Seattle To Portland Bicycle Ride

My husband decided this year that he would register for and ride in the STP, Seattle to Portland bicycle ride. He and my mom would leave Seattle at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning and proceed to ride 100 miles 2 days in a row, making it all the way to Portland, OR on Sunday evening. My dad, the girls and I decided that as fun as that sounded (ARGH!) we would skip the bike ridding part and just spend the weekend camping in Chehalis area. This would give them a place to camp for the evening as well as letting us get away and have some fun.

The girls wait for their Grandma and Daddy to cross the finish line.

Here they are!

Is summer really coming to an end? What did we do this summer?

I can hardly believe that summer is pretty much over. With school starting tomorrow I have to admit I am going through a little shock. There simply was not enough time to do all that I wanted. That said, we did have a busy summer especially July.

We started the month off spending the 4th of July in Poulsbo. The weather wasn't nice enough to enjoy the lake and with busy weekends ahead we decided to stay home. On the 4th we headed over to our friends house to spend time with them and their new little one.

The next weekend we headed to Butte, Montana for a celebration of the life of Jack Fechter. Jack was an amazing man. I grew up next door to him and his wife and they played the role of grandparents in our life. It was an very long drive, but we had a lot of fun while there.

The girls splashed around in the pool we brought and set up at our camp sight. This was after our 1/2 day excursion all over Butte looking for a new tent because ours was mold infested and there was no way on this good green earth I was putting any of my belongings in it, let alone sleeping in it. We gave it a Young family funeral and tossed it into the dumpster.

After the afternoon Celebration of Life, we were heading back to our campsite and kept passing all these fabulous looking old homes out in the fields. My mom insisted that we stop and go and take some pictures by them, even with the obvious signs indicating it would be preferred if we didn't. So, for the sake of a few photos, we ignored the "Keep Out" sign posted, climbed over the fence and trekked out into the field.

One of the other days we decided to investigate the National Folk Festival. I won't go into the details of the festival here, but I don't see us attending it any year in the future. However, even though the festival itself wasn't our cup of tea, we did have a good time exploring the bustling metropolis of Butte.

Mom's Cornbread (with a twist)

I don't make it often, but tonight I whipped out my mom's Ranch Style Corn Bread recipe to go with chili. Now I love this corn bread, but I wanted to mix it up a bit so I made some additions and it ended up making it even more fabulous. So I decided to share it with you all. Enjoy!

Preheat oven to 425* Sift together 1 c flour, 1 c cornmeal, 1 t salt, 3 t baking powder. Add 1 egg and 1 c milk. Combine until moistened. Stir in 1/4 c melted shortening, 1 c fresh roasted corn cut off cob, 1 - 4 oz can diced green chilies & 1/8 c chopped green onion tops. Stir until combined and pour into greased 8" round cake pan. Bake for 20-25 min. Yummmy!