Huckleberries!

So I'm kind of obsessed with berries generally, and berry picking is kind of the best thing ever. I grew up picking wild blueberries in the summer with my family, so I guess it's in my blood. Our friends Micheal and Diane took me huckleberry picking yesterday, and it was super awesome. We went into the Hoodoo Mountains (that's a silly name) in Idaho. Michael has a truck, so we went on these wacky backroads through beautiful forests and mountains. It was quite a trek, but worth it. It's a little late in the season for berries, but got up high enough that there were still some.

 

The terrain. It was steep! I kept kind of slipping and actually hurt my arm grabbing onto a treebranch so I wouldn't tumble down the hillside. Berry picking is dangerous, apparently. 

 

I am so so happy in a berry patch. So happy. I can't wait to take baby boy out to a berry patch!

 

The fruits of my labor. I made some little pies out of them!

 

Drool. I love baking, though don't do it much because I don't like having baked goods around the house as I will just eat them. But, 4 little huckleberry pies? I'm ok with that.

It was amazing seeing you Friday night. We truly feel blessed to have you in your lives. You are awesome human beings, and we can't wait to be parents. And, we promise to still love baby boy with all our hearts if he hates berry picking :) 

 

 

The Nephews

Jeff's sister and brother-in-law are visiting his family in New Jersey right now, and our nephews have been enjoying the Atlantic Ocean and the fun activities on the boardwalk. I thought these pics were kind of adorable....  they'll be baby boy's cousins! Cool.

 

That's Baxter on the left, Sawyer on the right. Baxter looks so serious! He cracks me up. 

 

Here they are again being goofballs. Sawyer turns 6 in September, and Bax is 3. Sawyer is all boy. He just got bit by a snake (!!!) a few weeks ago because he found one in the woods and picked it up and was playing with it. Thankfully it was just a garter snake, but still. Jeez. Baxter is much more quiet and serious. They're both adorable. 

First Day of School

Today was the first official day of school for WSU students. It was nice to be back in the classroom again. I miss students, they're a lot of fun. Though it was sort of a shock to be around humans all day, they're loud. Ha.

Yesterday for breakfast I made my family's traditional Finnish pancake, "pannukakku" (sounds like "bunna kah koo"). I love it. It's basically eggs and milk and flour. It's a huge comfort food for me. I have recipes handed down from my great grandma. Jeff's family also has a recipe, but it's a little different (though still quite good). I show my family loyalty and use mine :)

Pannukakku w/ strawberries and raspberries from the farmer's market (and syrup). yum!

 

I walked to and from school today. It takes about 35 minutes each way and it's really hilly. My calves are actually kind of sore from it. Is that pathetic?  Views from my walk....

 

 The walk in, passing some cool sunflowers in our neighborhood

The walk home, campus looking all nice and campus-like. 

Jeff teaches his first classes tomorrow. He's really nervous but I know he'll do great. Students always really like him and he's good at what he does. But, given it's a new job, he's understandably a bit nervous. 

Off to bed!

 

Pancakes! Bacon! Chubby Childhood Kristin!

 We started our day off proper today:

 

Omg, that's a lot of bacon fat. I love making breakfast. It's my thing.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of throw-back Thursday, here's a hilarious picture of me and my brother when we were feral children. 

 

Ok, back to working on my course prep....

 

Back to Work. Eek!

It's been two pretty full days of being back to work. And I've eaten too many muffins (free muffins seem to be at all of my events this week). And, I'm really lazy now. Sugar crash? Probably. But how you can you pass up a chocolate chip muffin? Madness.

Today I got to meet all our new graduate students. It's a lot of fun meeting new students, hearing where they're from, what their goals are, and figuring out how I can best help them out. I really do love teaching, it's the best part of my job for sure. After that, I spent all afternoon in a meeting. That is the least favorite part of my job. Other than the chocolate chip muffin.

We are about to head over to the neighbors for dinner. We've only sort of met them so it'll be good to get to know them. Unless they're jerks, then I guess it won't be good at all. Ha. They seem nice.

No fun pictures today. Booo. I will take a few more over the next few days as life won't be as busy! The first few days back are always a little hectic.

Rugs, Grilling, Pools: The Mundane Pieces of our Life

We had a great time hanging out with you both on Friday night. We joked that maybe we should just adopt everyone! It really was awesome getting to know you better.

We got home around 11:30 Friday night and crashed out. Yesterday we did our usual Saturday errands. We spend a few hours at the Farmer's Market in Moscow. We always bump into friends and their kids there, so usually spend a lot of time just chatting and catching up with folks. Then we went and got some tacos for lunch. Big day! Ha.

Poor Enid had a vet visit yesterday for her yearly vaccines. She was zonked out last night, it's kind of cute and sad. Then she was up a few times during the night with diarrhea, poor thing. It was like practice for having a baby up at all hours!

A few pics of our past few days:

My mom got me a rug for my birthday! I'm really happy with how it looks in the hallway. It makes the hallway a party. Ok, not really a party. It's just a hallway. But, I do quite like it.

 

Enid also quite likes the rug and keeps sleeping on it. This is her "why are you bothering me, I'm sleeping on this sweet rug" face. 

 

We have been grilling SO MUCH at the new house. I think this was Thursday night. Jeff hiding from the rain grilling some chicken. Yum. 

 

I've been swimming laps at the outdoor pool a bit. Yesterday I went for an hour. It felt good. But the air actually felt a bit chilly when I got out. I had to come home and sit in the hot tub. Have I mentioned how much I love my hottub? Love!

We technically start work again tomorrow. Boooooo. Oh well, summer sadly can't last forever.

PUMPKINS!

Some of my friends and I started this silly little pumpkin patch down at the community garden. We had delusions of grandeur, and it turns out thus far this summer we've just struggled to keep the darn things watered. Today, my friend Linda and I decided we needed to get that garden in order! So, we went down this morning and had a huge weeding party. The before and after is pretty impressive. And, it seems like we're going to at least have a few pumpkins. I hope to carve one. 

Gardening is something I really enjoy doing, and I look forward to hauling a baby around my garden patches. I can just picture him chilling out and enjoying the sights and sounds and smells while I wrestle with a thicket of weeds :)

 

BEFORE! (seriously, you can't even tell the difference between the pumpkin plants and the weeds)

 

AFTER! (omg! pumpkin plants!)

 

Isn't it the cutest?! We have 7 of them growing.

 

I was sweaty and tired and look like a crazy person here. But Linda (behind me) looks hard at work. 

Summer Pics

I just cleaned some pics off my phone (I'm horrible at doing that...left to my own devices I have like 1000+ photos on my phone). I found a few I thought I'd share. Kind of random :)

My mom came to visit this summer and help us move. This was the day we went to the U-Pick Flower garden and picked a bunch of bouquets. She's cute :)

It was my birthday on Sunday. I went to the outdoor pool and swam some lazy laps, then I came home and we ate hotdogs and played scrabble on the deck. Like old people.

I'll try to get a brighter picture than this one! But this is the baby's room. I'm not all that into gendered colors (pink/blue) but this room was already blue, so there you go :)   We are crib shopping right now. The crib will go where that grey dresser is, and the grey dresser will become the changing table. It's a great room and right next door to ours.

I'm sitting at the dining room table and this is the view from here. Jeff is working on his laptop trying to get his courses prepared for fall. I really like our new living room. I'm looking forward to it being chilly enough to put the fireplace going!

A few weeks ago, Jeff and I walked down to the park to watch Mary Poppins. The Pullman Parks & Rec puts on kid-friendly movies every Friday night in the summer, and Jeff had never seen Mary Poppins so we went down. We only made it an hour in though and then got too cold and came home. We should've brought a blanket! Next time.

Ok, that's it for random photos for the day :)

Wednesday, Cloudy, Rainy, Lazy

We only have 10 days (!!!) until WSU starts up again. I realize what a crazy luxury it is to have summers off, but wow, it's really hard to go back. I am teaching two classes in the fall, along with a bunch of administrative work. Jeff is teaching three. It's a new job for Jeff, so he's nervous and excited. Meanwhile, we're trying to enjoy these final days of summer, even though today doesn't feel much like summer at all. It's chilly, rainy, cloudy, and almost fall like. After days of 100 degrees though, I think I'm ok with this.  At least for now.

Today we both slept in a bit, Jeff walked the dog around the neighborhood, I did some work email, and then we both went to the gym. I'm trying to get back into better shape as I've been so busy this summer I never really worked out as much as I like to. Today I swam quite a bit and feel pretty good about it, but now I'm STARVING. We're home for the afternoon, just taking it easy. We'll probably both work on some course prep, make some dinner, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer (we are on season 5), and then we're invited to our friend's Keri and Andy's house later this evening to catch up. They just got back from visiting family in New York so we want to hear how their trip went. 

Oh, and hey, here's a picture of me finishing the Sandpoint Longbridge Swim a few weekends ago. It is a 1.76 mile swim. I finished, but not as fast as I would've liked (see the part about not being in shape right now). Still, top 1/2 of my age group so that's ok. See how tired I look? But so happy? That was about right.

Anyhow, I thought I'd start up this blog to just give you a glimpse into what our daily lives look like, what we're up to, etc. I'll also get more pics of our house, our neighborhood, etc. I thought maybe it would help you envision our lives a bit more. Maybe it'll be helpful? Maybe not? Worth a shot :)