Halloween and other pics.

So, Kim had an awards banquet to attend Halloween night, so trick or treating duties fell to big brother. Last year CreCre went trick or treating in The Dalles so she didn't get a very good haul of candy. I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the candy but it had to be about 5lbs of candy! We got behind on time and had to rush to get CreCre to the convention center because the pow wow was about to begin.

I think the above jack-o-lantern is was one of my favorites.

This was a pretty fun house.

Smilin' with the eyes closed.

A couple houses. At the house on the left had an older lady with one of those devices you hold up to your nech and a computerized voice comes out, it was hilarious watching CreCre's terrified reaction, she did say thank you though.

This was a festive house.

This was the first house, we couldn't quite wait for the sun to go down.

I really like this jack-o-lantern, even though it was a little black and white tv with tin foil.

We went to the Mall first but it was super crowded and the candy wasn't that good.

Just driving around. A row of Fall trees by our house.

The Max train on the other side of the park as I waited for the light to change, this is by the mall.

You could probably tell my typing that I am tired and just wanted to get this posted. I'm getting ready for bed, Happy November everyone!

Pho?

Living on the Pacific Rim of Fire we have a lot of Asian food to discover here in Portland. One of our favorites is PHO, a beef broth- noodle Vietnamese soup that will warm your soul. My favorite time to eat pho is when it's all rainy and overcast and you want nothing more then a nice big bowl of soup to warm you up. I have to admit I wasn't initially excited about pho when a friend of mine who was visiting town demanded we eat pho before he left town. My friend, Jason is from Alabama but lived close to Bayou La Batre, which has a lot of Vietnamese people and he likes to eat the soup there. Well, just driving around Portland you will notice a lot of little restraunts with the PHO in the title i.e. Pho Hung, Pho Van, Pho Thien, Pho Green, Pho Jasmine etc...

You can make Pho as crazy or tame as you like. You can get vegetarian Pho (which i have never tried) or go with the often titled "Super Bowl" which includes thin cuts of flank steak, sirloin, brisket, tripe, beef tendon, meatballs and honeycomb tripe. If you have texture issues when you eat you may want to leave out the tripe and tendon. I have to admit Kayla and I usually go with the Super Bowl most of the times which usually runs about $7-8. One of my favorite parts is how you get to customize your soup to your liking. As you wait for your soup to be served they will bring a plate to your table with lime wedges, asian basil, cilantro and bean sprouts and sliced jalapeno peppers. When your soup comes you can add all or none of these "additions" as you see fit. You can also sweeten up the broth with Hoisin sauce or make it nice and spicy with Cock Sauce (Sriracha a Thai hot sauce) and chili oil. I like to get a good sweat going when I eat pho!

So, as I often do when I like a certain food I have to try to replicate it in the Kitchen. This past week I made an honest go of it. Wednesday it was cloudy and cool outside and I was bored at home because Kayla was at work so I thought I would give pho a try and if it turned out good Kayla would have a nice surprise when she got off work. I scoured the Internet for recipes and learned it wasn't really too hard to make Pho, mainly just time consuming. So, I went to our favorite Asian market and procured all the ingredients including big soup bowls and chop sticks for $32. I went home and started on my broth which is beef bones and about .5lb of sirloin boiled for 3hrs along with onions and ginger root (first roasted in the oven to bring out their essential oils) along with a handy spice packet wrapped in cheese cloth containing cinnamon, coriander, cloves, star anise and fennel. After the broth had simmered approprately I strained it through cheese cloth and prepared my noodles. The noodles are real quick you just have to blanche them for about a minute. Next, I set my bowls with noodles, then slices of lean flank steak and tripe. Then you just add your boiling beef broth which cooks your steak and you are good to go. We had the table all set up with the "fixins'" of basil and what not. And when it was all said and done it was pretty tasty!! I think next time I'm going to get more oxtail for my broth but overall it wasn't bad for an Okie's first attempt at Pho. Sadly in the midst of preparing dinner (which included a badass karate kick i utilized to knock a, what i thought was empty, eskimo joe's cup half full of fruit punch crystal light out of Kayla's hand when she came into the kitchen while i was preparing the bowls. Don't mess with the Chef! You thought Hell's Kitchen was intense!) we forgot to take pictures. But, I promise to get shots next time! I also expect a better return on investment next time since I'll just have to get the herbs and meat.

I encourage everyone to step outside their food comfort zone from time-to-time because once you get over it "being different" and give it a shot you may just be pleasantly surprised.

Saturday Market

We had CreCre for the weekend so we went to Saturday Market. How do you know it's a good Saturday Market? When Jimi Hendrix shows up of course! He even had his guitar with him!

There always has to be a guy playing the buckets.

Here's a fountain.

Cat on a leash. It's not uncommon to see a homeless person with a cat or a dog on a leash, at least you always have a meal if you get desperate enough.

CreCre eating a $5 bag of kettle corn, they are proud of their corn in Oregon, I guess.

Seeing booth with painted wood saws made me feel right at home.

People.

More Market across the road.

An old military truck...

They had this 3-on-3 soccer tournament going on in the streets.

Trying to take a picture of the sign.

This a food "cart" across from where I work and probably the best food cart to get Thai from. Pad Thai, 1 spring roll and a coke for $5.

We went over to a fountain where we saw this character role playing some kinda Anime type game with his pals.

Another shot of the crew.

I think they killed the fountain several times, here his woman is threating him with his magical staff.

The fountain.

CreCre in the midst of a pout session. It started with me asking her to wash her hands before she ate more popcorn because she had been picking rocks up off the ground and then she protested by not playing in the fountain and just sitting on the bench.

Walking home across the Hawthorne bridge.

A shot of SE Portland towards our house.

The hills from the Hawthorne bridge.

Shiny mannequins on a roof.

Sushi

Living in Portland there are plenty of Asian markets to shop at and inspire your cooking we ventured to our favorite one Fubonn to pick up some items. It had been quite some time since Kayla and I rolled up some sushi so we made some the other night.
Rolls ready to be cut.

We used crab, salmon and tuna for our fish.
Avocado on top is always yummy.
Dig that presentation?

Mt. St. Helens

I had a couple days off in the middle of the week last week so we took the opportunity to go camping up at Mt. St. Helens

You can kinda make out the volcano in the distance

Another shot.

We didn't have campground picked out so here we are trying to decide where to camp. We ended up going to like 5 or 6 campsites but they were either full or the only empty spots were right next other people. Eventually one of the camp hosts said we should go further up Mt. St. Helens to the Horse camping campground. So we went up and ended up finding some really primitive sites up a forest service road where all you had to do was pull off the road and drive back in the woods some and just set up camp.

Here is the area we camped at.

Whoever camped here before us put down a bunch of hay which came in handy for us. We slept so well!

Kayla slept in while I piddled around the camp messing with the fire and getting breakfast together. It was really chilly in the Mountains hence Kayla all bundled up, it was easily in the 50's.

The Jeep with our handy excess cargo hauler which also doubled as a table for us.

The camp area.

It was overcast and misty in the morning which was really soothing.

Driving out of the campsite.

Leaving...

Here's the horse camp we camped by.

Drivin'.

Not sure what they are called but these wild flowers were everywhere.

Clouds.

A valley.

That is Yale Lake in that valley.

The 4th

Playing a little blogging catch up. For the 4th I had to work but we had some burgers when I got off and watched the fireworks from our balcony.



A short video of the fireworks.

Yeah...

For the sake of putting something on here, I'm including some shots from a couple weeks ago when Kayla and I went to cemetery in SW Portland. It's such a pretty peaceful place, one of my favorite calming spots. Plus there are good views of Mt. Hood from there as you can see.