Stuffed to the Brim!!

My parents were nice enough to stock us up on the essentials before making the trip home from ARCTIC BLAST '08. After raiding their pantry and a trip to Costco, we are now ready for another semester of home cooking. This picture does not do our new pantry justice but helps you understand why we are just a little concerned about whether or not the shelves will live up to their stated 300 lbs. capacity.

Beautiful Bow Pt. 2

Even though we were not home most of this month to put up the pieces, I thought I would show what it would look like completed.

Arctic Blast '08

The weather outside was frightful. It also postponed our trip back down south for almost a week (6 days that is!!). Here are some pictures from the storm that broke all previous Portland Records.

It really wasn't a ton of snow, about 2 feet, it was the complete lack of any means to get rid of the snow and 6 inches of ice on all roads. IE: Plows, Sanding, DeIcing, Etc. The driving was treacherous, not to say we didn't drive all over in it!!

PS... THIS IS THE HIGHWAY!!!!!!!

Million Christmas Lights

WARNING!! If you get motion sick beware!!

I'm just kidding. Its not that bad. We just wanted you to sort of see what the town looks like during Christmas time. So many lights!!

Christmas Time is Here

We are prepared for it. Well, as prepared as anyone can be I suppose. We have our tree up with the train ready to go. It makes a TON of noise but is pretty fun (for about 30 seconds). The smoke stack still smokes. Which makes me wonder what they have in there to make it do that.

We have our stockings hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that someday we might actually have a chimney to hang our stockings.

Beautiful Bow

Here is the fruits of our labor. True, the bow took us many hours to make but I believe it turned out very well.

Strangeness In Ashland

While walking around the little town of Ashland we are always amazed at what we see. Here is a 15 foot bronze... thing...

Not sure if you can notice, but down on the bottom left corner there is a Donkey/Man... thing... Very strange!! The image somehow became messed up but perhaps thats just from the large amounts of strange!!

This week and Lithia Park

Lithia Park

The scenery

Many bridges!

Sunday we had a lovely walk in Lithia Park. I was amazed on how many people were out walking, riding bikes, having picnics, BBQ's, and enjoying the cold crisp weather. It was our first walk in this park.

We also went to a saxophone orchestra on Friday, that was kinda cool. It had 18 musicians from the area that played a variety of music including Gustav Holst "Mars" to "Egmont Overture" by Beethoven. It was not as professional as the chamber music orchestra we saw, but still very good (to me). Matt enjoyed it but seemed to not be super impressed. He explained to me there just doesn't seem to be "enough power" in a saxophone ensamble. He was not too hot on the idea of a sax orchestra, he likes more variety in the music. None the less, it was still good, cause I can't play the sax!

We went to "Ring around the moon", a comedy play about two brothers in love. We really enjoyed it, and for a student play it was great. We liked that the theater was small and you get a more intimate experience with the actors and scenes, versus having seats in a large theater where you can barely see the faces of the people. I would go see it again for sure.

We (I) also joined the southern Oregon Gleaning Network. It's a nonprofit (that my mom is part of) that helps fight hunger in southern Oregon. I am using my computer skills to help them with a Christmas flyer. We will probably go down to their center once a month to help all the older folks organize donations, and set up food delivery boxes. They all seem very nice people.

Lithia water was gross. So there is a drinking fountain in town, where natural water comes from the park. It is carbonated, and has minerals, and stuff. Gross! Matt drank it and said it was not that bad, but I alost lost my lunch. Supposedly it has powers to make you live forever, and heal and all. But I would rather be unhealthy and not live forever than drink that water again!

Halloween

Ashland City Halloween Party

Matt posing at our front door with our pumpkin and skull

Halloween in Ashland was a circus and a party put together. We got done with school and work about 4 last Friday and sure enough, we started to get trick or treaters right away. Matt set out on our front porch the smoking skull, which was a huge hit. I was busy carving our pumpkin at the last minute, which was a great Frankenstein in the end.
Then we went up to the university to see what was going on. Not a huge hit, so we headed into town. We got one of the only parking spots left on the street and walked around for a bit. It was crazy. There was a few thousand people with in the city, and every single person young and old was dressed up except Matt and I. We had no idea how serious people were about Halloween. We sat at one of the many local resturants and grabbed a bite to eat, since we had not ate yet, and just watched all the people in costume.
I swear we did not see one exact repeat costume. For example, there were many pirates but not one looked the same as the other. We saw faries, monsters, robots, tv characters, cartoons, star wars, toys, and more. Next year we will for sure dress up if we go out again, now we know.

ASHLAND

We made it to the mouth of the Siskyous and Cascades. Our place is still in process, with boxes all gone, but stuff is everywhere. Matt is enjoying school as I seem to be working everyday for my last job, and not much time to find a new one yet.

We went to a senoir concert series last night. It was extremely abstract and artsy, but the small play in it was awesome, it was 4 actors talking about things in life just being exactly what they are, and I never knew such simplicity of the word from mouth could impact so much. We felt like we were taken out of the theater and to another place, it was kool.

I need to take some pics still. Til Then........

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico

Paradise, Adventure, Entertainment. Yes! Our two week vaca was pretty nice. The hotels were at about 10% capacity and the town seemed very empty. Our first week we spent most of our time filled with activities. In the first two days we had done two, 75 minuite, which on time share time, means 3 hours, of presentations. Of course we didn't buy cause they are crazy expensive in Mexico. But we did get about 90% off all our activites for doing those stupid things.

So we started the second day with waverunners in the CABO bay, which was a little scarry for me, but Matt says they were too slow. Anyfaster and I think I would have flown off the thing. Then we made a trip to the local Walmart(which was nasty) but cheap to get food and water.
We eventually discovered City Mart and MEGA mart which are just like costco and clean!!

For Mexico Independance Day we headed to the town of San Jose Del Cabo

Some of our other activities included a cruise of the Sea of Cortez that included a snorkling trip in the Chileano Bay. It was a lot of fun, but very crowded. We did a sunset horseback riding tour of the city's coastline. I learned I cannot ride a horse at all and Matt is like a profesional. We took a glass bottom boat taxi to the famous Lovers beach that is on the Sea of Cortez side, and Divorce Beach facing the Pacific. The beaches are at the end of the peninsula and connect to eachother. They were the hotest beaches I had ever been on. Between the 100+degree weather, a noon sun, and the heat and light bouncing off the rocks and sand, I thought I was sitting in a bowl of fire. Very pretty view, but we only stayed there for an hour.

On Friday of the first week we went fishing. Our friend Lauren was sick before we even got on the boat. She went into the bathroom about a half hour into the boat trip. About a half hour into the 2+ hour boat ride in the Pacific heading north to the middle of nowhere on the ocean, our friend Joel and I got sick too. Matt on the other hand was having a good old time hangin out enjoying the sun. Finally we caught a fish about ten minutes after slowing down. A Dorado (Mahi Mahi). About another hour, and we hit the spot. Seven more Dorados and a Marlin. After a few hours we headed back (8 hour trip total). About the seventh hour on the boat Lauren emerged from the cabin and got some fresh air. I don't think she will do a boat ride ever again.

Most of the second week we hung out at the hotel and swam in the amazing pools. We did do an adventure day on Thursday. We took our rental car about 100miles north to Santiago. We were told about 9km past the zoo in Satiago is a great hot springs. So we drove 9km past the zoo on unpaved dirt roads and hit a three house town. We asked the locals, and they said sauna and pointed down a rickety dirt road. I guess we weren't the first tourists that has come thir way.

So we drove on in our air conditioned jetta, as the sun rose past high noon in 100+ heat. Then the road split. We took the right turn. Then it split again. We took a left. Then we realized the road was disappearing and the brush was overtaking. So we decided to turn around, and got the car stuck. Oh my, I new it. The three locals in the town we past twenty minutes before were going to find us and harvest our organs, and we only have 4 bottle of water to survive on

About twenty minutes in the guys used the jack to lift the car and put rocks under the wheels. We were going to live! So we ventured back to another one of the dirt roads we didn't turn down and found it. Well was it worth it... NO! but it was an adventure.

We drove out of Santiago towards the East CApe to Cabo Pulmo, a world famous snorkling bay about 30km down another uninviting dirt road. There were signs the entire road saying keep out, and people were sitting high up in guard shacks as if they were at war. CRAZY! Was it worth it, YES! It was so beautiful and the snorkling reef and fish were amazing. Our last night, Friday as we spent our last evening out on the town in CABO, our car was broken into. The theifs stole the radio knobs, the oil dipstick, and unplugged the sparkplug wire. The rental car people explained to us later that this was common, that the theifs were junkies trying to sell small car parts for money. CRAZY.

Would we go Back, Yes!

Anniversary

Well we had a lovely anniversary. Matt packed all of our camping gear for day, preparing for our camp out. We were all set heading up to one of our favorite spots, Lost Lake, near Hood River. The spots are 1st come 1st serve so we figured a mid week trip would be great, especially with it being the start of summer when families take camp trips. We were a little lost getting to the camp site, as we are every time we have visited the lake with the horrible website directions, so we stopped at a market at the last town before we entered the woods.
Come to our surprise the lake had 4 feet of snow still and was only open for day use. Oh my gosh, we were so dissapointed. What to do with our perfect anniversary trip that we had look forward to for so long. I decided that we should somehow find another site.
We had passed of course, a WalMart on our way up (the only major store in town) so we tried to find a book or map there. We walked around for ten minutes and nothing. We were headin out the door, when Matt had to use the facility, so I stopped, and what do you know, right at the check out is a giant oversized atlas for 2009. Sweet!
So we found the closest site on the map and headed that way. Here we come The Dalles. Well we arrived about thirty minutes later to a very green and well groomed camp ground. We noticed as we drove through that there were no tents, only RV's. Well there was a small spot for tents in the corner in the very back of this place, and no place for a bon fire. I said oh no we dont want to spend 4 days in a corner with no fire for smores.
The next best place was all the way on the other side of the mountain. Well we did just that, drove through the rolling hills with nothing around for miles, until we started to climb the back side of Mt. Hood. We ended up driving into the first camp site we saw at McXXXXX Gulch, can't remeber the weird name. There were 2 other familes and a lot of ATV's. We had landed ourselves a great spot next to a creek, but with lots of noise and very cold at night( we were up a few thousand feeet). Oh well we unpacked our gear and had a nice dinner.
The next day we decided we are so close now to the Warm Springs reservation, which Matt has never seen, that we should head that way and find another site, especially since there seemed to be a few south of the rez. So we drove throught the desert, unitl we found KA NE TA. We stopped and had a look around and headed further south to Cove Palasades. I have never been there but only heard great things so we keep on going.
Well we drove around a few windy turns and then we saw the lake, Lake Billy Chinook, it was beautiful. You could see the whole canyon nad lake from the top of the driveway into the canyon. We drove all the way down and around the lake unitl we crossed a 1 way bridge that took us to our camp site. The site was a state parks, and for camping a five star resort I might add. Free showers, perfectly cleaned sites, all the water you could want a t each site, and garbages with recycling. WOW. It was very hot so we trecked to the lake for a dip. After and adventurous walk through desert and one steep hill we made it to the lake, COLD! it was so cold, but the view was perfect.
So we had pizza for dinner and stayed the night. They only had one night ope (thurs) since fri-sun all the sites were full. They told us a place about 30+ min even more in the middle of no where that would most likely have some open sites. Ya way in the Middle of nowhere. We drove and drove until we hit another canyon that overlooked a forest of dead burned trees and then connected to a gravel road. We drove and drove until we hit Perry South. The sites were actually very nice and the river was peaceful with a boat ramp. It was a nice place, but probably will never drive that far to get to a freakin camp site again, if I can help it.
The next day we tried for some fishing, uncucessful, everyone in boats caught lots of fish, but were wer off the side of the river, not too many fish there. We packed up for the third and final time and headed out of 2 canyons toward home. Well there was only 1 way to go so we took it, it was long. Through sisters, to Detroit Lake, which looked so pretty, and i would like to visit someday, to Salem. Then we zipped home. It was not the trip we had in mind, but we saw alot, and winged another MOJO adventure.

Freaky Friday

Well its not really freaky, but its long. My 18 hour Friday. Well nothing to crazy. Finally got my new passport with my revised name. It is the last of all the items to change to OLSEN> I am officially after 2 years a real Olsen. Now I can travel out of the country again. Still planning that trip, its in the makings. HMMMMM well the word of the day is Repugn. I repung working. Blah. So it is supposed to be a whoppin 75 tomorrow. Going to Bulwinkles wit the sisters for their birthday. It will be a wild and crazy time, a little put put, some bumper boats, and the world famous races. Maybe a fix of DDR, I got to get that in every so often. Well I will get back to my job now and report back a blog or two later, Peace, JJ

Starting a blog.

This is my first blog. Check out our new clubs!! Now we are as Kool as Kayla!