Rich's Birthday "Cake"

So for Rich's birthday this year, Rich said he didn't really want a cake. Turns out he doesn't really like cake cake like I do, so I decided to make him a Cheesecake instead. It actually turned out really well. I was a little surprised :) Here's my (his) beautiful cherry cheesecake!

Plant Update. . .

My plants have been coming up like crazy the past few weeks since the sun has come out and warmed things up. We also got some hanging baskets and filled them with some petunias and they look so happy outside. Some other good news, the potato plant has come up and just the other day, a second sprout came up too! Here's some pictures of our pretty, little, growing "garden"!

My growing plants

Potato sprouts!!

Hanging plants

Our little porch...pots and all!

Rich's Birthday Weekend

So for Rich's birthday I took him over to the beach and we went camping. We haven't done that in a while and it was so much fun. We went to Lincoln City, OR and camped at a place called Devil's Lake. It was really nice. Most of the camping spots were completely flooded, but we found one that was partly sunny and dry (and away from the boy scout troop!). We set up camp and then just had a wonderful time. We went to the beach and had a great time in the sun and walking around some tide pools! Overall it was just a great weekend. We took way too many pictures but I'll post a few (and by few I mean like 20...) of my favorites!

Tide Pool Shells

Starfish!
Sea Urchin
View from inside a cave
Rich at the campfire
My fire stick
Devil's Lake
Viewpoint stop!
Feeding the Squirrel a muffin. He kept wanting more!

Inside Devil's Punchbowl

View of Devil's Punchbowl. That big hole on top is the punchbowl.

This sequence is for Robbie...and well any other surfer:

That's right, take your boat home and go get a real board. There might be a little animosity between surfers and sea kayakers...

(Note: This was posted by Rich)

OUCH!!

I got a boo boo the other day...a pretty good one too. I was making dinner and was cleaning up the dishes and stuff that I used and I got to the knives. Well, Rich as this knife that he just sharpened and I was all finished washing it and I was drying it like I always do; blade away from self, between the thumb and fingers and a towel around the knife so that I could dry it. Well, my fingers were farther up than I thought they were and the knife was amazingly sharp and just cut right through the towel and into my middle finger. Luckily, since I was holding it that way, it cut along my finger and not in to my finger. It still hurt pretty bad and of course it was just bleeding like crazy. I was really bummed though because I had to eat with my left hand (I'm right handed) and it was much more difficult that I thought.
It has healed up quite a bit since yesterday but now it feels all bruised (and looks a little bruised too) and I can't bend it very well since it was on the inside of the joint. I think it will get better soon though...I hope. I just don't remember ever getting cut with knives before. I've gotten cuts from other things like xacto knives and stuff like that, but not kitchen knives. I don't know how it happened.

My boo boo :(

My New Boots

This weekend we went to St Helens. On Saturday I went with Joann and Rich's Aunt Carrie to some stores in Beaverton/Hillsboro. We stopped at GI Joe's (I guess it's just Joe's now) to get something for Tim's birthday and I just happened to walk by the shoes. I was actually looking to see if there were any rainboots and then I saw these other boots instead. I looked at the size and it said 7 (which I'm not) so I looked for another pair. There was one more box at the end of the aisle and it was just my size. I put them on and they felt wonderful, and Joann put on the other pair. They were even on sale for half off!! We thought that there might be some similar shoes at Target though, so we decided to head over there. Once we got there we found out that they didn't have any more of these kinds of boots...they were all spring shoes now! We didn't have time to go back to Joe's so we thought that we would just stop by on Sunday on the way home from church. So we did. We went in and there was only one pair left and it was in my size. I felt bad that the 7's were gone becasue that meant Joann couldn't get any but she said it was okay and that she would look at some other Joe's up in the area. So I got my boots anyway and I wore them on the drive back home and then all day yesterday and most of today. They just feel sooo good and warm and comfy!

My boots!

I know they look like Uggs but they aren't. It is somewhere in Washington I think it said. Either way they are perfect.

Grades

I just had to leave a quick note to say that I finally got my Winter term grades and...

ALL A's!!

(one A- and three A's)