What we are doing now . . .

The other exciting thing that happened this summer is that we bought a house! We looked for months (thanks Kerry --realtor extraordinaire!), making several offers until finally we found this one. It is within our ward boundaries, which is probably why we had the luck being able to buy it (our bishopric threatened that we wouldn't be able to buy a house unless it was still in the ward . . . guess they were right). Anyway, it still needs a lot of work, but we like it more and more everyday. It is great to have so much space! We will keep you updated with makeovers as they happen. Don't hold your breath . . . we are slow movers. But we do have a guest room now, so feel free to invite yourself to Portland any time!

What we were doing then . . .

Hi Folks,
Sorry we have been away so long. Here are some pictures of what we have been doing this past summer.

Sam climbed Mt. Hood

We spent the 4th of July in Clayton, CA (nieces Allyson, Addison, Ellery, and Amanda at the parade)

We hiked in the Wallowas (a mountain range in Eastern Oregon)

We hiked a bit in the Gorge

We back-packed and kayaked in Stanley, ID (one of our favorite places in the world) with James and Cassidy, Sam and Tasha, and Jessica and Andrew

We hiked around Mt. Rainier

Blair Cooks!

Well, recently Sam and I had a bit of a DTR about our blog. Sam made the point that our blog was entitled "Blair and Sam's Adventures" and thus should be focused on, well, our adventures. Discussion of jean jackets and lasagna was pushing it too far from its mission. Still needing an outlet, I decided to start another blog celebrating two of my very favorite things to do: cooking and eating. I am by no means an incredible cook and most of the recipes I use are fairly simple, but I have been into cooking for a while, thanks to my mom (aka Moogie) who loves to cook and has been teaching my brother and I from an early age through her Camp Karen lessons. "Blair Cooks" will be focused on sharing new recipes I find and the things that we are eating around here. I will be as clear as possible and try to be honest about how things turn out, but I would love your feed back too!

Olympic National Park

Starting with my first trip to Blair's parent's house (before Blair and I were dating and I was trying to set her and Loren up), almost all trips to Bainbridge Island for me have been accompanied by a trip to the Olympic mountains and Olympic National Park. I don't know if we go because Blair thinks I'm not happy just eating pounds and pounds of bacon all day at her parents house, or because I always eat pounds and pounds of bacon at her parents house and need the exercise, but we always end up there. I don't mind - I love the place. Every time we go I think we have already seen the park and we always find something new and incredible. This past month I made two trips.

The first was an unsuccessful, last minute climbing attempt of the South Brother. While driving to Blair's parent's house for Mother's Day, Moogie told Blair that the Scouts in their ward were going to be attempting the climb. So I rounded up some gear that night with help from Khun Blob (my father-in-law) and Steve Gibbons (a Keller family friend and mountain man extraordinaire) and headed out to the Olympics from Bainbridge bright and early the next morning. With my Sir Edmund Hilary-era gear all prepared (You can't see my leather crampon straps in the picture, but they worked like champions. I am also a HUGE fan of the wool pants - I liked them more than most synthetic pants I have used, though they were a bit small around the waist. Blair is doing a lot of good cooking these days.) I headed up the trail to see if I could catch the Scouts. I hit snow after three miles and finally got to where the actual climbing begins after about 4 more miles. At that point I had found the Scout's tracks and saw that they weren't heading up the route, so I decided to follow the tracks. After a scenic loop of the head of the valley they headed back down again. I confusedly hustled to catch them and found them trying to figure out where the GPS had led them wrong. We got back to the route and finally headed up, but the day had worn on and the snow was warming up a lot, so rather than head up into the unstable couloir we called it a day and headed back. I was happy just to be out adventuring. It looks like a great climb that I will have to try again someday.

The second trip into the Olympics was for Memorial Day weekend. Blair and I made a semi-last minute decision (OK, I admit, very few of our decisions are not last minute.) and headed to the last portion of the park that I had not visited - the Quinault and Queets rainforests. Wow! It was so remote and so beautiful and (after pouting all week about how it was going to be rainy everywhere) relatively sunny. We went on a bunch of short hikes and kind of went on a short backpacking trip to a lake, but there was nowhere to camp that wasn't lame so we hiked back out to the trailhead and camped in the campground by the river. (We had only gone a mile - we were being lazy.) A guy we nicknamed "Karl" (for those who watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and his dog and wife and pool toy boat were taking up the only reasonable camping spot by the lake.

Anyways, we saw a lot of stuff on the trip (world's largest sitka spruce, a really big cedar tree, elk, waterfalls, sea stars and sea anenomes, and lakes) and I'll reiterate one more time that it is just beautiful there. Plus it is generally pretty empty - for a National Park over Memorial Day, it is pretty nice to have no problem showing up Saturday afternoon and having your choice of backpacking permits and campsites (even though "Karl" took our spot without a permit).

We also went to the beach for while - gorgeous.



The blurry picture of Crescent Lake was taken while I was driving. It was an attempt to make Jessica and Andrew regret not coming with us, so they don't make the same mistake twice.

Water, water everywhere . . .

I thought I'd throw a few pictures up to get caught up on what we have been up to. I just looked through all of our pictures for the last while and they all seem to be of waterfalls. There is a lot of water up here in the Pacific Northwest - something I am definitely adjusting to after spending the rest of my life in California (where water conservation was taught since elementary school), the dusty plains of Spain, and the deserts of Utah. Blair seems to think it is perfectly normal. So, without further ado I will throw some pictures up. (I should put up a disclaimer that the first set of pictures are from a hike we did called the "Trail of Ten Falls" in Silver Falls State Park, (about an hour south of Portland), so it makes sense that there are a lot of waterfalls. Plus I was feeling ambitious and was going to get pictures of all 10 for this blog dealie, but that would be kind of boring.)This was the first waterfall of the ten. (I didn't actually count.) You can see the trail go right behind the waterfall. There were a few like this - it's a pretty cool place and was a great way to make good use of another drizzly Saturday.
If any of you have ever been to the falls on Mt. Diablo, you'll understand why I thought this had to count as one of the ten if there really were gonna be 10 falls on this hike. I was wrong.
Fall #2 : This was probably my favorite. And yes, the trail goes behind this one too.
This may have been my favorite too. The next pic is of Blair admiring the falls from behind. The rest of the falls weren't quite as dramatic, but still all very cool.

LA LA land

Last weekend we ventured out to Los Angeles to celebrate the marriage of Dave, one of Sam's childhood best friends. After another annoying mishap at the airport, Sam jumped onto our flight Friday night with only a change of underwear, his suit, and a tube of toothpaste (just the paste, not the brush) and I headed back home, only to go back to the airport at 4:30 the next morning to get on another flight. When I finally arrived at LAX, Sam picked me up in the rental car and we headed down to the Newport Beach Temple for the sealing (I changed in transit). We spent the whole day in the hot SoCal sun, moving from the temple to a beach house to the reception center. Overall the wedding was beautiful, Dave and Jessica were so happy, and we all had fun, despite some sun-burned noses.

The next day we spent with our ol' BYU pal Ashley and her husband David. We hit awesome LA sites, including Santa Monica, the Getty, Pepperdine University, Mulholland Drive, Malibu Canyon, West Hollywood, and Rodeo Drive. We also sampled local Mexican food and Pinkberry yogurt to cool off. We had so much fun and were reminded just how much we love California.

Can I ask you a serious question?

As the weather is slowly (and I emphasize slowly) turning warmer here in Portland, I am thinking more and more about summer clothes. So here is my question: we can't wear denim jackets anymore, huh? Or can we? Are they completely uncool? Do you wear one still? I gave away my boxy J.Crew jacket a couple of years ago, but it really was such a handy light coat for spring and summer. As layers are an absolute necessity all year round here in the Pacific Northwest, I am struggling to find an alternative to the trusty denim jacket. There are lots of cute coats around these days, but most of them are trapeze style, which I can't wear because Sam thinks I look pregnant in them (which I do), and me looking (or being) pregnant is something neither of us need in our lives right now. So, as an alternative, I think I am quickly becoming a cardigan junkie. I know that this an insignificant topic, but give me your honest opinion on jean jackets. Even though I am pretty sure they aren't very cool, prairie-style clothes seem to appeal to me a lot (yes, I regularly wear cowgirl boots to church). I'd like to know what you think . . .