Sunday, April 13, 2008

what a weekend


This weekend was so beautiful! The weather has been around 70 degrees and it has been fantastic. We had an event filled weekend. I am still getting used to my camera, so it has been taking some time and practice, there are so many new things to learn. Friday we went to Washington/Forest Park, which has the Japanese gardens. We walked over 7 miles through the park, which his amazing and it doesn't even feel like you are in Portland anymore.

We decided to walk home, which totaled our hike around 20 or miles. We stopped at shops along the way and took our time.

This was on the Broadway Bridge on our way home.
When we came home my brother in law Micah came over and stayed the night, it was so good to see him! We had dinner and hung out. The next day we took him on a walk around our neighborhood and went to Blend, our local coffee shop

After that Micah headed back home to Salem, and we did some major yard work. Casey started up a whole vegetable garden, with Corn, Cauliflower, Spinach, herbs, and strawberries. I am working on the container gardening for our porches, which has Wheatgrass

more herbs,

and I planted some flower starters. I will show more pics when we have it all finished, which should be tonight.
I did bake and do a lot of cooking, but nothing I haven't posted about already. I did make this Sake no Dengaku from my favorite cookbook series Quick and Easy from Joie,Inc.


I don't use many cookbooks anymore (preferring online recipes) but I do use my Japanese and Chinese books still. This recipe is simple, basically Broiled Salmon with a glaze, that when broiled, produces a yummy shell coated over the fish. I eat salmon ALOT, but I would have to say that this is the best recipe I have ever tried for it. These cookbooks are pretty old, and they are still sold at the Japanese stores in Portland due to their popularity. I have learned a lot from these books, how to prepare sushi rice, make miso soup properly, etc. The recipes vary quite a bit from the Americanized sushi books that are sold at major book stores.
I also have made that flat bread from my last post every single day last week! It has been so nice to have fresh baked bread everyday.
I did update more Sakura photos from our trek to the Japanese Gardens here,
and here are some flowers that are currently blooming at my house. This time of year it is so hard to keep up the Spring changes. One day a flower will be in full bloom and I will forget to get a picture and the next day it will be gone!






Well, I am off to enjoy the weather some more. We just put up our hammock in the backyard and it is supposed to start raining again tomorrow (which really is a good thing) and I want make the most of the good weather while I have it.

9 comments:

ling239 said...

u must have many types of flowers in your garden... how wonderful !
btw what is the name of that blue flowers ? which look like blueberries... :p

Unknown said...

hi holly, beautiful flowers, sadly i've never seen any of such flowers here, must be the weather. my whole family love japanese food, very popular here but have yet to try cooking them...maybe one day. And a hammock in the backyard? love that idea!! wished i could too, happy week ahead :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Holly! I'm glad it was nice in Portland too, it's been almost 80 here the last couple days! Gorgeous. Lucy's been sick/teething/has an ear infection, I'm not really sure which one, so I've been home a lot this week and I'm glad it hasn't been gloomy. I love, love, love your flowers! One of our trees just started flowering, that's it so far! I need to take pictures. For ling239, I think that blue flower is a grape hyacinth. :) We should be in Portland the last week in April. I hope. The week we were planning is actually Redmond High's prom, which I have to make corsages for, so I can't go that week. Then May 11th is Mothers Day so it's pretty much either the last week in April or not until the end of May. I'll definitely let you know as soon as we figure it out.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, and I like your Holly Trail! I wish I had a trail...

Tizzalicious said...

Wow, the forest looks so great!

Oiyi said...

That is an amazing shot of the wheat grass.

Milkberry said...

Wow the forest looks nice and your flowers look gorgeous!

Ku said...

Yay plants! Please tell me if you get your plants to grow pleasantly... my windowsill garden is getting all wilty, and I don't know why! TT_TT (probably needs bigger pots, deshou?)

AND, your new camera looks like it's doing a good job. ^_^

I'm fascinated by the shot right before the Broadway Bridge and after the Holly Trail sign. The division between the light and dark portions of the image lines up perfectly with the thin tree in the foreground.

Now, did you do that consciously, or just line up the shot until it felt right? Either way, that's one for the gallery showing.

bunbun said...

mkate- i love hammocks. I wish my bed was a giant hammock. when i go camping, i don't sleep in a tent, we sleep in the hammock.

amanda and ling- I just had learned those were grape hyacinth. They are so tiny and cute!

Ku- I got those little pots at target and I really am skeptical about them growing, but lets hope for the best! Just to be safe, I bought herb starters at my husbands work. But I would like to be able to start from scratch.
That shot is taken from outside of the Japanese Gardens and I am overlooking a fence. My new camera has weird lighting settings that will do that on its own, I still haven't figured out exactly how it does that, because sometimes it works against me.