Autumn Bordering on Winter

So, I know its technically still fall, but around here its been feeling a lot like winter.  And by winter I, of course, mean torrential dowpours and constantly grey skys.  Because that's what we get here in the Valley.
A few weeks ago Clint and I drove to my Grandma Alice's house to spend the weekend with her over at Crooked River Ranch.  We don't have many pictures from that trip, but it was nice and relaxing as Grandma's house always is!

Over the mountains and through the woods
to Grandmother's house we go!

Clint, Daisy, and Grandma

Then we took a couple extra days off school to go to Utah for Thanksgiving.  The weather delayed us, so we got there a little later than we had expected, but it turned out to be just in time, because it blizzarded that night.  It was really bad, we couldn't even see to the end of the block and the wind was seriously blowing in all different directions!  Well, anyway, it was exciting for me, since it was my first blizzard ever!

We could hardly see the flag on the front porch!

Izzy watching the snow

Clint and Cody had to play on the 4 wheeler in the Blizzard

I even took a ride with Clint,
and yes, it was freezing!

I never can resist making a snow angel : )

The house is always a little crazy, but definitely fun!

See?  Fun!

But we try and have quiet time, too.

On Thanksgiving Day we went to Grandma and Grandpa Oborn's to set up their nativity scene for them.  It's quite spectacular, and they made it all, too!

Clint and Dad putting it together.

They slowly gained on-lookers. . .

And more on-lookers. . .

And more!  Grandpa kept saying there were too many
chiefs and not enough indians.  I agreed and went inside
to help out there.

Thanksgiving dinner was spectacular, of course, and after we went over the Janae and Jarad's to spend some quality time holding Carter!

I spent some good times holding him the
next day, too!

We always love our trips to Utah and we're looking forward to our next one!

Autumn

Well, Fall is almost over and while we've been busy with schoolwork, we have also had time to do plenty of fun things this season!  Here's some of what we've been up to:

Elija Bristow State Park!

Clint "holding up" a tree.

Me tossing leaves in the air.

Daisy running through a tube at the dog park.

Pumpkin Walk at Hentze Farm:

My head on a platter. . .

Spooky Clint. . .

Some fun pumpkins from the walk!

Pumpkin Patch at Thistledown Farm:



Goat eating a pumpkin : )

Flowers!

Clint playing on the pumpkin cart.



With our pumpkins!



Our beautiful Oreogn!

Keeping the pumpkins safe!

Spending the afternoon at Fall Creek:

The beautiful fall colours!

B-E-A-U-TIFUL!

Daisy had fun, too.

I fell and lost the camera, so we
went back and Clint found it.
This is me celebrating his find.

We carved pumpkins, too, of course!

It was difficult to get through the top.

We watched Charlie Brown earlier, so we decided that
would be a good theme this year!

Well, that's been it so far this autumn, but we still have a couple things left to do, like hand out candy tomorrow night and go to Utah for Thanksgiving (and hold a baby!), so we're looking forward to that!

Apples, Part 3

Yes, we still have apples.  I know, it's been forever, but they've been persistent in sticking around.  It's been so long since we picked them, though, that they've turned kinda mushy (not too appetizing), so I made an apple pie, and we've been drying them.  Clint chopped them up nice and small so we can put them into our cereal (mmm. . . apple cinnamon oatmeal : )

Apple Pie Yum!

Clint chopping apples for drying.

The dried apples.

The pork tenderloin Clint made for us with apples and onions.

We still have more to dry, but we're finally getting toward the end of our apples. . . Yay!

Disaster Dinners and Cleaning the Pot

This week has been one of disaster dinners.  I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't seem to cook anything worth eating lately.  It all started a couple weeks ago when I tried to make some risotto for a recipe group I'm in, and it burned really, really, really, terribly.  After a few days of work, we got the pan cleaned out (thanks to Karen's baking-soda and vinegar trick!), but I guess it just burns easily now (that's my excuse, anyway).  After that, we burned our first batch of apple-sauce (it still tasted okay, so we went ahead and canned it anyway), and I almost burned tortilla soup earlier this week.  Then, I tried a new recipe for some enchiladas, and it turned out horribly.  We couldn't eat it, it was so bad.  A total waste of avacados and cheese.  Then today, I tried to make potato soup, and it burned.  At first, I didn't think it was that bad, so I put it in a different pot really quickly, but it was too late, the burn flavor had infected the whole pot.  So, we threw that away and Clint helped me make some spaghetti sauce.  Anyway, that's my sad, sad, tale of disaster dinners . . . Well!  To make up for having to hear my sob story, I'll tell you about how we triumphantly cleaned out our burned pot!

First thing you do is put some baking-soda and vinegar in the pot (or pan or baking dish, what ever it is that has suffered your cooking mis-haps) and make a volcanoe, as Clint puts it.

Burned pot with baking soda in it.

Adding vinegar.

 Then, over medium-low heat, heat the baking soda and vinegar solution until it gets warm.  There's not really any science to this part that I know of.  I just know the smell is awful, so beware.

Heating the pot.

 Then, while the pot is warm, scrape at the burned-on stuff until it comes off.  This might take awhile, as it did with my risotto burn.  It took a few days in fact; the burn and vinegar fumes would just get to be too much for us and we would have to stop until the next day.

Scraping the pot with a metal spatula.  See the noxious
fumes?!

We also used steel wool to clean the pot out.  I wish I had a picture to show you of our nicely cleaned-out pot, to prove that this method actually works, but I don't (because it is currently covered in burned potato soup).  So, you'll just have to take my word for it.  But, I will say beware, because after this initial burn I have burned almost everything I've tried to cook in this pot.  So I don't know if I'm just getting worse at cooking or if the pot is now cursed for time and all eternity.  Its a mystery to me.