Cute Baby Alert!

Last week was my sister's birthday (I guess it was my brother's birthday, too...seeing as how they are twins) so we went to get Mexican food. Gertrude was happy to meet the nephew. Elijah looks like he was happy to meet her, too.

Happy Trails to You....

Thanks to everyone who tuned in during our moving adventure. I hope you had fun following our trip via blog. Now that we have arrived in the Pacific Northwest, I will return to my regular blog at:

http://creativecarissa.blogspot.com

so please join us there to check up on our latest adventures.

Cheers!!

-Carissa

A camping chair just for me

I just realized that my camping chair has a yarn holder. It's like it was made just for me! Joe's chair has a yarn holder, too, but he's been using his to hold soda cans

Our new favorite

Grand Canyon may have been big but I think Yosemite is much nicer. Not only is it not located in the middle of a big nasty desert but the lush forests and meadows, cool rivers and high waterfalls make it SOOOOO much more beautiful and inviting.

I'm not sure if we'll want to do Grand Canyon again but I think we'll make a point of coming back here.

We're Okay

Unfortunately our tire isn't. This is our tire after we got it off the car. We were driving on I-15 in California when the tire decided to turn inside out. Fortunately we were close to my cousin's house where we were planning on spending the next two days so it didn't mess up our schedule any. We think Someone was taking care of us that our tire popped here instead of in the middle of the Arizona desert and that the worst that happened was needing to shell out some dough to get it fixed instead of us getting in a huge accident as a result.

Carissa's Cupcakes

***attempted to send Sunday night. Am resending as-is Tuesday evening***

A while back I met two cupcaking Carissas through an online cupcake group. The first, who goes by Carrie, owns a cupcake bakery in Albuquerque called Cake Fetish . The other Carissa owns a cupcake bakery in Australia.

Since we aren't going to Australia any time soon but we did have to drive through New Mexico to get to the Grand Canyon, we decided to stop in. Sadly Carrie doesn't work on Sundays so I didn't get to meet her in person but we did get to have two cupcakes...a velvet elvis (red velvet) and a half baked (I think it was vanilla cake with mini chocolate chips and a piece of cookie dough).

The cupcakes were dense but good. Joe commented that the decor looked like something I would have done (it was red with black and natural wood accents). So it was a fun little stop on our way to our campground tonight. Thanks, Carrie, for letting us see your place!

It's so big!

I knew it was going to be big but holy cow, this thing is HUGE! That's all I really have to say. Big. Very big.

Moo Cows

This was the sign that greeted us last night as we entered the national forest we stayed at. I figured maybe there were farms nearby and that cows occaisionally got out. Not so. My friends, these signs were warning us about WILD COWS.

Now I suppose it stands to reason that herds of wild cows exist as humans didn't invent them and farmers who started farming cows so long ago had to have gotten them from somewhere...but the desert? In New Mexico?

After we got our tent set up and dinner made we started hearing cow sounds coming from near the entrance to camp a little less than a quarter mile from where we were. After cleaning up from dinner, we decided to go exploring. Imagine our surprise when as we round the bend and shine our light out towards the road we discover several sets of large green eyes staring right at us. And then the large green eyes started to move toward us. All I could think was that WILD cows are coming at me in the middle of the night!

I wish I could say that I was calm and cool and collected but if I did I would be lying. Joe called after me to remind me that running away from cows was a bad idea. He also pointed out the cow blocker across the road and the fence - both of which were designed to keep the cows out of camp. I stopped running but still wasn't so convinced. I thought perhaps a sufficiently motivated cow could still get at me despite the "cow blocker" and the fence. We decided to leave the cows alone and to go back to our tent.
It took a while to fall asleep.

On the Road Again

We are back on the road again. The conference was great and I met some amazing people that I hope to keep in touch with but I am VERY glad to have my husband back. Husband seems happy to have me back, too. :-)

We left from Missouri Friday afternoon and drove just over the border to Oklahoma. We slept in the next day because it was still raining and we preferred to wait it out over breaking our wet gear down in the rain. It stopped raining about 11 and after packing up drove the rest of the way across Oklahoma through some crazy intense rain storms.

Now we are back on the road again this morning. We are hoping to stop by a cupcake cafe owned by a Carissa in New Mexico this afternoon but don't know if we'll make it in time before they close. If you think about it, send some speedy dust our way.

Soxy!

I finished my hedera socks today in class (I still can't believe my teacher lets me knit during lecture. This is great!). Well...almost finished. I got everything but the toe grafting done and I whipped that out really quickly once I got back to my room to get a needle. I think I'm going to wear them to class tomorrow.

Knitting in Class

This is my sock and our prof for this week. In addition to being interesting, he lets me knit in class.

I finished knitting the heel flap and then turned the heel and got started on the gusset during the first half of class today and am hoping to have the gusset done by the end of class so I can finish the sock tomorrow.

hedera #2

I just realized that I haven't posted anything since Tuesday. Yikes. Things have busy here as we are doing things from 7am until about 7:30pm. So busy in fact, I haven't done much knitting. When I was working and taking classes I could usually crank out one sock in 2 weeks so I was hoping I'd have my second hedera sock (Gertrude seen knitting the first one above) done by the time Joe comes to get me. I seriously doubt this will happen. :-(

We are at a retreat this weekend so I probably won't be able to post much until Sunday at the earliest. So since I won't see you until then, have a good weekend!

We aren't in Kansas Massachusetts anymore, Toto!

Yesterday I journeyed out to CVS to see if they had something that could help me with my ear (which is by the way all better as I finally broke down and went to a doctor). CVS, for those of you unfamiliar with them, is kind of like Rite-Aid or Walgreens. It's a drug store. Or at least the ones I'm familiar with are.

This CVS near where I'm staying is HUGE. Not only did it have twice the amount of pharmacy and cosmetic things that regular CVS' do, but this CVS sold furniture and clothes! Furniture! And not just dinky plastic lawn furniture. Like, dressers and desks and bookshelves. Even more weird than the fact that CVS was carrying furniture was that I knid of liked it. It was cool looking French Country furniture. At CVS! Who knew?

Maybe the CVS stores where you guys are are like this one and so I just sound like a crazy person put I certainly never expected my tiny cornerstore drugstore to have furniture and clothing departments!

The Definition of Jo-Rissa

Jo-Rissa -- [noun]: A human transformer (Robot in disguise) 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Remember that whole celebrity couple naming phenomenon that gave us wonderful words such as Bennifer (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez) and TomKat (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). Well, my sister occaisionally calls Hubby and I JoRissa. And aparently according to Quiz Galaxy Jo-Rissa would be defined in the dictionary as above.

Busy Busy

Whew! Things have been nuts the last few days so between that and not having good cell phone service to send blog entries, I've been quiet lately.

This is our update:
We drove from Aunt Linda's to Missouri early early Sunday morning so I could come to my conference that gives me two free grad school classes (hooray for free grad school classes!). Joe was amazing and sweet and very helpful. He took a late bus that night back to his aunt's where he'll stay while I'm here (they don't provide accommodation for spouses so originally Joe was going to camp nearby but his aunt offered to have him stay with her instead which I think ends up being a better, less lonely deal for Joe). The good news is all this means I have a computer. The bad news is, I'm a smidge lonely without my Joe.

That and my ear is broken. :-( I did something to screw up my right ear our last night in Louisiana. Between lots of ear drops and other ear cleaning out things (which I'm sure most people would prefer I note describe in detail on the blog) I've been able to relieve the pressure quite a bit but I can still only hear out of it about 75% and having my ear plugged up like this makes sounds in my head (like talking, eating, etc) VERY echoy so now I am talking much quieter than usual and can't sing at all and eating crunchy food is almost unbearable. We're concerned about it getting infected not only because that would be inconvenient, but additionally since we are so far from home and don't have health insurance right now. :-( For those who pray, prayer for this would be genuinely appreciated.

And while I'm here.....

Remember my post about crazy Amish town names? Well apparently the southerners are in on the game, too. On Sunday while driving to the school here we passed a town called Belcher in Louisiana and a national park called Toad Suck Park in Arkansas. Who comes up with these?

Need a Cupcake Fix?

Check these out: Chocolate Caramel cupcakes. Mmmmm

Cuppycakes

I don't think ShannonAnn thought I'd be able to do it...but I did. I managed to make and post cupcakes to my blog while on my trip.

Joe's Aunt Betty (not the aunt we're staying with) has been in the hospital and is coming home tomorrow. We stopped by today to visit and I got to meet her for the first time. She's real sweet and I enjoyed our time with her. After we left, I told Joe I thought we should bring her flowers or cupcakes or some other similar nice thing to welcome her home. Joe thought cupcakes would be best.

Normally I would agree wholeheartedly but I don't have any of my tools, recipes or ingredients with me as they are all either packed up in our moving cubes or in the mail on my way to me in Oregon. I thought I might be able to do something anyway. Aunt Linda (Aunt Betty's sister and the aunt we're staying with) thought we should do carrot cake.

To make a long story short(er), though not operating in ideal baking conditions (tools, recipes, ingredients, etc), I ended up with 24 carrot cake cupcakes that weren't bad for a first attempt at carrot cake. The frosting was a little tricky, though.

First I did a creamcheese frosting but didn't have any frosting tools so simply used the back of a spoon. While functional, it didn't make the smoothest, most aesthetically pleasing frosting surface. The carrots were a bit fussy as well. The only materials I really had at my disposal were regular silverware and very thin sandwich baggies that had tails at the bottom (which made it hard to do anything too precise). In the end, I wouldn't put them in my portfolio, but they do at least resemble carrots somewhat. Hopefully Aunt Betty will just be charmed we made her cupcakes and won't notice some of my wonky carrots.

New Tunes

Gertrude's favorite new artist is Michael Buble (like Boo-Blay...not like bubble). I would call him the Frank Sinatra of the 21st centuy.

I had heard him on Oprah a few weeks ago (please don't ask why I was watching Oprah) and really liked him. Then when we were in PA, Joe's sister had some of his songs on her ipod and I...uh, I mean Gertrude... was hooked so when a Starbucks we stopped at had his CD for sale, I decided that my favorite green travelling companion needed a little somethin-somethin. She's very happy.

First Fire

Believe it or not, I was a Girl Scout for 14 years. One of my favorite things to do as an older Girl Scout was build "one match fires." As the name suggests, you build your fire but then get only one match and one chance to light it. By about 14 years of age, I had gotten pretty darn good at it - even when camping in damp Washington State forests.

Being the one match fire queen, I was excited to flex my fire building muscles for my husband on our trip. Sadly, the universe conspires against me.

The first night it was so dark by the time we got back from seeing the Yarn Harlot that neither of us could see well enough to gather sufficient materials nor to really construct an effective fire structure. My first one match attempt in years was so lame that I told my pyrohusband he could be in charge of the fires from now on. I did feel better, though, that it took him a lighter and 15 minutes to start a fire that only lasted 5 minutes or so since the combination of very dark and very wet do not roaring campfires make.

The next few days we spent at Joe's parents (where I might add, it rained every night) so no fires on two counts. Our next camping site after that was in Virginia, where it had rained the night before so everything was soaked through. If that weren't enough to keep us from getting a fire going, almost immediately after finishing dinner, the heavens opened and boy did it rain.

Tonight, however, a few hundred miles away in Alabama, things are looking up. We have a beautiful campsite about 50 feet from a lake and since it hasn't rained in days wood is nice and dry for fire building. Husbandito did a great job getting a nice fire going. It makes me wish I had a can of apple pie filling that we could use to make apple pies for dessert in our pie irons. Mmmm pie iron pies....

Mmmm Burrito

After 200 miles, our burritos were perfect. I think maybe this under-the-hood cooking buisness might work better for heating food than for cooking raw food all the way through.

Joe wants to try ribs next but I'm a little skeptical. I mean, how embarrassing would it be to have to explain to a mechanic why there is BBQ sauce stuck in one of our belts?

Lunch Experiment Take 2

Last night for dinner we had tacos but had a little of the filling and cheese leftover. We decided that maybe we could use our car to reheat leftovers so before going to bed, we made 3 burritos with the leftover filling and some cheese , made 2 quesadillas with the remaining tortillas, wrapped them all up in foil and kept them in the icechest so they wouldn't spoil.

This morning at our gas station stop, we loaded up the engine (I'm sure people thought we were nuts...but then again we were in Virginia) and at 100 miles the quesadillas were perfect and we flipped the burritos over.

What we've learned so far:
1. Flip over your food every 100 miles or so to ensure even cooking...especially if baking

2. Car engines make amazing quesadillas

Our Little Lunch Experiment take 1

A la Manifold Destiny (which I haven't read...it's out of print) we decided to try little experiment for lunch with hotdogs, crescent rolls, and some foil yesterday.

First we wrapped some crescent roll dough around some hotdogs, wrapped them in foil and placed them in various places around our engine block.

First we drove 130 miles and checked. Only a few of them were mostly done. We ate those and flipped the others over. At 177 miles, they were perfect. So the key is apparently to flip them over to assure even cooking.

To be continued...

Moving on

Got up before God was even awake this morning at 6am to finish packing the car and get on our way from Joe's parents' house. Luckily God woke up in time to stop the rain so we could pack the car without getting soaked.

It feels good to finally be on our way....

Finished the Pomatomoi

My Pomatomoi (that would be the plural of Pomatomus) socks are done! I finished the second one in Amish country in PA...which I thought was somewhat appropriate. Now that these are done, I need to put knitting on hold for a bit to do some reading for 2 classes I'm taking in Missouri laster this month.



Details on the socks for the interested:

Yarn: Patons kroy sock yarn

Colorway: WInter Eclipse

Yardage used: 195 yards per sock (skeins were 197 yds. and I had 2 left on the end of each)

Needles: size 3 for the lace pattern. Size 2 for the heel, sole and toe.

Getting it on in Amish country

Today we drove out to Amish country with Joe's dad and sister. One of my favorite things about Amish country are the names of some of their towns...Intercourse, Bird in Hand, and Blue Ball are my 3 favorites.

Right now we're on our way to have lunch with an Amish family that are family friends of a friend of ours from the grad school. Their town doesn't have a fun name, though.

poke-your-nose

Today Joe and I went on a fabulous bike ride in the Poconos and found a letterbox in Lehigh Gorge. The picture is the area where we found the letterbox and had lunch in the gorge.

Day 2

Today started off a little slow. We got up, repacked the car, did a letterbox and drove through the rest of Mass, into CT, spent a long time sitting in traffic in NY and finally arrived at the nursing home that Joe's friend and somewhat adopted father figure lives at. We had a good visit but on our way out, there is a group of men sitting in their wheelchairs and one of them spots me and my hat. Now, I normally do not wear a cowboy hat but we're camping and it makes a nice, airy, summer hat...

So anyway, this man sees me and gets this excited look on his face and goes "You think you're a cowboy? You headin' back to the rayanch? heh" I don't think it sounds nearly as funny written down but this man was rather coherent and was totally making fun of me and my hat.

So that was my excitement for the day...a letterbox, lots of traffic, and getting made fun of by an 85 year old man.

Gertie meets the Yarn Harlot

Gertrude (who we all know is an avid sock knitter) was so excited to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Stephanie graciously signed my book and allowed Gertrude to work a bit on the sock while I snapped a picture.

Day 1

So today was the first day of Team Bonham's moving adventure. After saying goodbye to our friends, mailing the leftover boxes to ourselves, loading our car and cleaning the apartment we left around 2:00 (2 hours later than we wanted to) ...which would have been fine but between traffic and our GPS trying to send us in all kinds of crazy directions, we got to our first important stop (seeing the Yarn Harlot) more than an hour late. :-(

Joe was a good sport, though and waited in line with me for 2 hours to get my book signed and even let me get some sock yarn. The picture above is him and Gertrude patiently waiting with me.

testing

we're leaving in 3 days and would like to send updates every so often to my blog so i'm testing this here mobile blogging business. So here we go. This is a picture of gertrude practicing her safari /camping skills

West Coast or Bust!

Team Bonham is on the move back to the Promise Land. Follow our adventures here as Carissa takes a break from her regular blog.