A little Country Drive on the Palouse Hywy

Joe has been wanting to take the Palouse Highway and check out Palouse Falls for quite some time now. The falls are about a 2 hour drive south of Spokane. The drive is nothing but rolling wheat fields and old barns. It's supposedly awesome to take the trip late spring, early summer when the hills are green and gold. We missed the green, and on a gloomy day as it was, it did get pretty repetitious. But, we made it to the falls and on the way home we hit some rain clouds, which resulted in some pretty cool pictures.

I thought we were never going to find the Palouse Falls! Here is the DIRT road we had to take to the entrance!

Whew! the falls weren't dried out as we thought they might be.

I think they're normally 3x as wide, but it was still a sight.

the drive back home...

are we in Kansas?

Bowl & Pitcher and Manito Park

The day was HoT & WiNdy

Perfect for a little hike along the Spokane River.

I love the color of moss --I mean the color of Joe's shirt!

It felt so refreshing to stick our feet in the river.

After the Bowl & Pitcher we decided to check out Manito Park. Can you believe I've never been there! (maybe once late winter, when there was nothing to look at, but I don't think that counts) It reminds me a lot of the the Holden Arboretum back home...

As we were sitting having an ice cream cone, we looked up and noticed a whole bunch more Buckeye Trees!

Here is a buckeye. (it's inside the spikey green shell. Come end of fall, the shell will eventually smooth out and start to open, revealing a shiny brown buckeye) **they make great vase fillers!

Duncan Garden

I'm sure the best time to go to Manito Park is probably spring time when everything is blooming, but there was still a lot of beautiful flowers to see.

Rose Hill Garden

It smelled so lovely, with over 150 kinds of roses.

Dahlias: apparently Aug & Sept is the perfect time for viewing

A little Ohio in Washington...

...not only is my mom in town!!! so are BUCKEYE trees!!!

The day my mom got into Spokane, I was anticipating her to be pretty worn out from the long flight. Nope. She slept the whole way here and was ready to go. So, I showed her around the apartment and took her to Monroe Street. We hit up all the antique shops just like old times back in Ohio. As we were walking in front of Lillian Conn Antiques Gallery I spotted what looked like a buckeye on the sidewalk. It couldn't be. Buckeye trees in Washington?! Oh yes!

Baby Shower Gift

I love making little mini albums. They are so easy to throw together! Pick a color scheme and a theme and your half way done. Here is a little album I made for a co-worker's baby shower:

a 12 month picture album for baby Rowland*

*NOTE: if you're going to make something for a baby shower, make sure you spell the little one's name correctly! It's actually Roland, without the 'w'. Not sure what I was thinking, but I didn't realize it until I got to the baby shower and saw R-O-L-A-N-D on the cake. Ugh! Luckily, it was an easy fix!

what a cute way to store/display a mini album!

I found this adorable little onesie stamp for $1 ~ how perfect!

Not your ordinary itsy bitsy spider!!

So, at the beginning of the summer I noticed we had a little visitor on our balcony. An itsy bitsy spider had made himself a home. In casual conversation, I mentioned it to my mom and she said to not kill it... to keep it there because it would keep the bugs out of our apartment. It wasn't harming anyone, so I thought why not.

Well, let me tell you! this spider must have kept out a lot of bugs, because over the past few months I swear he tripled in size and transformed into a tarantula!! (he did not look like that on day one!) I decided he had to go when his web started to look like this:

here let me zoom in for you....

"I only have a Kitchen because it came with the house"

on the menu: Chicken Erin!

Oh how I miss Erin, Dave & the kiddos! (Dave was my boss back in Ohio who I worked for for 8 years. In that time, I became close friends with Dave & his wife Erin, and watched them start a family together. They have the CUTEST kids -Andrew age 3 and Ellie age 2- who I miss dearly!!)

1. A VERY 2. Rare 3. Sight
4. Chicken Erin! 5. Gets Joe's approval 6. must have been good!

Chicken Erin!from the kitchen of Erin Engram

Ingredients:1 beaten egg
Parmesan Cheese
Red Pepper
4 Boneless Chicken Breasts
Olive Oil
Italian Bread Crumbs
1 (green box) of Kraft Spaghetti
3 small cans of Hunts Tomato Sauce

Directions:

• Mix beaten egg, a couple shakes of Parmesan, and a touch of red pepper in a bowl
• Dip each chicken breast in the mixture and then dip the chicken in a bowl of your Italian Bread Crumbs on both sides, making sure each side has an even amount
• Place the chicken in a glass baking casserole dish that has a thin layer of olive oil on the bottom
• Repeat this process for each chicken breast
• Put chicken in the oven for 30 minutes @ 425-430 degrees
• When the chicken is cooking prepare the spaghetti and sauce on the stove. It is my recommendation that you use the Kraft Spaghetti Packet because it is so tasty, but if you have your own favorite spaghetti and special sauce feel free to use instead