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Author: Amy Alphin

I'm a new mama who loves to tell my family's stories in my scrapbooks. I love hiking, backpacking, camping, running, Pilates, knitting, reading, and spending time with may family.

Adventure



So back in 1995, a tall, gangly guy with a huge mop of red curly hair entered Trinity High School as a freshman. That guy is Trip Jennings. I was a sophmore, and due to many coinciding interestes, we became fast friends. We often climbed together, and he was one of the first people to teach me to kayak. He helped inspire the love of the outdoors that I so closely cherish to this day. This month, that guy I met almost 15 years ago, was named one of National Geographic’s “Adventurers of the Year” in their National Geographic “Adventure” magazine for his exploration of a totally unexplored river in Papa New Guinea. Trip is committed to exploring preserving the wildest places left on this earth through his work with National Geographic and his organization Rivers in Demand (http://www.riversindemand.com/) Way to go Trip!
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/best-of-adventure-2008/achievements/adventurers-of-year.html#trip

Picture credits to Tom and http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/news/trip-jennings.html

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Bandara

So two days after Tom and Brendan and I hiked up Bandara Mountain, I’m still a little sore. But that’s a good thing…right? It was a beautiful fall day, the maples and huckleberries were starting to turn their vibrant autumn shades, and we could see all the way from Rainier to the Olympics. It was a nice reminder that fall is not all about rain, clouds and loss of the Vitamin D source in the sky. Hopefully we’ll get a few more lovely weekends, but that may be wishful thinking. Pictures to come soon!

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FOOD!


So recently, Tom and I have become kind of obsessed with food. Not just any food, but local food, specifically either grown in our garden or purchased at the local farmer’s market. Partially inspired by Barbra Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle we’ve both taken an interest in trying to eat as locally as possible, not only to decrease our carbon footprints and to show our opposition to factory farming techniques, but because it TASTES BETTER! Go figure.

However, it is harder to eat locally in the winter, so we’ve been storing up. It is somewhat questionable to can tomato products without a pressure canner, so we’ve been freezing as much pasta sauce and tomato basil soup that our little freezer can hold. For the past two weeks, we’ve been haggling with vendors to buy in bulk, (today we bought 20 pounds of tomatoes). We’ve spent entire evenings peeling tomatoes, slicing vegetables, simmering soups and sauces which will be our “go to” meals in the winter. It’s been really fun and really really tasty thus far!

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Wonderfully ‘Wicked’

So last night was Tuesday, and Tuesday is date night. Now usually this just means we go to a movie or do something special together, but last night, we kicked it up a notch, so to speak.

Aside: When we were in London a few months ago, our hotel was RIGHTNEXT to the Wicked theatre. I really wanted to go, (I may have whimpered a bit), but the tickets were outrageously expensive and we were at the end of our two week European honeymoon and didn’t really feel like dropping several hundred pounds for a show. We saw Avenue Q instead and it was awesome. But I still wanted to see Wicked.

Fast forward a few months. I start seeing signs on buses, hearing ads on the radio…Wicked was coming to Seattle! Yay! (Insert happy dance) Naturally, I bought us tickets as a sort of early birthday present for me, and scheduled it on date night. So last night, I came home from work kinda cranky and tired, but changed into a pretty dress and we headed out.

And then it rained. Not like normal Seattle drizzle, but full on, BUCKETS. Of course, we’re Seattlites, we always have our raincoats….right? Hm…not this time apparently.

The show was MAGNIFICENT! I’m kind of a musical snob, and I loved it. I was a bit apprehensive when we arrived and found out from our program that the understudy would be playing the role of Elphaba, but I need not have worried. This girl blew the roof off. The set was intricate and ever changing. The choreography was well timed and crisp, and the vocals were out of sight. “Defying Gravity” was probably the highlight for me. Could I ask for more? Well, maybe a pair of jeweled slippers?
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Hats Hats Everywhere!

It seems like I’m surrounded by pregnant women these days. Several close friends of ours are expecting, and no fewer than four women at work are as well. What does this mean? Baby hat knitting time! (And a few older children’s hats as well thrown in for good measure) Here is the super cute pumpkin hat for our favorite five year old, and two matching newborn hats for our friend expecting twin boys in a few weeks. Baby hats are great, because they can be knit out of a single skein of yarn, and they are the knitters version of instant gratification, as they take only a few hours to complete. They are also really stinkin cute!
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Early Birthday Presents…

So as we were camping this weekend, Tom kept teasing me by saying that he had an early birthday present waiting for me when we got home. Since my birthday isn’t for another two weeks, I was confused as to why it couldn’t just wait. After convincing me that it was not a puppy or anything else “alive”, he told me I’d just have to wait and see. After we arrived home, I was presented with a wrapped package to open. Inside, I found three plastic bags that were labeled from Territorial Seed Company. They were peony tubers!! They grow really well in the Pacific Northwest, and are beautiful in late spring, and I’ve admired them in other’s gardens for years. So…next spring I will have my very own fragile, delicate, fragrant blossoms to add color to our side garden. As much as I love our vegetables and our vegetable garden, it will be nice to have something that’s only job is to be pretty.

http://www.hort.wisc.edu/mastergardener/Features/flowers/peony/peonies-ns.htm

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Try, try, again

Ok, so I’ve tried the blog thing before, and always tend to get distracted, so we’ll see how this goes. I hope this to be a place to talk about knitting and other craft projects, books, photography, hiking, marriage, and many of the other little bits and pieces that make up my life. Enjoy!
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