Wow, Fall. You have hit us and with you comes millions of pine needles, soggy days, and cold feet. But I love you! Fall is my favorite season of the year. I love it when I can begin to put layers on and start wearing all my nice warm coats outside. And there is really nothing better than a wet weekend spent inside lazing around watching your favorite show and drinking hot apple cider.

I am throwing myself into the season and embracing the fact that Halloween is hardly over (I still have yet to actually pack all my Halloween stuff up and seal the box away in the garage) and the stores are already filled with Thanksgiving and Christmas merchandise. Stu has informed me that I am not allowed to buy any ornaments, or the AWESOME light up pink flamingo for the front yard, until after Thanksgiving but we will see about that. I'm thinking a covert trip to Target is in store ;-).

I apologize for the lack of blogging but my camera is being stupid and not letting me upload my photos or even erase the 500 pictures off of my memory card even though I have hit 'delete originals' every time I connect it to the computer. And what is a blog without pictures? Lame. Anyway, with Fall comes lots of photo ops so I plan on breaking out the camera Stu has but never uses and I promise to blog more!

Because We are Just THAT Cool...

Every year, Lane Ferret Shelter and Rescue puts on the "Ferret Agility Trials" to raise money. Stu and I have known about it for years but we are always doing something on the weekend they are held and we end up reading about it in the paper days later. As ferret owners, we have always wondered how our ferrets would do in the competition so this year, we took Oliver and joined in on the fun.

Oliver was totally freaked out about the car drive and then the amount of people and ferrets at the trials but his number was 23 and, that being one of my lucky numbers, I was confident we would take home a ribbon!

Oliver didn't take home any ribbons though...he didn't pull any weights, even try to get out of the paper bag, and ended up turning around during the tube races but we still love him. We met some nice/interesting people, saw our vet and Oliver was attacked by a girl ferret owned by a really sweaty woman. We left after "Princess Pea" chomped on Oliver's neck and wouldn't let go. But we think Oliver enjoyed himself and plan on taking him to the park more often. It's nice to not have to hide the ferrets anymore now that we aren't renting...

Places from My Childhood

After my parent's left, seems I just couldn't handle being away from them. They left my house and drove down to visit my aunt in Cave Junction. I decided that my new car needed to go on its first road trip, so three days later, I was driving down to Cave Junction too!

The crazy thing is that my cousin has lived in Eugene longer than I have and we lost contact a really long time ago. We kept giving our numbers to our moms only to have them lose them or give us the wrong number so we haven't talked in years. While my mom was visiting, I was actually able to get in touch with Sarah and we decided to make the trip to Cave Junction together (since my parent's were staying with her mom.) The drive down was the best part of the trip because I was able to catch up with Sarah and get to know her son Domanick (almost 3!)

It was a perfect summer day in Cave Junction. I have spent most of my life growing up there (ages 0-4 and then 9-16) and have a lot of memories in that town. It was weird to drive through and see buildings torn down and new ones erected and it was really crazy to have the option to stop for lunch at Subway. When I was in high school, the only thing you could eat at that was "fast food" was Dairy Queen or Giant Burger!

Right before we left to come back to Eugene, we decided to go swimming at the gauging station up the river. This is quite literally the swimming hole that I learned how to swim in. It was beautiful and crystal clear and unchanged. What a great way to spend the evening.

Summa Time...

I have been putting off posting anything for a while because I was sure that I hadn't done anything this summer. But looking back on some of the pictures that I have taken and posted on Facebook, I realized that this has been one of the best summers I have had in a long time. I didn't really go anywhere or do anything unbelievable, but I still had an amazing summer!

One of the really special things that happened this summer, is that my parents came to visit me. Most of you know that my family lives in New Mexico and that I only get to see them and spend time with them for about six days right around Christmas. My mom and step dad George decided to make the trip to Oregon this summer and they spent a few days with Stu and me.

We have always been a "coast" family, spending a lot of time living near the ocean, so one of the days they were in Eugene, we made a trip to Oregon City (where George grew up.) It was quite the road trip with me missing the exit I intended to take and going a very long route which included the Tualatin/Sherwood Highway and later a really shady, random winding country road. But we made it!

The end result was us finding our way to the beach at Ocean City (and me discovering that was where the Pelican Brewery was.) George told us all kinds of stories about how he and his dad used to build Dory Boats and we found the little building his mom built where she used to can fish. After leaving Ocean City we ended up going to Lincoln City to get a late lunch of fresh clam chowder and saltwater taffy! Yum!

The next day was my mom's birthday! I haven't been around my mom on her birthday since I was in junior high so it was really nice to be able to help her have a special day. We ended up going to see the livestock at the fair (my family raises horses and other animals) and then coming home for a yummy bbq. We got my mom her favorite type of cake from Sweet Life and then headed out to the fair at dusk to go on some rides!

It was really nice to have someone who isn't a wienie (...Stu...) and who wants to go on rides with me.

It is always a little nerve racking and tiring to spend time with your family. Especially when they are staying in your home (and you wake up to old country music blaring from your tv speakers at 7 in the morning...every morning...); but I was really sad to see them go. You never realize how much you miss the people you can't be around until those first few quiet, boring hours after they leave your house.

taken in the parking lot of target this evening...

Our House

I have had a few friends and family members from out of town ask me to post some pictures of our new house.

the front

living room

living room

living room

kitchen

kitchen

Dining room...we are looking into a dining room table but we haven't gotten that far yet.

Megan's room

upstairs bathroom

master bedroom

hot tub and deck off the master

Our BBQ deck. Thanks for recommending Bi-Mart for patio furniture Kenton and Katrina!

Fire pit down below. We are excited for smores!!

It is really cool because we have this little bark mulch area by the fire pit and every night around dinner time, deer come and munch and nap in our yard.

We are excited to finish furnishing the house and getting everything in order. We have a lot of work to do. I have to mention the "Man Cave" that Stu set up in the family room downstairs. Just picture our old living room and you have it. Stu was very excited about the prospect of being able to have his own room in the house that I will actually let him put up his cheesy posters in.

Moving Day

On June 24th, Stu and I became official owners of a house! We had been on break for about a week so we pretty much had the entire house packed into boxes (thank you Carolyn, Jesse, Kenton and Katrina for letting us borrow those boxes from you guys!).

The ferrets were very confused about what was going on. Oliver kept trying to pry open the tape on the boxes. It was pretty funny.

It was definitely a tough day. It was super hot and while we had hired movers to help us, Stu and I were pretty much responsible for getting a lot of the boxes and other things off the truck. We were very lucky because Stu's family came down and his sister helped us unpack a lot of stuff while Stu and I were telling the movers where to put stuff. His mom was awesome and cleaned our kitchen and bathrooms and his dad brought us a couch and bed frame down from Portland. It was a very long day but it went so much smoother with all the help from the Goss Family!

Ann, Stu, Megan and me, toasting after it was all over. Champagne to celebrate our first house!

Moving day photo shoot! Stu and his sister with their glasses next to the hot tub!

Me and Stu trying to be funny...only to have Ann be "that guy" in the photo...creeper ;-)

We have a house!

Okay, I am sorry that I posted that video before the last one. I know, I let a lot of people down who were used a certain standard of posts from me. I hope to redeem myself with this...

HAPPY EARLY! FOURTH OF JULY!!!

Riley sings "Don't Stop Believing" from Ronnie Silos on Vimeo.

Cinder's Surgery

Cinder was diagnosed with Insulinoma and adrenal disease. It happens to almost every ferret. And if they don't have surgery to remove their adrenal glands, then they could die. This has happened to another one of Stu's ferrets in the past and having the surgery added a good three years onto his life so we decided to go through with it. Stu and I don't have kids, so our ferrets are really part of our family and it was really hard to leave Cinder at the vet, knowing that she was going to have to go through the surgery all alone. We picked her up after work and she was all drugged up but happy to see us. Our vet, Dr. Ron said that Cinder had the biggest Insulinoma tumor he had ever seen but that she should be fine. (By the way, we recommend Dr. Ron to anyone who has a pet, although none of our friends currently have any. He is the most awesome vet ever and he even remembers his clients very well. We trust him completely with our animals).

Cinder's post op picture. I know that it looks really yucky but the brown stuff is just sterilizing liquid and we can't wash it off until her tummy becomes less sensitive. She has a little cute cast on her arm where they took the IV out. That HUGE bruise on her other arm happened because she freaked out and chewed out the first catheter that they put in. Crazy weasel.

Oliver has been really confused by the recent events. He has had to stay all by himself in the cage for the first time ever and doesn't like it. He seems really concerned about Cinder and it is really sweet to see him sniff her and try and give her kisses to cheer her up. Cinder herself is doing really well. She has been eating and drinking water and taking it easy. Can't wait until she can move a little more.

Memorial Day Camping

Usually, Memorial Day weekend rolls around and Stu and I are just so excited to have a few days off of school/work that we totally just relax at home. But this year, the weekend followed a long week off of work so we were pretty up for anything. Jesse and Carolyn invited us to go on a camping trip up the McKenzie river. We went up on Sunday pretty much expecting to have to turn around and go camp in someone's backyard. We were sure that with the nice weather and extended weekend, all the sites would be gone but amazingly enough, we found this awesome spot! It was actually at Paradise Campground which apparently is the place Carolyn's mom loves to camp. We were so lucky! It was right on the river and we didn't feel like we had people right on top of us. We ended up going hiking on this really cool trial that ended in this awesome pool, going to hot springs, and making hot dogs and smores over a camp fire. It was really a cool trip and we had a great time. Thanks for inviting us Carolyn and Jesse!

Scoping out a beer/soda hiding area in the icy water. It was awesome to come back from a hike and sit by the river and drink some cold beer!

"Once upon a time, this group of people went camping on the McKenzie river. Their cook roasted wieners and marsh mellows and then died. And then they ate some berries and died. Twenty years later they came back and haunted the campers at the site. With hooks. Wooooooooooooooooo..."

Wow, it has been a very busy month. At least, I feel like it has been very busy, although, I am not sure what all I have gotten done ;-) I realized that I needed to update the blog so here goes: a generic update on what has been going on.

-Stu and I had our 4th anniversary on the 30th of April. It was really great! We went to dinner at the Oregon Electric Station YUM and afterwards to the Hult Center to see Spamalot. Amazing. It was really a great show. John O’Hurley was pretty awesome (J Peterman from Seinfeld).

-Stu bought me a sewing machine for our anniversary! I am so excited to get started on projects! Can’t wait to go to the funky little fabric store down the road and pick something out. I have been trying to save up some money for other things lately, but soon!

-Baby Cedar was born! We went to the hospital to see Cedar, Katrina, and Kenton. He is so cute! Katrina is the first friend I have that I’ve been around since the beginning of the pregnancy and it has been so exciting! I can’t wait until our lives simplify a little bit so that we can spend more time at the Henry house!

-We know, we know…we haven’t been on a hike in like three weeks. The week after the last hike, it was horrible weather and the last couple of weekends, we have been so busy with other things that it hasn’t been a priority. I don’t know when we will get back into the swing of things. I hope soon. I miss it.

I am very excited for next weekend because I work Monday and I am going to help out in Stu's class on Tuesday (he really wants me to meet his kids since he has met all the ones in my classroom). But after that, I get the rest of the week off! Hopefully Stu and I will get some stuff done and have time to hang out with friends! Maybe get a hike or two in. Hopefully we will do something interesting so that when I do a blog update, I don't have to realize that we are boring... ;-)

The kids in Stu's class are all well aware that we have weird animals living with us at home. He brought the rats in one time to show them and now all of his students apparently talk about them all the time. A few kids think that it is fun to pick a bunch of daisies for the rats so every couple of days, Stu comes home with a pocket full of flowers. The rats really like the flowers. It is very cute.

Four Years

Today marks the fourth year that Stu and I have been together. Stu and I have known each other since our Freshman year at the U of O and I can still remember the first time I saw him; it helps that he was one of four guys in the Careers in Education freshman interest group. I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I spent in his dorm room, just hanging out and talking/doing stupid stuff. Stu was my best guy friend for three years before we started dating and I can honestly say that Stu has been a huge factor in me becoming the person that I am today. He knows everything little thing about me and still loves me.

Freshman year in the dorms

Being with someone who hates to get his picture taken has made it impossible to get good shots of us together. I shamelessly took this last picture from Carolyn and Jesse's blog...

SCARIEST THING EVER!

McDowell Creek Falls

The weather is very Oregony outside right now; wet, cold, gray...but this last weekend, we saw some sun shining through and Stu and I took advantage of it. I bought this cool little hiking guide the other day and we decided to try out a new spot. We ended up going to McDowell Creek Falls over by Sweet Home. It took us a while to find it because the guide was a little vague on how to get there and the google map directions ended up sending us out to some gravel road that ended in a "Do Not Trespass" sign with bones scattered on the ground underneath. Literally. I am not kidding. We decided that probably wasn't the turn we were supposed to take and, not wanting to meet up with the natives from Deliverance, we drove through to the other side of Sweet Home. And magically found it!

This isn't the actual McDowell Creek Falls because apparently, sometime between the hike and home, those pictures were deleted. This is the second waterfall that we came across on the hike and it is quite small in comparison. Still very pretty though.

It was a very well-maintained trail with nice bridges to cross the river so it wasn't a very challenging hike by any means.

Since we were going on a hike, I decided to give Stu his anniversary gifts early; the hiking guide and a backpack with one of those camelback water holders (we both hate carrying water bottles with us.) Since Stu refuses to get his picture taken, we will be seeing a lot of me in this blog. A lot.

Happy Earth Day!

I know that this is a little ridiculous but I had to post it. When the rats want to come out and play (we let them run around in their balls or run around on the couch for a little bit to exercise them) they often climb to the tallest point in their tank. The water bottle. And then look up through the screen on top until we take pity on them and let them out. Yesterday, we didn't notice right away and a little while later, I found Miso who apparently went to sleep on her water bottle. I thought it was pretty cute.

I have a tan/burn line!

This last weekend Stu and I went on a hike up Spencer's Butte for the first time ever! We have both lived here since 2002 and have only now gotten around to doing and it was awesome. It was a beautiful day and there were a ton of people out but that almost made it better because everyone was in a great mood and we were greeted with smiles and cheerful hellos up and down the trail.

This has definitely gotten me in the mood for doing more stuff outdoor. I know that the cold and rainy weather is back on its way so let's hope that I don't lose the motivation!

I am pretty cool.

After the hike, Stu and I had a bbq at our house. It was pretty impromptu actually. We only expected Noah but were joined by a few other friends, some we haven't seen since last summer! I love bbqing!

Saturday Market

One of the things that really gets me in the mood for summer and summer weather is the Saturday Market in downtown Eugene. I don't know what it is. I never buy anything (except the occasional raspberry lemonade!) but I love going down there to people watch. I didn't get a very good picture -I always feel self-conscious about taking pictures of people I don't know so I snapped one really quickly- but here is a shot of the first Saturday Market of the season. We went with Noah a couple of weekends ago.

This Saturday, Stu and I went back and actually bought something for lunch. It is always so crowded on the lawn and I hate sitting on the wet grass, so we bought our Nice Rice and walked down to the little square on Broadway and Willamette. Stu was really excited to get honeycomb. He's been checking for it every time we go to the market since it's opened for the season.

While we were eating, someone also stopped by and gave us a little book that informed us of how we were sinning in life. Gotta love an afternoon in downtown Eugene.

Rats!!

As you may know, our tomato frogs Hurley and Jemaine passed away. Poor guys. We don't know what happened (they both died at different times) but perhaps the tank on our dining table was not enough of a substitute for the rainforesty awesomeness that is Madagascar. We were sad. We considered throwing away the tank but instead...

INTRODUCING THE NEW ADDITIONS TO OUR FAMILY:

Miss Swiss (aptly named because she tries to chew holes into everything) eating a strawberry and looking kinda creepy with those eyes.

Miso (she is the sneezy one)

Lyra (named this because she is the most adventurous little girl)

I know, we don't have normal pets but Stu grew up with rats and he really wanted to get them. I am glad that we got them. I was hesitant at first because of all the stereotypes that rats have against them. But they are very sweet and constantly cleaning themselves. The best part is that while those damn weasels won't hang out with us unless they are sleepy, Lyra, Swiss and Miso love to hang out. Anyway, just thought I would put up some pictures of our new family members...cause they are so damn cute!