The Stars of the Pumpkin!

TONKS & LUPIN!

Fall Is Here

As I look out of my window this morning I can barley see the front lawn as it is blanketed with leaves.  (Note to Helene: Rack lawn.)   I always love the fall.  The brisk air, the color changes, the need to make fires in the evening.   But perhaps my favorite part of the fall is the food.    Fall forces one to flee to the farms and pick things.   Last weekend Jaime and I went to Duyck’s Peachy Pig Farm to pick our annual pumpkin.   We spent the day there relaxing and enjoying the farm setting.  We gathered walnuts, hazelnuts, corn, squash, eggplant, gourds, apples and a few other fall crops.   It was a real treat.   I truly think being able to live in the city and get out to a place like the u-pick farms in 20 minutes is really special.  We have the best of both worlds here in Portland.

After the farm Jaime and I went to Oak Knoll for a wine tasting.   They don't grow their own grapes, but rather buy their grapes local from Willamette Valley growers and they blend and create all their own wines.   We tasted all 11 wines---2006 Oregon Gewurztraminer and 2006 Chardonnay Willamette Valley were our favorites.  The Chardonnay has apple tones and is just sweet and buttery with every sip.   The winery is a family run business and definitely worth a stop.

Back to the reason for the post- Last night while watching Obama's Network broadcast we carved our pumpkins.   It was very inspirational to watch Obama while trying to do this task.  I felt hope and courage that my pumpkin carving skills would somehow turn out better then last years!  Both Jaime and I feel excitement for the upcoming election and look forward to new direction for our country.  Anyways, back to the pumpkins.   This year we printed patterns, what a world of difference they make!  Our pumpkins rock!   Jaime carved the bunny from the Rabbit Advocates logo.  It is darling!  I carved a ghost---more in the spirit of Halloween I thought. Now all we need is Trick-or-treaters!

Next! Shabbat Dinner

Recently we hosted a Birthright NEXT! Shabbat Dinner!   What fun we had!   Jaime and I both tried making some new dishes, that all turned out rather yummy!   The menu was: 

Apps:   Apple & Brown Sugar Baked Brie along with spiced Apple Cidar

Dinner:  Mushroom Barley Stew & Homemade Manicotti served with NW Wines

Dessert: Double Chocolate Mouse Cake served with Port

It was a quite a yummy fest!   The cake had many steps, but I guess they were all needed since it tasted so good in the end.   

Group Pictures Are Up

Hello Sachlav!

I know I have let you all down,--I'm sorry!  Since coming from from the Middle East, life has gotten busy, but in a good way!   My new job at the photo studio is going great, but also keeping me real busy.  Once figured out HOW we wanted to do things, we have been busy every since!

And then there were the Jewish High Holy Days!  WOW!   Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur were filled with many new & old faces.  I hope this New Year is filled with sweetness and wonderful-ness for all of you!

I made an album on Picasa ONLY for Group Photos.  The album can be found HERE.   I realize I don't have as much time as I had hoped to edit all the photos, so instead of editing everything, I am going to put them up as is and if you WANT anything edited, just let me know and I will do it!  I will continue over the next week to put photos up from the rest of our wonderful adventure together.

Sach-LOVE to Bus 337!

Underwater!

Yesterday Jaime and I developed our underwater cameras from the Middle East. The photos are fun and blurry in a film quality kind of way! Now I have no reason to not organize all of my Middle East photos---soon, I promise!

Pillowcases

Yesterday Steve & Lynn came over for dinner. They brought us a gift in honor of our first anniversary--- hand knit pillowcases! I think they are just beautiful! The pattern has hearts interwoven throughout. I think handmade gifts are by far my most favorite, I mean who wouldn't love art like this! I just had to share photos of the pillowcases, because I love them.

Our One Year Anniversary!

Can you believe it's been a year already? We've been married for a whole year! Our first year of marriage has been filled with lots of love, new adventures and FUN! Being married ROCKS!

For our first year anniversary we went back to where it all started----- SKAMANIA LODGE! Rabbi Brad had us write letters to each other before our wedding and they were given back to us to read for the first time on our anniversary---we choose to read them on the exact site we said our vows. We had a feast of a dinner (just like at the actual wedding!) They served us the same amazing roasted vegetable torta and the same buttery Chardonnay, everything was wonderful! The only problem was there was WAY to much to eat!

After dinner we came home and had a slice of cake from our wedding --- still moist and incredible! And we opened a bottle of champagne (a gift from Steve & Lynn) and watched our wedding video. It was a great feeling, watching our wedding video and thinking to myself how amazing that day was, but even more important how it was just the START of this incredible journey Jaime and I are taking together.

Thank you to everyone who made our wedding so incredible. And a continued thank you to everyone who wished us a happy anniversary! It was just the first of many wonderful anniversaries to come!