa) where she manages a staff of 150 people and a land mass of 100,000 acres to keep the Cheetah population from going into extinction. We learned that 100 years ago there were 100,000 Cheetah’s and today there is around 12,000. The main reason for this is that farmers are shooting and killing Cheetah’s because Cheetah’s are eating the farmers livestock. Dr. Laurie has developed a program that trains certain types of Turkish dogs that she raises and then gives away to farmers. These dogs bond with sheep and goats and become somewhat of a mother figure to them and will fight a Cheetah to the death if a Cheetah comes close to one of the livestock. The dogs protect the farmers and then the farmers don’t kill the Cheetahs. She has had huge success with this program and was a remarkable person to meet.

Tainai was the at house for a photo op and we got to see her too. Tainai was born in captivity but her mother only had her, no other cats in the litter. When a mama Cheetah only has 1 baby, the mother abandons the baby because they don't produce enough milk for the 1 to survive. So the Wildlife Safari adopted Tainai and she has become a really beautiful Cheetah. Her handlers treated her with so much ease, respect, and care that I asked if I could pet her, but the answer was a very quick "no." She's still a wild cat and that is not allowed.

For more information on Dr. Laurie and the Cheetah Conservation Fund click here

PIE SEASON!!!

I love to make pies. We made our annual (well, second year) trip to Hood River and picked up 22 pounds of peaches for my pies this year. I can't wait to have one. We'll probably have our first one on Thanksgiving. YUM. The secret I found to freezing pies is to only freeze the inside of the pie (not the crust). Freeze it in the shape of the pie pan, remove the pie from pan after frozen, and then seal it for storage in through the Fall. When you're ready to cook it, put a bottom crust down and then place the frozen pie on top of the crust, add butter, and then put the top crust on, adding sugar. Bake for 30 minutes longer than if the center was thawed.

Our Time on Lake Sammamish

A few weeks ago we went up to Mercer Island for a family event with Michael's family. Michael's uncle Pete had lost his battle with cancer. Here are we looking at a photo album of Pete.

Canoeing on Lake Sammamish.

We had the lunch catered and this guy showed up with a BBQ hooked on the trailer of his truck and he had the ribs and chicken grilling in there. He was pretty impressive to watch.

My fave pic of the day.

Anniversary Get Away

Michael and I have been married 2 years. It's been the best two years of my life. We decided to head up to Government Camp and then to Hood River to buy some fresh fruit to celebrate our marriage.

We had lunch at Charlie's Mt. View at Government Camp. Michael had been there before with ski patrol and I had looked the place up online. It was one of the best burgers I've ever had. Here's us sitting across from each other, in love with each other.

Our Mt. Hood pic.

We stayed at Huckleberry Inn and our room had crazy spiral stairs in it. The bed was upstairs in a loft and the living area was below.

Me in front of our favorite fruit stand in Hood River. It's on Graves Road and has the best peaches we've ever had. I make my pies out of these peaches. They are good every year.

We loved getting away for the weekend.