We're still alive!

Hello all,
Sorry we haven't updated in a while. It's not like we've been too busy to blog (that is far from the case for me), we just haven't thought about it. Since I recently took the time and effort to give our blog a makeover, I thought it would be appropriate to write a little. So here is an update of our life since our last post:

June
In June we got to take our first camping trip as a married couple. We went to the dunes of Winchester Bay (south of Florence on the Oregon coast) to go four-wheeling with my family. We were only able to stay one night, but I didn't have a problem with that. We discovered that sand is not nearly as comfortable to sleep on as we initially thought. We were sleeping right on the dunes. Here is a picture of me fully equipped for our ride:
Shortly after this picture was taken, we took a pretty nasty spill going up a rather large dune (Josh was driving). We were fine though. Sand is soft when you are rolling down a hill made of it. Here is a gorgeous picture Josh took from the top of one of the dunes:
It was pretty fun. June was also Josh's birthday. I made him the salmon dish from the last post with sauteed summer squash and homemade rolls. I went through this cupcake phase for a while so he specifically requested NO cake for his birthday. So I made berry cobbler with homemade ice cream instead. It wasn't cake, but it was still delicious.

OH! June was also our anniversary! That was the weekend we went camping. On Sunday we decided to be bad and go to the Konditorei (our favorite local bakery) to get some cake. It was totally worth breaking the sabbath for it. Seriously. You just have to try it sometime.

July
We went to La Grande for the 4th of July. Sorry, we forgot or camera. We had a delicious southern style barbecue with red velvet cupcakes for dessert (Josh couldn't keep me from cupcakes for long!!!)

Josh's brother Jordan also came to our side of the state for a weekend. We went to the beach and shopping at the outlet mall. July was REALLY hot over here for about a week. I spent three days lying on the floor in front of my homemade air conditioner. Basically, I put a tub of ice water and a wet towel in front of a fan.

August
August started off with Josh's parents spending the weekend with us. They went to the beach for Reed's birthday and then stayed with us Saturday night. I made this German chocolate cheesecake. It was very good. I made it again a few weeks later for my dad's birthday.
I've been doing a lot of baking lately. It's my dream to open up my own bakery some day. I decided a while back to start preparing to make this dream a reality. I'm going to start small, just making cakes and other desserts for baby showers, birthdays and holidays. This way I can practice baking and decorating and get some extra income. Then I'll just go from there.

I'm still planning on finishing school and getting my teaching license. This is obviously going to happen a while down the road, but I'm excited to think my ultimate dream could be a reality!

Besides baking, I've been feeling pretty crafty in general. My step mom has got me into scrapbooking and now I'm a little obsessed. This is one of the first pages I actually have done: I have a lot of partially and nearly finished pages. This book is going to be a chronology of my life with Josh so far. It starts with when we were dating and ends at our first anniversary. This is a picture of us dressed as Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World. I have a page of when he proposed to me, our first Christmas together, our engagement pictures, our wedding and our children (Bert and Ernie). I don't really have anything else to scrapbook until we start having human kids, so I'll have to take a hiatus and get a different hobby for a while.

Now
Speaking of Bert and Ernie, they're doing well.In fact, they are HUGE.

Josh is busy with his new job. Right now he is busy trying to convince the workers in the plant not to unionize. I'm still not really doing anything. This month is exciting for me. My birthday is in a little over a week! And I'm (hopefully) going back to school at the end of the month! I have never been so excited to go back to school! But I haven't been able to get a job here and I missed the deadline to get financial aid for summer classes, so I've been stuck at home. My newest project (besides scrapbooking) is watching entire seasons of television shows on DVD. Right now I am loving Mad Men. But I ran out of episodes. I need season 5 of The Office to come out!!!

That's about it. Sorry it's so long. But if you think about it, this is really like six blogs in one. I hope you enjoyed our fascinating life and I promise we'll update more from now on! Bye y'all!