oh, the places that shape us...

when i think back over my life up to this point, i can easily identify seasons and places that have shaped and formed me.  jobs i held, homes and communities i lived in, cities i explored, people i met who have challenged and supported me.  there are some that spring to mind quicker than others and for me, one of those places is Camp Tadmor in lebanon, OR.


 Tadmor is a place i consider to be sacred as it was fundamental in the formation of my faith and relationship with christ.  located two hours from my growing up home, i was lucky to spend a week there each summer as soon as i was old enough for sleep away camp.  i have a strong memory of sitting around the campfire at the end of the week when i was about 12 or 13, realizing that i wanted a relationship with christ that would be all my own, and be something more than just religion as it had been for me in the past.  as soon as i hit college age, i knew i wanted to spend my summers there on staff.  i served on the counseling team for two summers, working alongside about ten other staffers each summer to guide different groups of campers as they came up one week at a time.

my alter ego: kazam

the great folks i got to serve alongside my second summer

 during those summers, i got to do lots of things.  i'm not sure there has ever been a season where i've taken so many goofy pictures!  between the mud pit, 100 feet water slide, swimming in the lake, rock climbing, hikes, exploring in the creek, paint ball, camp fires, singing, team building, night games, canoeing during one on ones with campers, eating meals family style with campers, dressing up in ridiculous clothing either for wacky wednesday or "just because", sleeping under the stars, brushing my teeth with 100 other girls at an outdoor sink, forgoing showering for the summer since i decided that was better than a cold shower, writing encouragement notes, weekend adventures down the hill into town and doing lots of dishes and cleaning lots of toilets, it's no wonder that those two summers are a bit of a blur in my mind. 

wacky wednesday- five bucks if you can spot me

where else in life is it ok to wear a potato chip bag as a hat?

action shot in the mud pit.  quality bonding with campers!

  

yes, i seriously did wear those overalls all summer and they were not part of my dress up repertoire.  to mogli's family, before they met me, i was known as "overalls".

and that's not even mentioning all the things that i feel i walked away with: i learned to pray, in anticipation that my prayers would come true.  i learned the fundamentals of my faith, and they were cemented as i got to explain them each week to children who had the same questions i had.  i got my first taste of living in community by life with dozens of other young people for 8 weeks, spending 24/7 with each other (which as you can imagine had its ups and its downs).  i got to observe christian family and marriages through the full time staff that was serving at camp.  i had serious crushes that were distracting from my service at times.  i learned the art of encouragement.  i connected with people with whom i had nothing in common except christ.  i learned how to serve humbly.  i also got to make friendships that still stand to this day.

it was at camp that i met my soul mate- mogli, known by some as carly.  at first, we did not get along AT ALL, but then quickly forced a friendship based on the fact that we both have african sisters.  i'm so grateful that we took that walk on the beach... (p.s. it's a little embarassing the amount of pictures i had to scroll through that looked like variations of this one...)

 since then, camp has held a significant place in my heart.  on the day luke proposed to me, he said we could go anywhere to celebrate, and i chose camp!  the last few years, our church's men retreat has been hosted at camp and i have been able to go along to cook, which fills my heart so much to once again be in the place where me and my savior first met.  i am looking forward to the map of my life, to see which other places shape and grow me. 

let the growing begin!

one of the things luke and i were most excited about our house was the yard space that we have to turn into garden.  over the winter, we killed the grass with cardboard and straw, and in the last few months have been busy!  take a look at how things look now.

 the chicken coop got moved to the side of the house, butting up against the beautiful fence luke built to replace the chain link fence.

 rain water collection into old drums from a car wash

 we hauled a LOT of compost to enrich our soil!

instead of raised beds, we went for garden mounds.

 the bulbs we planted in the fall came up in full 
force!

luke made a mailbox out of an old license plate from his grandpa

our own little greenhouse/hoop house

 strawberry patch!

 solar panels that we didn't pay a penny for!  and our energy bill is lower each month.  what's not to love?

 obviously, my favorite part of the yard: hammocks

  herbs, kale, and garlic

luke loves tending to the little seedlings before they will go outside!

we've had so much fun so far, and are looking forward to the next couple months.  i have a feeling we're going to have a lot of lettuce.  your favorite salad dressing recipe?

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!