Fishin' Fever

I don't remember if I mentioned here in our blog..., ever since I missed two LARGE fish one day in this trout season, I've been suffering a bit of fishing fever. Of course, I'm at work when fish are jumping, and I'm off when the weather sucks. Luckily Joe went on a road trip for work the other day and did some fishing (after fixing all copiers). Here's the fish caught in a total surprise, thinking "Joe's supposed to be at work!" A nice German brown.Tonight we had sushi rolls with the leftover fish for no special occasion. Then, we went fishing... again for no apparent reason. We figured Wednesday was a good enough reason!

No action photos... we didn't take our camera, more for good luck. We brought home three respectable fish!

The best of all, I caught this one!! It was not only Wednesday, but the day Kayo caught a keeper. That's something to celebrate about.

P.S. I have to confess right after catching my keeper, I unwillingly donated (lost) my lure to the river bottom.

Happy Father's Day: Part II

Our Father's Day dinner turned yummy and perfect. We didn't have to worried we wouldn't have enough food for everybody, but we WERE glad to have prepared as much food as we did! Very glad Joe grilled all 20 pounds of the ribs, yes 20 lb, so we got to have some leftovers. I know we keep saying this, but this batch was one of the best, again!! I even put ribbons to tie individual silverware and napkins.

Just before a serious digging began....

Guess what? We failed to document the chaos of our dinner table, which turned rather quiet for a while. A very good indication that everything was tasty. Of course, Joe's mom brought just as enormous dessert (carrot cake with creamcheese frosting AND lemon cream bars) as our dinner. Joe and I are still enjoying leftover dessert, quite happily. It was a wonderful Father's Day... now only if my dad could come here to try Joe's ribs.

Joe vs. Chipmunk

Here Joe was sitting and waiting... and waiting... for chipmunk the other day. But not a single chipmunk to be seen.Now you see why. This is Joe's homemade live trap on the other end of the invisible fishing line that he was all ready to pull. Ever since one of the chipmunks attacked our robins' nest (therefore no robin hutchiling this time) we decided it was no good to have chipmunks around. Well, Joe vs. Chipmunk... to be continued.

Happy Father's Day: Part I

Because we had leftover buttermilk, heavy cream, and strawberries on hand, we made waffles this morning. Mmm.... Sorry, Dad didn't even get a bite of these beautiful waffles. But this evening Joe is cooking up his famouse BBQ ribs for Dad. Except we are going to have everyone else of the family, who will be hungry to try Joe's ribs for the first time. It's a very good thing that Joe got us a tall stack of assorted mostly Fiesta plates at an auction he and his dad went to. We'll have enough plates for everybody tonight!

Joe certainly didn't volunteer to cook ribs for 10 people, but here he's holding the HALF of the ribs he's cooking. We bought a total of 20 lb ribs, 2.5 lb brutwurst (just in case), 1.5 gallons of milk, and 2 lb of tortila chips for my black bean salsa. Hopefully we have enough for everyone to eat.

The biggest pot we own is the red one on the right. The silver bathtub on the left was borrowed from the Haara household. Without it, we would have had to perboil ribs in three batches!! And we would've been still boiling away.... Instead we have everything under control now. Our house this afternoon feels like in the calm before a storm. We'll be chilling out for another few hours.

Li'l Sister's Wedding

Congrats to Catherine & Craig! Joe's yougest sister got married last Saturday. Since it's our blog, not theirs, here we share a couple of pics of ourselves, all dressed up (a rare occasion).

To match with my pinkish dress and the wedding color, Joe was dressed in his PINK shirt (Kayo's idea of course). I think he looks pretty handsome!

What's Brewing in Studio

I started a 4 ft. square oil painting, the largest I had ever worked in and could barely fit in our SUV. I never liked small brushes anyway... on this large canvas I don't have the need to fuss with tiny brushes. I'm enjoying every brush stroke, so far. I still have a long way to go before completing the piece. Another side project has been to create a memorable piece for my friend in Japan who's getting married this fall. First she asked me to do a watercolor of them... then I might as well design the whole piece for their wedding reception... then she wanted a message board for their home... so I put a chalkboard frame around it (you can write on it with chalk). There she could have everything she wanted. Naturally the bride gets whatever she wants!

Dinner Guests

This morning we had a perfect fishing weather... of course, Joe had to go to work. Then 4 o'clock rolled in this afternoon, accompanied by thunder clouds. We had to give up our tentative plan to go fishing... maybe tomorrow.
Our staying home wasn't a total loss. Our Mexican dinner was joined by quite flashy, surprise guests. A pair of Baltimore Orioles were feasting on Joe's cherry trees. They hung around through our dinner and clean-up. Very exciting. Joe was right about hearing their calls the other day. (note: Joe couldn't capture both Orioles. The female is more yellow than the male.) What a heck! While I'm at it (blogging), I'll post some pictures from this weekend. I had to work all three days, so not much excitement, except for what we ate. Joe got loose on his own at a grocery store and picked up a package of squid, a very, very rare find up here. Since we forgot to take "before cooking" and "before eating" pictures, here's an "after" photo of clean plates. Joe did a Thai style stir fry with rice noodle.

For Memorial Day, Joe treated me with his BBQ pork ribs. We remembered to take "before" pictures this time.

Mmm... I love ribs!