spring break

at the end of march, luke and i snuck out of town for a few nights to get away.  when i was telling my co-worker that just the two of us were going, she was surprised since normally when we head out of town, it's with one of our families!  we are lucky to have our families close by, but i have to admit, it was wonderful to enjoy some time, just the two of us.  we decided to head to bend, since we haven't spent much time there together.  i also wanted an excuse to rent a place from airbnb!

we stayed in this wonderful little studio apartment.

one day, we headed into sisters to see our friends benji and carys, who have a farm there called mahonia gardens. it was so much fun to see their land and also all the work they have done on their own little garage apartment.  they are wonderful people that i met through luke and i wish we got to see them more often!  excited to see what they grow this season and also hear about how the project continues to expand.

it was raining most of the time (go figure!), so we hung out in the hot tub, read, walked around and ate out at 10 barrel brewery.  it was delicious, but the wait was TWO hours, so we explored downtown while we waited. 

on the way back to portland, we stopped at smith rock and hiked up over the top.  i had never been there, so it was exciting!  i had so much fun watching all the rock climbers scrambling up the rock, from the bottom with both my feet on the ground.

over all, it was a wonderful time to rest and enjoy exploring a new place together!
 

mi casa es su casa

well, we moved in nearly 7 months ago and i figured it's about time to give you a little tour of our house since everything's unpacked and projects are slowly getting checked off the list.  luke, of course, still has a to-do list that's a mile long, including building a garage and putting tons of energy in the garden, but for now, installing heat pumps, and blowing insulation into the attic will have to do it for him.  we've not only enjoyed getting settled into the neighborhood, but have  loved having a place to call our own, as up to this point, our home as been out of backpacks in south america, parents' homes, house sitting or our wonderful time at the swoopy roof house with roommates.  this is the first time in our married lives that it's been just us!  we're also having fun picking out all the little details/fixing things just the way we like them to be.  come on in- no need to take your shoes off at the door.

 when we moved in, we had electrical radiant heat in the ceiling, which was about the most inefficient thing you could imagine.  heat rises, after all.  after a few months of exorbitant heating bills and an energy audit by Energy Trust of OR, luke installed this ductless heat pump.  bonus: it also doubles as an AC for that ONE week in the summer when temperatures will be over 80!

 our living room is the place we spend the most time: greeting our day, hanging out with friends, playing with our niece/nephew, playing music, etc.  we have a huge window that currently looks out at our chicken coop, but will soon look out over the garden.  we call our four hens our entertainment, as they're just as much fun to watch as TV. 

 moving on to my favorite part of the house: the kitchen.  i love the red accent tile!  below, next to the stove, used to be a small cabinet half that size that smelled terribly.  during the summer, when i was making salsa, i realized we needed more counter space.  we knocked it out and replaced it with one from the rebuilding center, topped with a great slab of marble.

 and then we come to this sweet little room that used to only house the washing machine.  now, it's my pantry, prep space, cookbooks, spice rack, and laundry room.  i am in love with the reclaimed barnwood that luke found and used for the wall.  this room also is filled with repurposed things, like the cabinet from DIY Cabinets and the marble slab was a reject piece from one of our local stores. our pot/pan holder is a bike wheel that we mounted and can now hang from.  our wine glass holder?  an old rake!

and then comes the bathroom, which we tiled (would you believe that i didn't know how to tile before we got this place?  then, i ended up doing multiple rooms with lots of help.  it was one of the biggest ways that i felt i could contribute to all the projects.) 

bedroom: a few notable things here are the quilt on our bed made with love by many for our wedding!  also, i love the shelf that luke made with more of that barnwood.  not pictured here are the curtains that i sewed this week... (i'm learning how to sew!)

our room has two other bedrooms, but one is the permanent guest room and the other houses our computer and canned goods.  i haven't really spent much time making either of those spaces something special.  

well, there you have it.  coming soon will have to be a tour of outside as we get the garden beds going.  today, i spotted my first daffodil, so that means spring is coming and with that news, i let out a huge exhale, ready to breathe in all the new life that's coming our way.

apple party... this is how traditions are born

 it all started last year when we were invited to our roommate's family's apple cider pressing party.  we enjoyed ourselves so much that ever since then, we've been scheming how to host our own.  the time came this year, as we are more or less settled into our new home and we have luke's sister/brolaw/the adorable kids living with us.  luke headed out to Oregon Heritage Farms, where a crate of 800 lbs of jonagold apples was forklifted onto the trailer!   they sat at our house, as we invited our neighbors and made a plan.  we borrowed an apple press and chopper from the kitchen share SE and scoured our immediate neighborhood, handing out invites. 

we decided to do a trial run of the press (it was much smaller than we had anticipated) and in doing so, realized that would take FOREVER because it only pressed like 6 apples at one time.  john and luke then started talking, googling, and dreaming up their own homemade press that was completed by the time saturday morning rolled around. 

  they used a design they found online, which used a bottle jack and its hydraulic system to provide the pressure needed to squash the apples.  it worked like a dream.  they also used a garbage disposal (don't worry- it was cleaned and sanitized several times!) to mush up the apples before we pressed. 

by the end, we had quite the assembly line going and everyone found something to do. 

we maybe made it through 3/4 of the apples and ended up with about 36 gallons, not including the gallons drank that day by all present.  we also made tons of applesauce, froze apples for pie filling and both dehydrators are still working on apple fruit leather and dehydrated apple rings.  we had 20 families show up to help, and many of the people present spoke Spanish, so Spanish was heard as much as the work table as English.  we all have had way too much cider this weekend, as exhibited by our sore tummies, but are definitely already looking forward to next year!   

 

 

 

 

 

modern day barn raising

according to wikipedia, a barn raising describes a collective action of a community, in which a barn for one of the members is built or rebuilt collectively by members of the community.  luke and i have had the joy of experiencing that over the last month, except for it was a part of a house that was being rebuilt, not a barn.  :)

we became homeowners in mid-july after an eight month search and from the moment we got the keys, the work began.  there was a lot of rot in the bathroom/laundry room, so literally the day we got the keys, walls started coming out.  we took out the bathtub, sink and shower, along with all the walls, and replaced the beam that runs under the house and holds it ups.  we had two weeks off in july, which we were lucky to be able to spend doing lots of work on the house to get in ready to live in.  we moved all of our things in august 1, and have been living there ever since.

last friday, we had a house warming party where we got to celebrate with friends and family our new home! for me, it was really a chance to celebrate all the friends and family who have helped us to the point where we currently are.

i could write for hours about what a steep learning curve this whole process has been (and the fact that i didn't even know what hardie backer was a month ago or that PT stood for pressure treated), but for now, i will focus on all the folks who have helped us create a space that we hope will be used for many to rest and feel at home.  more stories to come about our el salvadorian neighbors who have set a strong example of hospitality or our neighbor boys kicking our chickens, but for now, the real stars of the show:

 our young neighbor ezra helping set up rusty for success

 lots of much needed terere breaks with rusty and mary lou

 victoria who helped paint our room

 milo who was just adorable and his mama katy who helped weed the front yard

 both brandons, hard at work helping with the beam and subfloor

 dinner provided by victoria, picnic style in the living room

brandon working hard after a long day of work

jessica helping me install the locks

 ellen got to it with the grout and making the floor shine!

 my dad even pitched in and got the internet set up! Also my mom expertly guided us and helped us prune our out of control rose bushes!

Craig, who had the stinky job of taking out the bathroom floor!

my brother Christian came by to lend his skills and willingness to the cause.

moving day!  lots of friends and family out to help.  we couldn't have done it without everyone who showed up!

Laurel impressed us with her drill skills

the boys, evan, luke and dave did something really important, i'm sure

 

 it was really fun to see luke working with his dad in the whole process.

 we even had help from chicago when brian was in town!

 mamalou was an invaluable help...

 especially during the mid night tile crisis where her and rusty saved the day!