Homesick

Can you be homesick for somewhere you have never lived? I think so. It has been either 4 or 6 years since I was last in Italy, I can't remember! I miss it terribly. My dad came over from Italy when he was four with his family. My Mom and Dad used to talk about taking us three girls and living there for a year. It never happened, what an experience that would have been! I would probably speak Italian. I have gone "home" to Italy three times. The first time was on a school trip and my Dad was a chaperone. We didn't get to see the family that time so I went back! This time my Uncle came with me and introduced me to my Italian family. A few of them lived in the States for a number of years so they spoke English. I had a great time and got fat eating gelato and pasta. :-) A little while after that my good friend Angie was studying abroad in Rome. I got so jealous I went right out and bought a ticket back over there to see her and my family. We were there in July and it was HOT, one of Italy's hottest summer on record in years. We ate gelato for breakfast, lunch and dinner I think. The hazelnut is best. Or if you are going for a double scoop, hazelnut and yogurt. After that trip I met Jay, went back to school, bought a house, got a real job a.k.a. turned into an adult. I know lots of people still travel, I just haven't quite figured out how to do it yet. I can't wait to take Jay and show him the places and people I love and to explore new places together I haven't been yet. Jay's ancestory is in Sweden so some year we will go there. I found tickets to Italy online last night for $534. That's a steal! We both have vacation days and our first anniversary is in October. I think we need to go. Now that the thought is in my head I can hardly stand it. I haven't been in the fall. The weather is usually a lot like here so it would be great. None of my pictures from before are digital so I found a couple of links to show you. This first one gives you an idea of where Pievepelago is, the closest town to where my Dad and Uncle were born and where my cousin has a hotel.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=pievepelago+italy&safe=on&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=Nx9zSqPnEo_uswOc683HCA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

This link shows you the hotel. It is old and quaint and has the best food in the world. The last time I was there I spent a lot of time with the family and while I didn't learn to cook, I did help clean up and learn to communicate with everyone even though they were speaking Italian and I was speaking English.

http://www.albergogalli.it/foto.htm

Italy here we come! (I hope.)

Best Two Days of Fishing EVER!!!

Jay loves to fish. He grew up fishing. My family didn't have a boat and we didn't spend much time on the water. When Jay and I first started dating he took me fishing for my first time and I caught my first trout. We have gone fishing many times since then, but I don't usually catch very many if I am lucky enough to catch one at all. So when Jay said he wanted to go up north of Brewster to fish the mouth of the Okanogan River on Saturday and we had to get up at 4 a.m. I didn't exactly jump out of bed with excitement. We got up and made it out on the water a little after 6 a.m. It turned out to be the most fun I have had fishing ever. I brought home 3 nice Sockeye and lost 4 right at the boat. Jay caught 1 Sockeye and another 24.5 pound Summer Chinook. I have never reeled in so many fish. I learned how to bait my own hook and put my line in the water with the downrigger. It was cloudy that day and perfect to be on the water. It was so much fun!!! So much fun in fact that I wanted to go again on Sunday and for a second time voluntarily got up at 4 a.m. The limit was four Sockeye each and we both limited out in less than three hours. We must have been doing something right because the other boats started asking us what we were using. Hooray for us!!! It was a great weekend, exhausting, but great. :-)

Saturday Morning on the Columbia.

First I caught this fish...

Then I caught this fish...


Then Jay had to show me up and caught this fish!


My Saturday fish (one is Jay's).


First fish on Sunday.


Caught our limit, cruising back in.


Look at all of our Sunday fish!

Almost to Canada and Back

Two of our friends got married last weekend up north of Kettle Falls, I think we were about 15 miles from Canada by the time we got up there. It was in the middle of nowhere and absolutely beautiful. To split up the drive we went and spent the night with Jay's mom at Kellers Ferry on Friday night. Chloe got to play with her cousins Dolly and Sadie and we all tried to stay cool in the heat. On Saturday we took the ferry across Lake Roosevelt and headed north through the Reservation. The wedding was nice and they threw a great party. We got eaten alive by mosquitoes, ate some good food and Chloe played her little heart out. It was a great weekend.

Gorgeous Valley on the way to the wedding.

Dolly

I think they are stating the obvious here.

The beautiful bride.

Riding off after the ceremony.

The hubby and I.

Jay's other girl.

Good Night!

House Chores

Not a terribly exciting weekend in the lives of the Deasons. We continued working outside in our backyard, which has pretty much become the norm lately. There are a lot of mature rose bushes at this house, but unfortunately they suffered this winter and there were a lot of dead branches to trim off. This wouldn't have been a problem if someone had not planted them thisclose. Jay and I looked a little worse for wear when we were done. We made a run to the dump because this is what our backyard looked like after Jay cleaned all of the dead branches out of the two Curly Willow Trees in our backyard.

After all that Jay kept working on the fence and I decided I wanted to make a patio next to the garage.

Does anything about this area say "patio" to you? All of the grass and ground cover I have to pull out because of my "brilliant" idea sure doesn't. I am transplanting most of the ground cover, but this is only as far as I got on Saturday.

Jay spent Sunday working outside while I cleaned inside. I decided to look up natural cleaners online that you can make from what you have at home. I found this one that I really liked and worked well.

All Purpose Disinfectant
2 tsp. Borax
4 tbsp. white distilled vinegar
1/4 tsp. Castille liquid soap
3-4 cups hot water

You just mix it in a spray bottle and use like you would any other cleaner. The Borax kills bacteria and the vinegar helps to cut grease. The house smelled like I had been dying Easter Eggs because of the vinegar, but the Castille soap had a eculyptus sent which helped. Even though the house didn't smell "clean" like using normal cleaners would make it smell, I am willing to give it a shot to start using fewer chemicals around the house.

After that I made jam! Okay, it was only freezer jam, but still. This was my first attempt at jam. I didn't want to add a ton of sugar so I found a recipe that called for apple juice instead. Although there is a high sugar content in the apple juice it occurs naturally from the apples.

Ta Da! I ended up with eleven 8 oz. jars. I hope it is good!

Run, Run, As Fast As You Can

Just a few photos from the Rock n Roll in Seattle.

4th of July Fun

Holidays are such a great excuse to hang out with friends, family and eat too much. My friend Angie was home from Seattle for the weekend so after work on Friday I went up to Leavenworth to see her. We played tourist for the day going out to lunch, lounging by her parents pool and then having margaritas and flour chips with guacamole at South. FYI: probably the best appetizer EVER.

Ang can balance on two inter tubes. So talented.

I lost my hair tie and had to retrieve it. Lookin' good, don't cha think?

This is how the floatie works right?


Mmmmmmmmmmmm

On Saturday Jay and I hosted a BBQ at our house. It is great to have a bigger place where we can have people over.

Clint, me, Jay. Chillaxin.

The Master at work. BBQ'ing up his recent catch for everyone.

4 day old Grace, absolutely precious.

The Elusive Salmon

24.5 pounds, 37 inches = Jay's first Chinook Salmon!!! Today was opening day of salmon season 2009. Jay thought about going first thing this morning, but we opted to go after work instead. We launched down near the bottom of Orondo Street about 5:00. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon and a great day to be out on the river. There were lots of other fishermen out, but not so many that it was impossible to get around. Jay manned the downriggers while I drove the boat.


I did excellent if I do say so myself, even without my trusty First Mate hat on. The sun finally went behind the ridge around 8:15 or so, and by 8:30 I told Jay I was good for another half hour. Well, that seems to be the trick because last fall when we were fishing for Steelhead I told Jay I was tired, we were just getting ready to go in and FISH ON! Same thing tonight. All of a sudden Jay jumped up grabbed his pole and wheeeeeeeee there went the line! It was a strong fish, he ran through his spool twice. Another boat stopped to watch him bring it in. I was ready with the net and scooped her up. She was heavy! Jay had to help me. Good thing he was there to grab it because as soon as I put her in the net the line broke. If I had dropped it, it would have been bye bye fishie. Jay might have thrown me in after it. Just kidding. :-)

Here is Jay bringing her in.

She's a beauty! And still so bright.

It is like Pike Place Market in our kitchen.

I'm so proud of my hubby. He has fished and fished and fished. Today was his day. He definitely put his time in.