1 Potato 2 Potato

Growing up in Oregon everyone had a garden. My best friend Marcia's family had a big garden that we took the liberty of playing in and eating from. I loved carrots fresh from the garden all warm and still a little dirty. They were so sweet and earthy. But one of my favorite things fresh from the garden is tiny potatoes. Thin skinned and crisp. I can just brush the dirt off them and eat them out of my hand. Of course I also can think of 100 other ways to prepare them. 

This year Mr. Ramon and I have our first garden together. I have not grown potatoes since I was a girl and I didn't do any of the planting - mostly the eating. So together we picked out two types to grow. A small white potato and a small red potato. We decided to go with the method that seemed the easiest - potato bags. 

Potato Bags are nylon pots that you plant your potatoes in then add dirt continually as they grow until the dirt is to the top. They have handy little openings on the sides so you can harvest potatoes when they are young. We did not know a lot about growing potatoes so the employee at Sky Nursery told us to just us regular soil and not to feed them. Sounds about right if you think about where potatoes flourish - Idaho and Ireland. Lots of dirt. We were excited to see them grow big and bushy. 

All of a sudden while Mr. Ramon was out of town one of our plants started to go yellow. I remembered that they were supposed to flower at some point and they had not yet. This could not be good. I was worried and scoured the internet for potato plant disease. I was sure we had failed in some capacity. To much rain, not enough sun......

Well Mr. Ramon came home and I showed him our plant. He quickly said "maybe we have some potatoes?" He shoved his hand into the side pocket, dug around a bit and pulled out a small white potato. 

I was so excited!! We have potatoes - we may not have many and I am still unsure of what happened to our plant but we harvested what we had.

We took this little guy inside and washed him off. I then sliced him and sprinkled him with salt. I was in heaven. Crunchy and starchy. So tasty. 

So now we put these new potatoes to use - smashed, roasted, potato salad. Looks like there will be potato recipes coming your way!

No More Junipers!

No more Junipers - I feel like a scene out of Mommy Dearest. I detest Juniper trees - they make me crazy. They are lazy landscape options that smell bad and are a great home for nests of spiders. 

We moved in to a beautiful newly remodeled home with a badly neglected yard. This yard may have not had any attention for several years. The first thing I needed to ask Mr. Ramon to take care of was the front walkway Junipers. Six of them lining the walkway and cutting the yard in half. They had to go!

He really is a great guy - he took this project on one afternoon that soon became night with chainsaw and shovel. The down side is we have big dirt holes now that the dogs love playing in. We will fill them with sod in the spring to solve that problem. 

Now we have a huge pile of limbs to discard. But project number one is done!!

Valentine's Day

My first job at 16 was at a Hallmark store. I am pretty sure this is why I love Valentine's Day so much. Also I had an amazing mom that would celebrate this holiday with cute little gifts like tiny heart shaped erasers, handmade doily cards and sweet treats.

This year with our wedding just wrapped I missed the boat on handmade anything. But I could not let the holiday escape me and sent Mr. Ramon flowers from Seattle favorite Fiori. They always do such a stunning job.

So I want to send a Happy Valentine's Day to my guy - Mr. Ramon will you be my valentine?



Hope you all had a sweet day with your loves!

The Big Day

Mr Ramon proposed in Paris in February and we tied the knot January 28, 2011. It was a whirlwind year of planning, fun, stress and learning about one another.

I am a planner - organized and armed with timelines, calendars and lists of things to check off. Mr Ramon is an artist - and way more fun to be around when planning an event. That said, he also likes to save as much as possible to the last minute. He is not really sure why my timelines are important. Of course these two ideals collided and left us a mess at times and more aware of what we are both really good at. And it took the both of us and a whole army of loving friends to pull this off.

I loved it - every minute, even the tough ones. From planning day one through the entire weekend wedding whirlwind. It left me knowing I love planning events and want to plan special days for and with others.

Here are a few pics from our big day - mostly of us. I love looking at them.












Our day was totally magical. We had an amazing photographer. A friend of ours that normally shoots rock bands and events. So he had a very different approach from a traditional wedding photographer. We really loved the results.

More to come - I will take my time and break it all down for you!

Iowa Squirrels

So here it is I unveil my love of squirrels. Yes - the little vermin with those cute fluffy tails. I love watching them play in the tree branches and chase around the tree trunks. I love watching my dogs chase them - knowing they are never going to be able to catch them .

When I travel I am on the lookout for squirrels - especially city squirrels. New York and Chicago have some awful nice ones.

Ramon just traveled to Iowa for work. Now I had placed a few things on Ramons' agenda while he was away. One was to find me a taxidermy squirrel. I really want one for one of my wedding tables. And heck - Iowa seemed like the kind of place to find one. He knows of my squirrel love and heard from a couple of people that there were these black squirrels in Iowa. I wanted to know what the heck that means - what is a black squirrel - after all grey is the classic. A little more investigative work and he learned that these black squirrels hang out in the cemetery. Weird - right?

Here is what you wear in Iowa to sneak up on squirrels in the cemetery.

Here is the cemetery.

And here are the squirrels - the first picture is a black squirrel and the second is his friend mr. auburn squirrel.

Mr Ramon said they were so cute chasing each other and playing. One of the best things about this time of year - the squirrel fun.

Oh yeah - if anyone out there has a taxidermy squirrel that they would let us borrow - just let me know!!