WE'RE STILL HERE!!

I'm so sorry for not updating the blog in so long. Rich has been busy at work and this past term turned out to be really busy for me as well. I got out of school for the Christmas break a little while ago, but I'm sad it's almost over. So if you don't get any updated for a while, it's because school started again, Sorry!! I also apologize for how long this blog update is going to be, I'm trying to make up for lost time here.

Let's see, where did I leave off?? AUGUST!! Man, it has been a while. I'm such a slacker! So in September, I had my birthday and school started again. I was working full time during the summer and that kept me pretty busy. I'm enjoying my job and Rich seems to be enjoying his job too. It's pretty hard to beat the place he works for, there are a lot of good people there. Here are some pictures of things we did during September:

Our flowers were blooming like crazy and we had some nice honey bee visitors!
Then we went to a wildlife refuge near our house and we saw all sorts of things. We saw tons of white pelicans, otters playing on a log, lots of frogs, and a white egret!

Then towards the end of the month we got a new goldfish and we went to Rich's company's camping weekend at Silver Falls...and yes, my hair is dark brown.
Cooper and Kiki (mini ausies!)

So that was September! In October our flowers were still blooming! Rich and I went up to his parents house one weekend and we helped refinish their deck before the rain came. We helped my parents clear the blackberries out of their backyard so they would have a nicer view of the field behind their house (sorry, I don't have any pictures of that). We carved pumpkins that molded immediately :( And we took a day trip to the beach. We went down through Monroe and down to Florence. Then up along the coast to Newport and back home to Corvallis. And a quick stop at the wildlife refuge again...just for the fall colors.

In November we went down to Medford to visit my BFF and her hubby. One day while we were down there we decided to go to Crater Lake. It was so cold and there was snow and icicles everywhere! We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving and Rich's family came over too. It was fun having that many people around. I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving but Meghan does and you can look at them here!

Now to December...We haven't done a whole lot this month. So far, we had a couple humming bird visitors and we got a Christmas tree so I'm going to just post pictures of the tree. Hopefully I get some more pictures soon of Christmas day which is only 2 days away!!! This year has gone by so fast!

August Happenings

Just so you know before you start...this is an extremely long post containing LOTS of pictures! Ready? Okay, here we go!

A couple weekends ago, Rich and I decided to go to the beach for the afternoon. We went up towards Lincoln City, OR and then drove back down the coast to Newport and then back home. On our way back down the coast we stopped and went to this rocky beach place and we found a bunch of tide pools! We had a good time going around looking at all the different things and then looking at the pretty ocean for a while. We heard that there were whales migrating at that time but we never saw any (bummer!).

A sweet looking woody on our way to the beach

There's a little tadpole in there. This one had it's legs and little of it's arms, but still had it's tail.
Cool drop-off into the ocean
♥ ♥ ♥
Sea urchin thingy
Pretty view of the beach and lot of caves on the other side
Being silly...nothing unusual

Rich seems to take better pictures than I do
Beautiful orange wildflowers along the road...
...Lots of them!
There used to be a wooden bridge here instead
☺

On our way home we decided to make a quick stop at the store in Philomath. We were walking towards the store when we both happened to look over and see this:

We're not quite sure what's going on here...maybe "STOP! In the name of the law!" or ?? It was just so funny I had to grab the camera and take a picture so I could share this with everyone.

Monday night last week, my mom and dad came down for a baseball game here in Corvallis. It's a summer team (Corvallis Knights), but it's mostly made up of the OSU baseball team and some other people that come from nearby. It was the last game of the season for them (sadly, because they lost), but we had a really good time. Tickets were cheap (hot dogs weren't), and we got really good seats. They were about 3 rows up a little past first base. It was a good game there in the 9th inning...they just couldn't quite get there. There's always next year!

Last weekend, Rich and I went up to see his family and go FISHING! I was pretty excited about going fishing and not having to be on a boat in the middle of the ocean for it. We just went down the the Columbia River and started fishing. We didn't really catch much. Robbie caught some small mouth bass and some blue gill but we were all going for the big carp that are going through the river. Carp aren't good fish to eat, but they are fun to catch and release. No one caught one all day...we had some bites but nothing. Not until Rich said, "Come over here and reel it in!" So I ran over and started reeling something in and it turned out to be a carp! They look a lot like coy fish to me but it was fun to see something a little bigger than 8 inches.

Rich and me with our carp!

Time For A Change

Lately, I've been wanting to rearrange the furniture in our bedroom and I finally got around to it the other day. I've always liked the way our room looked before, but after I rearranged it this time, I was so happy because it finally feels homey to me. Here are some pictures of our lovely bedroom!

This is from the door

The corner with the surfboard and closet

From that little chair in the corner looking out to the rest of the house

...and the "Tower O' Organization" as Rich calls it

I would put up some pictures of the rest of our humble abode, but it hasn't been rearranged yet. I'll be sure to post some pictures though as soon as it feels homey though! Until then, I'll give you a little snippet of a living room wall...


This is a painting we got at an art sale downtown a few weeks ago. The tallest mountain in the painting is Mary's Peak (tallest mountain in the Cascades) and Rich and I hiked that a while back. It's really nice and we could see 8 major mountains from the top (Rainier, Hood, St Helens, Adams, Three Sisters, and Bachelor)

Tuna Fishing

So about 2 weeks ago Rich, his brother, Robbie and I all went tuna fishing out on the open sea. We went about 70 miles out and started fishing. It took about 3 hours or so to get out there and it felt like we would hit China pretty soon (I was almost positive) if we kept going. There were 14 of us on the boat and I was one of only 2 girls. On the way out there, I was looking off to the side of the boat (to keep from getting sick) and everyone was looking out at the other side and they got all excited because they saw two whales blowing! I couldn't see thought all the people and fishing poles so I just kept looking out my side. I'm glad I did because as I was sitting there about 50 yards from the boat I see this huge side fin of a whale and it's side like it was waving at just me! A little while later we were looking out the boat some more and all of a sudden we see these gray dorsal fins poke up out of the water and then sink back down. This happened 2 or 3 times and I was thinking...what is that? And then we hit a little wave and two porpoises came splashing out of the water! They were swimming with us along the side of the boat. They came and visited us a number of times for the rest of the trip.

So, on the way out to our "destination" the swells were getting big (8-12 feet) and the boat was rockin' and rollin' making almost everyone sick. I made it the whole way out without getting sick!! I was pretty amazed but I didn't make it out unscathed. I was told that I had a mild case of hypothermia because I got soaked by one of the waves that hit the boat. I had to go inside the cabin area and get warmed up and put dry clothes on (which I didn't have with me so I ended up wearing a mix-match outfit made up of random pieces of crew members' clothing). Now, anyone that has been on a boat on the ocean knows that if you feel sick the last place you want to be is inside a little tiny cabin...that just asking to be sick! Well, the captain made me come inside and made me stay there most of the day until I got warmed up. As I said before, if you're feeling sick you don't want to be in the little cabin area because it just makes things so much worse...and as you can imagine, I got sick. Luckily I was sitting right next to a little bathroom and it was a whole lot closer than the side of the boat (plus it was nice to have a little privacy. It can get a little embarrassing when you're trying to hold up your pants (which are really someone else's sweats) and avoid the boat and other people...) After I was sick for a minute or two, I felt great! I ended up sleeping for a few hours and didn't miss anything.

Anyway, back to the fish catching part because I'm sure no one wants to read about me being sick...

So, there were 14 of us on the boat and we were all ordered the same way that we signed in. Rich was #12, I was #13 and Robbie was #14. Well, when we were fishing we were going over some stuff and the crew was saying that we would be catching fish in the order we signed up so we should remember our numbers. When we would have a fish bite, the first person on the list would reel it in, when the second fish would bite, the second person would reel it in, and so on and so forth. Well, we were out there for quite a while (7 hours to be exact not including the 3 it took to get out there) and there were only 11 fish caught. Oddly enough, Rich caught a fish out of order! He was sitting on the deck and he noticed that there was a fish on one of the poles and so he told the man sitting next to him that there was a fish on, but the man didn't want to reel it in for some reason. After sitting there for almost a minute, Rich decided that he was going to need to reel it in if it was going to get reeled in at all. So he heaved and he hoed and he heaved and hoed some more and up came a tuna! We ended up splitting it between us and Robbie so that he could take some home (it's not fun to go home empty-handed).

The ride back to shore was just fine. Fairly uneventful compared to the trip out there. I heard that there were some whales off to one side of the boat, but I didn't see them. That was okay though, because I had my one whale friend wave to me on the way out.
After our whole deep sea fishing experience Rich and I decided that we were never going to go again. We didn't really have that great of a time and since I was cooped up inside the cabin sleeping and he was stuck outside so he didn't get sick, we didn't get to spend much time together. At least we got a fish! Here are some pictures of the trip and Rich hauling in the "big one".

Warning: Some images may slightly 'graphic'